Questions and Answers

Hi Ben, thanks for your awesome reviews of the EY apartment product. My brother and I can’t wait to try it for travel to Abu Dhabi/Dubai early next year. Two weeks ago, we each redeemed 90K AA mi for SFO-LHR (BA biz, F not available) and LHR-AUH in Etihad first. Two different award reservations, both ticketed within a few hours after calling AA by phone. So, no problems with that segment.

Five days ago, we called AA rez to book the return, AUH-LAX nonstop again in Etihad first. The agent was able to see 2 seats and reserved the seats on 2 different record locators. She confirmed that each one-way award segment was $90K and charged our credit cards for the nominal fee.

However, aa.com is showing that the return reservations still haven’t been ticketed (the tickets are “on request”, according to the site). I called AA yesterday (we don’t have elite status) and the agent I spoke to said that the delay may be due to the queue of AA award requests with Etihad. She mentioned that the reservations should be ticketed in the next few days.

I’m a little nervous because I’ve redeemed several AA oneworld partner (but not AA-specific partner, like EY) awards before and it’s never taken more than 24 hrs for the reservation to be ticketed. The pessimist in me is thinking that EY has been overloaded with AA award requests in F and has decided to reneg on availability.

What are your thoughts? Is there anything we can do, if at all, other than waiting it out?

Last but not least, even though I redeemed a AA F award, BA didn’t have availability in F on the SFO-LHR leg, so I’m in biz. To add insult to injury, I have to pay ~$130 to reserve a biz class seat in advance (on top of a whopping $530 fuel surcharge). Any suggestions on how I could snag a seat in F on the same flight?

Cheers,
firstworldproblems

Hi Ben, thanks for your awesome reviews of the EY apartment product. My brother and I can’t wait to try it for travel to Abu Dhabi/Dubai early next year. Two weeks ago, we each redeemed 90K AA mi for SFO-LHR (BA biz, F not available) and LHR-AUH in Etihad first. Two different award reservations, both ticketed within a few hours after calling AA by phone. So, no problems with that segment.

Five days ago, we called AA rez to book the return, AUH-LAX nonstop again in Etihad first. The agent was able to see 2 seats and reserved the seats on 2 different record locators. She confirmed that each one-way award segment was $90K and charged our credit cards for the nominal fee.

However, aa.com is showing that the return reservations still haven’t been ticketed (the tickets are “on request”, according to the site). I called AA yesterday (we don’t have elite status) and the agent I spoke to said that the delay may be due to the queue of AA award requests with Etihad. She mentioned that the reservations should be ticketed in the next few days.

I’m a little nervous because I’ve redeemed several AA oneworld partner (but not AA-specific partner, like EY) awards before and it’s never taken more than 24 hrs for the reservation to be ticketed. The pessimist in me is thinking that EY has been overloaded with AA award requests in F and has decided to reneg on availability.

What are your thoughts? Is there anything we can do, if at all, other than waiting it out?

Last but not least, even though I redeemed a AA F award, BA didn’t have availability in F on the SFO-LHR leg, so I’m in biz. To add insult to injury, I have to pay ~$130 to reserve a biz class seat in advance (on top of a whopping $530 fuel surcharge). Any suggestions on how I could snag a seat in F on the same flight?

Cheers,
firstworldproblems

I booked two Etihad F award seats with AA on this Tuesday and they were ticketed on Thursday. I would follow up again if I were you.

[QUOTE=”firstworldproblems, post: 4121″]Hi Ben, thanks for your awesome reviews of the EY apartment product. My brother and I can’t wait to try it for travel to Abu Dhabi/Dubai early next year. Two weeks ago, we each redeemed 90K AA mi for SFO-LHR (BA biz, F not available) and LHR-AUH in Etihad first. Two different award reservations, both ticketed within a few hours after calling AA by phone. So, no problems with that segment.

Five days ago, we called AA rez to book the return, AUH-LAX nonstop again in Etihad first. The agent was able to see 2 seats and reserved the seats on 2 different record locators. She confirmed that each one-way award segment was $90K and charged our credit cards for the nominal fee.

However, aa.com is showing that the return reservations still haven’t been ticketed (the tickets are “on request”, according to the site). I called AA yesterday (we don’t have elite status) and the agent I spoke to said that the delay may be due to the queue of AA award requests with Etihad. She mentioned that the reservations should be ticketed in the next few days.

I’m a little nervous because I’ve redeemed several AA oneworld partner (but not AA-specific partner, like EY) awards before and it’s never taken more than 24 hrs for the reservation to be ticketed. The pessimist in me is thinking that EY has been overloaded with AA award requests in F and has decided to reneg on availability.

What are your thoughts? Is there anything we can do, if at all, other than waiting it out?

Last but not least, even though I redeemed a AA F award, BA didn’t have availability in F on the SFO-LHR leg, so I’m in biz. To add insult to injury, I have to pay ~$130 to reserve a biz class seat in advance (on top of a whopping $530 fuel surcharge). Any suggestions on how I could snag a seat in F on the same flight?

Cheers,
firstworldproblems[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=”travel4b, post: 4188, member: 178″]I booked two Etihad F award seats with AA on this Tuesday and they were ticketed on Thursday. I would follow up again if I were you.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. The ticketing queue was [I]really[/I] long this weekend, but everything we had lined up on Etihad has been processed as of yesterday.

Tiffany and travel4b, thanks for thr replies. Tiffany, I really enjoy your posts – keep up the good work!

Update: The return reservations finally ticketed yesterday afternoon, six days after calling in. Hurrah!

I did follow up w AA Rez on Monday and again Wednesday. Both times was told that 1) the reservations weren’t a priority because the travel date was so far away (early 2016); this is nonsense because the first segment, also for travel in 2016, took less than 24 hrs to ticket and 2) the ticketing queue was backed up but AA had no idea why and 3) I should be patient.

So, a six day ticketing queue. Hopefully no one else is suffering the same wait. Strange forces at work…