Questions and Answers

We redeemed AA miles to fly HKG-AUH-JFK on EY and then JFK-SEA on AA, all in F except HKG-AUH in J. There is an 8-hour layover in JFK after flying for over 24 hours, so definitely not ideal.

Because of this, I called AA 3 times before I went ahead and got us ticketed, each time asking the agent if there would be any penalty in the future for replacing the AA JFK-SEA flight with either an AS JFK-SEA flight or an AA JFK-LAX flight and an AS LAX-SEA flight. My thought was that it’s already a partner award (an not a OneWorld award) because of the EY flight, so we should be okay adding in AS. I was told that yes, it would be fine, each of the 3 times I called. So I was confident this would be ok.

So just yesterday I called to inquire about potential change involving AA JFK-LAX and AS LAX-SEA, and the agent and her supervisor were adamant that introducing AS would require a $150 penalty for the first passenger and $25 for the second. Their reasoning is that I was indeed changing from a OneWorld award to a partner award, since AA is OneWorld and AS is not.

But what they failed to accept is that the award in question actually begins in the Middle East, not North America. We redeemed 40K miles each for HKG-AUH in J (Asia 2 to Middle East), and 115K miles each for AUH-JFK-SEA in F (Middle East to North America). Since EY is on the Middle East to North America award, it’s already a partner award, not a OneWorld award, right?

There wasn’t actually any availability to make the change I was inquiring about, but I want to make sure that my assumption that we could get home from JFK with a combination of AA and AS (or just AS) won’t incur any penalties now that we’ve been ticketed. This is what the first 3 agents agreed with before I was ticketed, but isn’t it convenient that the story has changed now that we’re ticketed?

What’s the actual answer?

(And, since I did my research and asked my questions before we were ticketed, there is no “proof” of those phone calls in the PNR because I got us ticketed after I felt confident from those 3 phone calls.)

Thanks so much,
Todd

I hate to say this but unfortunately without something in writing you’re probably out of luck. The information that AA put out has been pretty vague and leaves them with wiggle room. I would wait until the space is actually available and call again and hopefully they haven’t made any adverse notations on your ticket.

[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 17101, member: 79″]I hate to say this but unfortunately without something in writing you’re probably out of luck. The information that AA put out has been pretty vague and leaves them with wiggle room. I would wait until the space is actually available and call again and hopefully they haven’t made any adverse notations on your ticket.[/QUOTE]

Is it really and truly that ambiguous? The whole reason I did this research is because I got burned in the past when I was lectured about the differences between a OneWorld Award and a Partner Award. The Middle East to North America has to be a Partner Award, right, since EY is on there. Therefore I should be able to use AS to get from JFK to Seattle since it’s already a partner award. How can they claim it’s a OneWorld award by isolating one segment of the award?

As you can see here, they can (and do) claim anything they want. Without something in writing, it’s hard to call them on it and the rules for the devaluation were never clearly set forth besides reports on various blogs based on interactions with AA. They could claim all partners are different so since you are adding AS to the award it’s not allowed etc etc.

I’m not saying you should give up but I’d wait for the space to be available and try again. There is no point stressing yourself out over hypotheticals.

Did you only call once this time inquiring about changes? I’d go with [USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER]’s recommendation and call again when there is award space available.

Also, AA could be considering EY/AA to be a mixed OW/partner award and EY/AS to be a partner only award, requiring change fees. That would mean that AUH-JFK-LAX-SEA shouldnt require any fees.

Lastly, doesnt AS only have one daily fight JFK-SEA that leaves really early in the morning, before the EY A380 arrives in NY?

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 17112, member: 29″]Did you only call once this time inquiring about changes? I’d go with [USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER]’s recommendation and call again when there is award space available.

Also, AA could be considering EY/AA to be a mixed OW/partner award and EY/AS to be a partner only award, requiring change fees. That would mean that AUH-JFK-LAX-SEA shouldnt require any fees.

Lastly, doesnt AS only have one daily fight JFK-SEA that leaves really early in the morning, before the EY A380 arrives in NY?[/QUOTE]

Yup — my original hope had been that space would open up on the AA transcon to LAX and then connect with AS (or even AA) from LAX to SEA. You’re right that AS only has a single flight JFK-SEA currently and it leaves before the EY flight arrives. But this isn’t ’til next March and between the known fact that AS would love more JFK slots and their acquisition of Virgin America (and who knows what they’ll do with some of their slots), I’m holding out hope that the JFK picture from an AS perspective will look different 10 months from now.

Hopefully it works out in 10 months!

The crazy in me would like to recommend CX JFK-YVR and connect to an AS YVR-SEA flight…but that requires an even longer layover at JFK and an overnight in YVR.

Based on empirical evidence, it seems the award types are more like this:
[LIST]
[*]AA awards
[*]AA / oneworld awards
[*]oneworld awards
[*]AA / partner A awards
[*]AA / partner B awards
[*]AA / partner C awards (etc.)
[*]partner A / partner B awards (etc.)
[*]oneworld / partner A awards
[/LIST]
But I would still wait until you have an actual change to make, and have them price it. This is open to too much interpretation until something is in the computer. At that point, you can ask for the help desk to review it, and they might come out in your favor.