Questions and Answers

Sorry, I’m a newbie to this, and I’m trying to use a bunch of AA miles to asia before the deadline. I’m confused by a couple of things, so help would be great!
-Ive found 2 seats in early 2017 on CX from SFO to/from BKK, but according the “Strategy” blog I just read, I can jump off at HGK. Then, make my way to BKK, and pick up my return flight back to SFO, correct?
-“Ticket issue’ dates is confusing; if I call into AA and book this tomorrow, the issue date will be tomorrow right? That means all travel done a year from now, yes? I keep seeing that you can extend it longer, but I don’t see how.
-I also keep seeing mention of more seats typically opening up on CX- If I want to travel on these tickets this summer( my main goal), do I lock them now and hope that more seats will open up?
-from what I understand, the worst that can happen, is I cancel the tickets, the miles go back to my account, and I’m no worse off than I will be on 3/22 if I did nothing, correct?

Thanks for all of your help,
David

Sorry, I’m a newbie to this, and I’m trying to use a bunch of AA miles to asia before the deadline. I’m confused by a couple of things, so help would be great!
-Ive found 2 seats on CX from SFO to/from BKK, but according the “Strategy” blog I just read, I can jump off at HGK. Then, make my way to BKK, and pick up my return flight back to SFO, correct?
-“Ticket issue’ dates is confusing; if I call into AA and book this tomorrow, the issue date will be tomorrow right? That means all travel done a year from now, yes? I keep seeing that you can extend it longer, but I don’t see how.
-I also keep seeing that CX typically has more award seats open up- If I am trying to fly this summer on these awards, do I just hope that will be the case?
-Finally, as far as I can tell, if this all goes south, the worst that happens is I cancel these tickets, and my miles repost to my account, and I’m no worse off that I would be if I did nothing by tomorrow, correct?
Thanks for you help,
David

Tomorrow is the deadline to ticket awards at current mileage levels. Not putting awards on hold, actually requesting ticketing and paying the taxes. It may take a while to ticket, but as long as you request ticketing by tomorrow, you will be fine.

I assume by HGK you actually mean HKG, Hong Kong. Why are you ticketing a CX award from SFO to BKK and then dropping that HKG-BKK segment? You should be able to just ticket SFO-HKG. If you have any checked bags, they’d be sent to BKK anyway unless you had a long HKG layover and requsted to get bags at HKG. If youre planning to skip the last leg, I would book your outbound award and inbound awards separately. One way awards are just half the miles of round trips. In your case, separate tickets would probably be a better idea.

I would assume ticket issue date is the actual date your award is ticketed, not just on request. AA awards for CX usually ticket within 15 minutes in my experience but may take longer. AA awards for EY can take a while though so the ticket date might be different from when you requested ticketing. I’m not entirely sure.

CX has a pretty good record of releasing F and J awards close to departure. You shouldnt have a problem ticketing an award now and changing the date later, as long as the origin and destination remain the same, as well as the same mix of airlines. If you change airlines or the origin/destination, it’ll force a reprice, meaning more miles needed.

Yes, you can cancel tickets if all goes south and miles will be redeposited. Just know that if you dont have elite status with AA, theres a $150 fee to cancel and redeposit an award. If there are additional passengers on the same PNR, its an additional $25 per passenger.

Hope this helps!

David,
Thank you so much, you nailed it. I wasn’t clear on the one way/round trip possibilities, I was just taking a cue from the blog, and not planning on checking bags. Your answer makes much more sense.
I’m not yet clear on the codes, but I get the sense that F and J are first and business class?
Yes, I understand the fees involved, but compared to the increase in miles for the awards, it seems worth the risk.
Thanks again,
David

David:
-If you book your trip as a round trip, then any segments after the ones miss will be canceled. If you are not sure of your plans yet, then I would just book the trip as two one-ways. You can then either terminate the outbound in HKG or just miss the last segment. Remember any luggage you check will go to your final destination so you can only go with carry ons.
-AA is sometimes laggardly in ticketing. So you may pay your charges etc but the ticketing date will be when the award actually tickets. It might be tomorrow or a few days from tomorrow but the ticket will be valid a year from that date. You cannot extend it past a year.
-CX often releases premium cabin seats closer to the date of departure depending on availability. I’m not sure what the question is here. If you see seats for the summer that work for you, seems like a no-brainer to book them. If you don’t I would book as far out as possible for maximum flexibility.
-That’s pretty much it other than to get the miles redeposited you’ll pay $150 for the first tickets and $25 for every subsequent ticket unless you have status that waives award redeposit fees. Make sure you do it before the tickets expire in a year.

Don’t wait till the last minute to book, I am sure AA wait times will be horrific tomorrow.

Good luck.

Gaurav,
Thank you. I did not understand from the blog that the rest of the trip would be canceled, that is not good at all, so will book as one ways.

Well, that was pretty much a waste of time. All of the first class availability that showed up on BA website for CX, did not seem to show up on AA, so they just said no. I finally got business class seating from BKK to HKG, but even though it showed as a continuation flight on BA’s site with continuation through HKG to SFO, AA denied it was there, so I ended up with economy for all but the BKK/HKG leg. Hardly worth all of the effort.
Clearly a very flawed system with the airlines the only winners.

Hi [USER=1724]@david911[/USER] — The British Airways website lies when connections are involved, it’s not AA denying anything. BA is just a little aspirational at times, and will say that the premium cabin is available all the way through, but if you click on it you’ll see that only one segment is.

The good news is that you have one segment in business! Keep an eye on space (or use [URL=’http://wandr.me/Award-Search/’]Seth’s travel tools to monitor[/URL]), and you can call and upgrade the longhaul segment to business too.

Good luck, and know that we feel your pain with the frustrations!!

Tiffany,
Thank you so much for the kind words. And thank you for your help via email yesterday. Bottom line, I really only have myself to blame, I should have started research for understanding the process, and actually finding space weeks ago, I just didn’t realize how opaque the whole process is. I didn’t even have time to use the One Mile services lol.
I thought you could not change your flight class without it being re-priced under the new mileage requirements? Can you elaborate? Not sure how I keep and eye on space, if BA’s site is unreliable. I’ll check out Seths tools, but I clearly have a lot to learn.
Thanks,
David

[USER=1724]@david911[/USER] — You paid 55,000 miles for your award right? That means you have a business class award, and any economy segments are noted as a “voluntary downgrade.”

If business class space opens up on any of your flights (or if you find a similar routing on a different date), you can “unvolunteer” and upgrade them back to business class.

Yes, I look at my mile statement on AA, and they used 35k miles for the economy leg SFO/ HKG, and 55k miles for the BKK leg back, but the HKG to SFO is in economy. And sorry again for all of these questions, with answers that you guys know in your sleep lol. So if the BA site is unreliable, how do I best search for business seats on the last leg – by searching just the HKG/SFO leg by itself, right? Should I try and grab them now as the dates open up on the 331day calendar? I can see when I search the HKG/SFO leg that the business seats are there, but they are beyond what AA can book by a day or two. And I am assuming that I have to call AA back to do that, right?
Or, do I wait until closer to the dates we actually want to fly, and hope CX releases more seats?

Thanks,
David

[USER=1724]@david911[/USER] I’d search by segment like you mentioned. You can double check the BA results using the Qantas or JAL tool too or use Seth’s tools that [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] mentions above.

I would monitor the dates you actually want and make changes when space opens up on them.