No miles for my LONE ticket!
 

We've been traveling for a few months now on this ticket and have only received miles on 2 flights out of about 12+ flights so far. What's happening and who can I talk to about this? We joined the AAdvantage program in time for our first LONE flight, but no miles for us. We made sure our travel agent put our AAdvantage numbers on the LONE ticket and said we shouldn't need to do anything else in order to receive the miles.

Mainly been flying around Asia with Cathay but I hear since we're Canadians we should still get miles flying on L class.

We didn't think to even keep those small ticket boarding stubs/receipts either. Since we don't have these are we hooped? Or can we somehow ask for our miles from our RTW ticket?

Just a little confusing and we'd love to get Ruby or Gold status for our flight in a week or so from Spain to Argentina.

Thanks!

For AAdvantage flying L you get:
AA: 100% mileage, 100% Q-points
BA: 25% mileage, 100% Q-point
Cathay, Aer Lingus: 0
Finnair: 100% mileage, 50% Q-point
Iberia: 30% mileage, 50% Q-point
LAN: 100% mileage, 100% Q-point
Qantas: 50% mileage, 100% Q-point

If I recall correctly, the Canadian exception on Cathay disappeared a year or two ago.

Not keeping your boarding passes until the miles have posted is, I am afraid, a very basic error, which reduces your chances of ever getting the miles dramatically. But on Cathay I don't think you are due anything anyway.

You would of course have got 100% AsiaMiles for L on CX, but not now without the Boarding Passes.

Also note, just in case you are not aware of it, the QPoint percentages shown above are per mile *earned*, not per mile flown, a rude shock when one first hears about it.

Viajero -- can you explain the difference between miles earned and miles flown? Thanks.

Say you fly 3000 miles with Iberia, in class L, and credit your miles to AAdvantage. If you then look at the table christep posted you will see that you get (earn) 30% of the miles flown (900), and 50% QP. It is very easy to make the mistake to think you get 1500 QPoints, you don't, you get 50% of miles *earned*, and since you earned 900 miles, you only get 50% of -that-, a pitiful 450 QPoints.

Which would, of course, give you 500 q-points as this is the minimum for any miles earning flight. Crazy that you can bump into the minimum on a 3000 mile flight...

Michael

Sadly, it doesn't, at least not the way I understand the scheme..

In the case of 100% QP earning, yes, but for airlines that give you less than 100% AA QPoints per mile earned it is perfectly possible, in my experience at least, to get less than 500 QPoints.

So, my understanding is that in the example posted the QPoints earned would be 450, not 500.

Edited to add: and, by the way, the minimum AA miles you earn on IB is 300, not 500.

At least for BA, on any flight that earns mileage, you will receive at least 500 q-miles and I think that applies to q-points as well, but I'm not positive. Several times, I have received 500 qpoints (and miles) for a ~500 mile flight in super discount economy even though I only received 125 base "redeemable" miles. I won't swear that they were 0.5 point/mile flights but I think so...

While the minimum "redeemable" AA miles on IB is 300 (125 for BA), I would bet you still get 500 q-miles and 500 q-points for these flights. Personal experience anyone?

Michael

Actually you *may* be able to get retroactive credit on Asiamiles. But you must join online immediately and maybe asiamiles may take into account of all your past flights in the past month to credit your account. You may submit your credit request on line. For CX flights, no boarding pass is required as they may check against the manifests to see that you're onboard. But they need the boarding passes for other flights!

AAdvantage's allowance for Canadian members to earn all miles on CX disappeared about 3 years ago, actually.

For Canadians, the best way to earn CX flights in most classes is asiamiles/MPC or if status is not a factor, then Alaska MVP programme.

I don't know what other flights you took on your RTW...

Yup, no miles on CX, that is why I tried to avoid CX and IB on my LONE4, flying MAD-SCL on IB-metal but on a LA-codeshare, 100% :)
In Asia, I couldn't avoid CX so I fly with them KIX-HKG-SIN. On the SIN-BKK leg i do fly AY though.

Accd to AA's schedule, AA codeshares with CX on the KIX-HKG and HKG-SIN routes. Might want to check if it's available.

Wow! Thanks for all the info. I'll have to re-read it when I have more time. I do have an Asiamiles account that I signed us up with before we left on the RTW trip, but don't think I gave my account number to anyone.

I think you can only book those codeshares as part of a continuation from a transpacific flight.

You do earn the minimum 500 qpoints/qmiles on IB and BA.

I flew LHR-BCN-LHR recently (713 miles one way) on both Iberia and British Airways
On IB I earned 214 miles (30%) and 386 bonus miles (total 600), which is the minimum 300 on IB + PLT bonus
On BA I earned 173 miles (25%) and 183 bonus miles (total 362). I'm not sure how they came up with this # though..

I earned 500 q-points and 500 q-miles for each flight

You are right, it also says so in the oneworld timetable.
However, I was able to book 2 of those flights (AA7346 and AA7292) with my travel agent without flying any AA-flight earlier in the itinerary, I will try my luck rebooking my CX503 and CX735 to AA codeshares as well.

Good luck , but you should be aware ( and your travel agent should have warned you) that CX are quite vigilant about illegally booked flights - if they pick these flights up they have the right to cancel them ( or indeed AA could if they notice them in their res system without the requisite connecting flights ) . Please note that I am not saying this will happen - but it can - as a former Travel Agent I have seen this before and it can get quite ugly as you will not necessarily be able to rebook the flights onto the CX flight number if they are running full - this can result in you being stranded en route ( and usually they scrutinise full flights more carefully so the odds are if these segments get cancelled it will be because it is a packed flight . ) A colleague of mine had a pax stranded in Asia last year ( can't recall which city it got picked up in ) for this very reason - it cost him a great deal of time /money and stress to sort it out


I hope that you don't have any problems - but it is important that you are aware of the possible consequences if you do get caught .

That does'nt sound too good, I will reconsider using AA-codeshares. My travel agent didn't say anything, nor did BA, who ticketed the trip.

I was able to reissue my CX HKG-NRT-HKG flights onto the AA codeshare flight # 's at the Wing in HKG before departure earlier last year.

Be warned, though, that sometimes, BA, QF, IB and AY (and any other OneWorld Partners that use Amadeus) often have difficulty booking the AA codeshare flights from HKG.

In the past, these airlines have said to me that the computer won't let them book the HKG-DPS/NRT/BKK etc. flights under the AA code unless they are also accompanied by the AA-coded trans-pacific flight (even if it's operated by CX). They say there are problems with the traffic rights--though this is not the case.

Furthermore, the old trick of the "long-sell" (whereby the agent books LAX-x/HKG-BKK and then deletes the segment LAX-HKG) didn't even work when BA, QF and IB each tried in turn for me.

The solution: have AA book the flights under their code (Sabre doesn't mind selling individuql ex-HKG segments on CX-metal). Then, have whoever is ticketing your ticket call AA to verify that the segments are confirmed, and then ticket them as "passive reservations". Most agents know what this means.

Good luck.

Checkerboard.

it depends on the codeshares - in some cases the codesharing partner is permitted to sell them as stand alone - in some cases they must be specifically 'tied' to a flight on the codesharing partners own metal . As I am no longer in the industry I no longer have access to which flights are or are not permitted - but if a flight is listed as not permitted in OW explorer rules - or , if when booked in the CRS it comes back th the booking agent with a response such as "online connection only" then it is a risky strategy to make a reservation as a 'stand alone' sector - often the airline stands to be fined if it breaks the rules - and therefore there is a strong financial incentive for the airline to be vigilant - in other cases it may be a codeshare that neither airline is concerned about and it may easily 'slip through the net' or even be fully permitted - having said that I am surprised that CX would book HKG AA NRT AA HKG as stand alone sectors as I don't think AA have stand alone traffic rights on that sector - was there no AA flight in the itinerary NRT-USA vv ??

I cannot find any information about the AA codeshares on KIX-HKG in SABRE/AMADEUS with KVS, nor can I find the flight at aa.com.
Will my TA be able to book it anyway?

AA codeshares are only bookable when connecting to/from AA operated flights. Are you connecting DFW-KIX-HKG? If so, then it should be bookable.

I'm not connecting to/from an AA flight, but I think that it should be possible to view the flightcode anyway. I successfully managed to book AA7292 SYD-CNS, that does show up in SABRE/AMADEUS.

I cannot find KIX-HKG in SABRE/AMADEUS, I called AA CS and asked about the timetable for KIX-HKG and got to know that the only AA codeshare is ITN-NRT-HKG on JAL/CX.

Maybe the codeshare has been removed lately and the electronic timetable is just not up to date.

ExpertFlyer shows:

1 Connection
AA 125 0 DFW
01/05/06 11:45AM KIX
01/06/06 04:55PM 777 LD F7 J7 D7 I7 Y7 B7 K7 H7 M7 L7 G7 V7 W7 N0 S0 Q0 O0

AA (CX) 6075 0 KIX
01/06/06 06:25PM HKG
01/06/06 09:50PM 777 D J7 D7 I7 Y7 B7 K7 H7 M7 L7 V7 N0 S0 Q0



AA (CX) means AA6075 operated by CX. Note this flight will only show up if you request DFW-HKG via KIX. It will not show up if you request KIX-HKG.

If you use the [Amadeus Segment Info] option in the KVS Tool, you will see that for AA7292 it says "Q/ INTL ONLINE CONNEX / STOPOVER TRAFFIC", while for AA6075, the notation is "Y/ ONLINE CONNECTIONS".

Therefore, you cannot book AA6075 on its own.

i have 14 flights affected since mid-september... and still more flights to come. hope they fix it soon... joanna is working on it for me... ^

There's still hope on this one..

As long as your have your ticket copy, you only need to input CX flight numbers in the Asiamiles website for 'missing' flights.

You say that Q points are based on miles earned. Does that mean for a 1000 mile AA flight in D that earns 1.25 miles and 1.5 Q points that you earn 1000 x 1.25 x 1.5 or a total of 1875 Q points?

Duplicate post - anyway to delete this?

Alas no. The calculation of cabin bonus and qualifying points are both based on the qualifying miles flown on a seqment.

Your D class example would yield for a no-status flyer 1000 qualifying miles, 1250 earned miles and 1500 Qpoints.
This subject to an underlying 500 mile minimum for shorter AA flights.

It gets more complicated with the discounted and deeply discounted economy fareson other OW carriers. For example an M class fare on Qantas will earn in the AA program, 0.5 qualifying miles for each mile in the segment but 1 Qpoint for each qualifying mile. Or 500 Qmiles and 500 Qpoints for the 1000-mile example. Minimums will also vary by carrier.

It is possible to accrue earned miles with non-OW (AA) partners, but other than on perhaps AS there will be no qualifying miles. The real experts can correct me here.

Status bonuses for Gold, Plat and EXP are also based on the Qmiles.

Hope that helps.

Happy wandering.

Fred