cheltzel

My point is, as bad as it is, availability is better for European awards than AA. In the case of my searches, far better.

zymm

I haven't had a problem finding good award flights out of SFO, but I have quite a bit of flexibility on both timing and location and I really enjoy messing around with maps and searches

DevilDawg1960

As a longtime Executive Platinum, I can assure you that you misunderstand what American allows. All award travel to Asia (Area 1 &2) and the South Pacific requires Transpacific travel, and all awards to Europe requires Transatlantic. There is a four flight maximum in addition to the routing requirements.

nikehair

Stayed in limbo. Never had to re-book anything.

dinoscool3

LO ticketed fine in my J award that I purchased last week.

FlyerTalker70

While the vast majority of NorCal international flights depart out of SFO, SJC should still be considered as they host several nonstop flights on *A partners:

• LH operates nonstop service to FRA
• NH operates nonstop service to NRT
• CA operates nonstop service to PVG
• AC operates nonstop service to YVR

Safe Travels,

James

shutter41

When making a change on an itinerary that has partner segments, do you run the risk of the partner failing to confirm the newly changed segments and then also losing the originally-confirmed flights? I occasionally read threads about having a confirmation but no confirmed ticket for a partner flight, and was wondering if that's a risk on award changes too.

Planning to book three business class award seats on Lufthansa but will probably look out for more optimal flight times (still on Lufthansa) and may switch to them if space opens up and changing three tickets all at once like that doesn't run a huge risk of failing to actually ticket.

WineCountryUA

Yes you are at risk and never do online. A killed agent might be able to pull this off but generally, in the new award system, this can be difficult to pull off successfully.

This is a good reason to split awards into OWs.

Online only do this if you have enough miles to do a duplicate booking and wait until you are positive it was successful before canceling the previous booking. Otherwise, use an agent and be absolutely clear your only want to make the change if they can complete the request.

coolbeans202

Wait, is this really a thing? I've made plenty of changes online to partner bookings and have never had a problem. I also have been able to make changes to itineraries where not all the segments have been available, but the online system will recognize what I have already booked and show options around that. This has been incredibly useful. I'm not saying it can't end poorly, but just offering a counterpoint that I have had a lot of success with the online system.

Kacee

I am delighted to confirm that this can in fact work.

I was booked SFO-SEA-TPE-BKK, UA-BR-TG (with SFO-SEA in Y). Have been checking multiple times a day, hoping to change to the SFO-TPE nonstop on BR. This afternoon (<11 days out), it finally opened. But the bad news: The TG segment TPE-BKK is now only available in X. So I figured I'd give "Change Flights" a shot with the hope of keeping my already booked segment in TG J. And it worked! Now booked and ticketed in I on both flights. Went to BR and TG websites and successfully selected seats.

This was an exceptionally pleasant surprise, as "Change Flights" has mostly not worked for me for years.

laxmillenial

Told you you'd get that Eva Nonstop
haha, but in all honestly, this is the way to go and a huge benefit for 1K no change fees. I'm quite surprised the TPE-BKK segment remained in J. Congrats

Kacee

Yeah, thanks, I'm pretty stoked

Now if BR would only open the 8:40 TPE-BKK in J on the 77W . . . .

pushmyredbutton

Still having this maddening issue of excursionist segments not being changed correctly.

S1: SIN-CGK
S2: PVG-ICN (free excursionist segment)
S3: SIN-KUL

After I flew my first segment, I called into change to a later PVG-ICN flight; nothing else changed except the time. I noted during the call that it was an excursionist segment and should be an even exchange. Agent got everything confirmed and I was all set. No mention of extra miles.

Checked today, turns out the award was changed to eliminate the excursionist perk (43000/S35K-S0-S8K -> 65500/S35K-S225H-S8K) and an additional 22.5k miles were debited without my knowledge or consent. Calling in gets me nowhere as the agents aren't well versed in excursionist logic, so it looks like I'm out 22.5k miles.

tl;dr - When you book an excursionist segment, be super careful if you ever think you may have to change it.

FlyerTalker70

Did you try changing the itinerary online? Did it mention if additional miles would be taken for the change in time?

In any event I'd just call the Premier Line and ask for "MileagePlus Account Servicing". Then explain to the agent what happened. Failing that you may want to message the MilagePlus program at or give them a tweet as I hear they are somewhat responsive on these issues. Depending on status level you might be charged a certain amount for making the change but I suspect it'll be far less than the 22.5K miles they pulled from your account.

Safe Travels,

James

pushmyredbutton

Yeah, changing online after the first segment is flown on award ticket almost always results in an error message. The few times it does offer to change, it just errors on the last step and leaves the ticket out of sync anyway

But otherwise I'm 1K and there should have been no fees associated with it. I'll try calling the MPSC tomorrow and see if they can provide any insight, but I suspect I'll be hosed since this isn't "what the excursionist perk was designed for" as I've been told previously...