Why booking awards can be frustrating at times....

American airlines has this problem for a while, you search two segments one by one, u get seats on both, u put them together, seats are gone. It happened to me few times already, agent had no clue what was going on.

Is that Miami to JFK flight real early in the morning? I took one the opposite direction recently (5:45 am departure) and was surprised to see the NGBC seats up front.

It sure is frustrating sometimes with AA and all agents. Why couldn't they make that available so you can book these type of awards yourself?

Also, while I like the one way awards, AA did away with the round trip with one stop over. Which was nice if you had wished to stop in HK on your way to Bali

Hey Lucky, Seems like it was a big hassle. Just wanted to ask, do awards on first class have to have first class all the way, even if there is no availability. eg. Booking a US airways award, ANA has essentially no F availability, so you would have to fly J to get a stopover in Japan, would that be reasonable?

Either way, enjoy your trip! love the blog.

LUCKY,

Please do answer my question. Can I book oneway award from the east coast to Asia

EG; TPA/MIA/JFK on AA then on BA to LHR and then BA or CX to HKG for 67.5k miles (AA award miles) ?

JOSH

Life's so hard

@Peachy3, last June I flew on an award ticket on LH SFO-IST round-trip using AC miles. There was no availability in C on the way back IST-MUC so they just booked me in Y and that's how I flew. FWIW, they told me that I could check back for availability in C PRIOR to my outbound travel, but once travel commenced I would be travelling in Y, no way to upgrade if award tickets became available.

@ JOSH - No

@ Despina - whoever told you that was an idiot. AC is one of the few that allows that kind of change after departure.

And doesn't the trouble, pain, and frustration always happen at the end. You've finally worked an award that meets your needs and then you put it on hold or go to price and issues pop up. US wouldn't let me connect FRA to HKG via Osaka but was perfectly happy doing NRT. More often than not I can't confirm domestic F on C international award. Then they send it to pricing --- hours of fun. Perhaps they intentionally make it painful so that people will chose to use miles in other ways. Magazines, anyone?

When I'm ready to redeem will I ever get to French Polynesia with SkyMiles? I'm optimistic but I'm worried about my blood pressure. For medical reasons perhaps I should employ Lucky or Gary. Think of just sitting back and letting you two do the work knowing that in the end I'll be happy as a clam in a premium cabin of some great airline without the frustration of making the booking.

@sj sh, perhaps the agent that told me that has since moved on to AA and is handing out incorrect information over there now 🙂 It is so frustrating dealing with agents as if you speak to 3 agents you'll hear at least 2 different answers. I booked award travel for my parents on UA last September and it was very frustrating. This is why I now use Lucky's award booking service and it's great! 🙂

Peachy3 - Before AA introduced one-way awards, I had a situation when trying to book a last minute MIA-LHR award trip in F. I got MIA-LHR ok, but there was absolutely nothing coming back in F on AA or any of the OW partners. I ended up doing LHR-HEL on BA and HEL-JFK on AY (both in J), then JFK-MIA on AA in F. I did have to pay the full 125k miles, but it worked out just fine (and I got to fly on AY's MD-11, which was a very nice experience).

1) This doesn't happen too often with the EXP desk (nudge,nudge, PUSH!)

2) Sounds like some of this may have been a "married segments" issue. I believe (but am only a rookie here...) CX is particularly vigorous in enforcing the concept that just because an AAA-BBB-CCC award is available that a BBB-CCC seat will be available too. I don't know how the CRSs at AA or BA handle this.

Glad it all worked out.

Jim

Lucky, what was the "big gamble" you took that made it work out?

Actually, in my experience, AA CSR's are much better trained than those at many other domestic airlines. Have you had similar experiences with UA and others?

AAmerican AAgents are misinformed, illtrained, and I have found - they treat everyone, with the exception of maybe EXP's and CK's like CRAP. A customer is a customer. The thought of having to put up with 100,000 miles of crap before you get treated like a human being makes me shudder.

You'll run back to PS and fine out that their product is inferior and their planes dirty.

I booked F award Cx YYZ to DPS. YYZ to HKG is F. HKG to DPS is J. I examined CX website and the equip. is 74A which supposedly has F class, but the website said only J was available even if I were paying for F. I know that F can't possibly be full of paid fares 9 months out. What's up with that? Does anyone know whether CX875 has a F class or not?

@ChicagoJim, CX flies the three-cabin 74, but sells it as a two-cabin flight. You can't book a seat in the "F" cabin since I believe CX blocks those seats until check-in, at which point you can request to be seated in the more comfortable seats (e.g., if you're a oneworld emerald). Either way, you get biz service.

Thanks, Mike. It's weird though. We'll go immediately to request the F seats when we arrive at HKG. They're wider and the mattresses are more comfy. We're gold AAdvantage but it never hurts to try.