Questions and Answers

Have a DOH–>PHL award booked via AA in October. Have wanted to add a connecting segment before hand (from DAR or ZNZ, not the middle east) that recently opened up which I know would trigger a change fee for origination (+ small difference in miles for new region).

Trying to decide if there is a way to spin this weekend’s ban so AA doesn’t charge me a change fee (even though my flights haven’t been effected). Maybe ask for cancellation of the award (without charge) and then quickly re-book what I want? Or is there a risk of them catching on?

Relatedly, I was hoping to do a layover in DOH but it looks like my options are either ~2 hours or ~25 hours (which would violate the 24 hour stopover rule)… anyone know if AA has exceptions if there’s only one flight out of an airport daily? Or if they’d allow me to add on the segment with 25 hour layover if I’d be paying change fee to add the beginning segment?

If you cancel your ticket I wouldn’t expect award space to return to inventory. Qatar isn’t as consistent on that as other carriers.

The AA computers won’t allow a 25 hour connection without breaking the award. You could try to get an exception given the 1x daily flight, but I have never heard of that actually happening, unfortunately.