OW Saver Award Question
 

Love the forum and looking for some insight.

I have booked One World Miles Saver Awards (OW130C) for both me and Mrs. BKK747 to use in conjunction with a cruise. I have been informed by AA that I can take 16 segments max, but that we must use AA and two partner carriers to take advantage of the award.
The current itinerary is Miami-LAX via AA, LAX-Brisbane via Qantas, Rome-London via BA, and London-Chicago via AA.
I’d like to avoid the London connection and go Rome-ORD non-stop, but meeting a roadblock from AA in the booking without the third carrier.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

The AA+2 rule (or just 2 other than AA) is firm so I think there's no way around that. Having flown AA & QF, at some point in the itinerary you will have to fly a third OW airline. There also another issue: it seems you have two open-jaws, BNE//Rome and ORD//MIA; I could be wrong on this but I believe you are only allowed one open-jaw .

Only 1 open jaw allowed, so add ORD-MIA to the end of the flight. The OW130C award allows 14-20,000 flight miles and your itinerary is about 14,500 miles, so you have lots of mileage to use. Unless, your MIA-LAX-BNE is only a transit, in which case the mileage drops to just under 14,000 miles and a cheaper award.

You must still fly 2 non-AA Oneworld carriers. No way around that requirement. Perhaps a MIA-SCL-AKL-BNE on AA/LA/QF, then you could then fly FCO-ORD nonstop on AA.

Possible ways to add a 3rd carrier:
1) use CX for LAX-HKG and QF HKG-BNE
2) use QF LAX-AKL and LA AKL-SYD and QF SYD-BNE (very hard to get seats on this LA flight though)
3) use IB FCO-MAD and then IB MAD-ORD or AA MAD-MIA
4) add a sidetrip from FCO such as FCO-HEL-FCO to visit Helsinki
5) add a tail leg from Rome, routing FCO-ORD-DFW-JFK-VYR on CX. This adds CX as your 3rd carrier and gives you an ORD-YVR trip to use up to a year later.

Lots of other solutions, but you get the idea. The rules are clear, you must fly on 2 different Oneworld airlines to qualify for this award and there is no getting around that.