I have a first class RTW ticket isssued in India (AONE3)
I am trying to book a first class seat out of LHR to LAX on Apr 01, 2005 and the seat map shows 12 seats vacant. The AA RTW agent says no A class inventory is available and has sent a request to the head quarters. Similar problem was encountered for SJU to DFW on Apr 03 even though 14 seats are shown available.
BA on the other hand has seats available on the same day from LHR to LAX
It appears that AA is treating RTW tickets in A class equal to AAward tickets and is not releasing A class seats even to EXPs. It can lead to only one thing. AVOID AA as far as posiible. It is painful for an AA diehard like me to say this, but enough is enough
Please be forewarned. Be careful when purchasing a RTW ticket. It may be no better than an AAward ticket for inventory purposes when booking seats.

If this doesn't sound rude, why would you want to fly AA in First when you have the chance of flying on BA?

Not rude at all
I am EXP and would accumulate Q points for elite qualification this year and double miles plus 50% only if I fly AA. On BA I am a lowly blue and would get only base miles plus 50% and no staus miles as on tranatlantic sectors you cannot accumulate AA miles on BA flights.

This is bizarre. I had ZERO problems booking any of my 20 segments on my RTW, on QF, CX, BA and, yes, AA, including LHR-LAX only about a week before you, as well as SFO-JFK on the AFS. But it does look like 3/31 and 4/1 have no A availability, but there is in the days before and after. So if you have no flexibility to travel, say, a day later, then I suggest you take the BA flight. It's a bummer to lose the miles, but I guess you'll have to prioritize.

In general, I think you may be over-reacting a little bit. Yes, sometimes there will be availability difficulties. But more often than not, those seats will open up eventually. You are on a discounted ticket, and AA reserves the right to limit the number of those seats sold on a given flight. I strongly doubt that they are limiting paid A inventory nearly to the extent as reward inventory.

Status has nothing to do with how many of these seats are released. The difference is how AA sells A seats versus how BA does. AA has a lot of corporate clients which they have made various deals with. One is to purchase J and get seated in A. Another is to get a hefty discount off of A. From my understanding, BA doesn't discount like that. They do in other ways but on AA youre competing with a lot more people for the same seat. It's one reason, from my understanding, that vips were moved from A bucket to whatever is used now. Too many people competing for the same seat. Yield management used to open up seats if you had a paid ticket but I believe they stopped doing so and I wouldn't hold my breath.

And I believe you get 200% miles in BA's programme for flying in first. You can also put them into another one like alaska or qantas.

My main worry is to accumulate enough AA Q points for requalifying EXP status on AA.
I also do not understand the logic of having 12 empty seats out of 16 and not having seats available fo paid First class albeit discounted.
What about the domestic leg between SJU and DFW where 14 seats are shown vacant out of 20. These seats are sold as business and is it wrong to assume that first class ticket should get a higher priority.
Would I stand a better chance of confirming on coach class, asking for an EXP first class upgrade at 100 hours? My dates are pretty fixed and the only option I have is to change about 8 flight segment bookings again going through the same problem of A inventory availabilty.

Actually, for them to have "sold" 4 first class seats 2 months in advance is pretty good. That's probably why A inventory is closed off, for the time being. As flight time approaches, if more seats haven't been sold, the yield management gurus will start releasing A inventory very slowly.

If one thinks that AA will most probably get much more revenue from a walk-up full business fare than 1 segment out of 20 in deep discount F (A), then yes, I would have to say it is wrong.

Take BA 85 LHR YVR on April 1. There's A6 showing and you'll get miles and Q points on American. Buy a cheapie YVR LAX ticket from AS if you need to be in LA.

I am also assuming you are getting your numbers (12 open seats, etc) from aa.com on the seatchecker feature. That is not indicative of the number of seats *reserved*, it is the number *assigned*. I can make a reservation but if I don't assign a seat then it won't show up. I do suggest being patient. TA's make reservations all the time, some legit and some not, and a cancellation can mean that the inventory reopens. It's what happens when you get F1 A1. Someone cancelled an A reservation in a sold out cabin.

I don't understand what the problem is with SJU. I see D3 so unless you have a party of 4 then you should be able to get the reservation.

Yes. Is there another way. Pl educate me. Thanx'
Single solitary seat needed from SJY to DFW on AA 633. The agent told me that the flight is "sold out"

AA633 is not really sold out, but it does not have D availability right now. Using the "KVS Availability Tool" (do a search, it's well documented) it shows:

J7 I0 D0 Y7 B7 H0 K0 G0 M0 V0 L0 N0 S0 W0 O0 Q0

An earlier flight, AA1549, shows:

J7 I3 D3 Y7 B7 H7 K7 G4 M3 V0 L0 N0 S0 W0 O0 Q0

The LAX flight is showing F7 A0 J7 D0 I0 Y7 B7 H7 K7 L7 M7 V5 Q0 G3 S0 W0 O0. So there has been a bit of First Class inventory already sold.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...5&page=1&pp=15

The fourth post leads to a link with an availability tool. It's pretty self explanatory but the thread has some random info about the program. It comes from Galileo so it should be fairly accurate. The only downside is that it goes up for 120 minutes then down for 400. If you need something immediately when it's down, youre out of luck. Fortunately, I rarely do. There is another website that was talked about somewhere, I believe maybe in the AA forum, that is a paysite but up 24/24. Also gives other info I think that this one doesnt. I am a simple man with simple needs so I haven't really looked too closely into it.

Darren and Viajero
Got the KVS tool installed. Many many thanx for all the FTers who responded