Questions and Answers

I use to be able to check aa.com or the alaska site to find saver awards to know if award space was available prior to calling British to book Alaska flights with Avios points. However, ever since the Virgin merger (don’t know if it’s related) it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll identify award space on aa.com and after waiting on hold for 45min with British only to be told there is no award space. It’s made it frustrating and virtually impossible now to book flights. Help! Anyone one know a better way to search for award space??

Have you tried searching on Alaska’s own website for space? Use their award chart to figure out what saver level space should be and compare it to the prices you see when searching and make note of it. Then call BA to ticket.

I just noticed that today. What a bummer! With Alaska’s new miles pricing structure it’s a pretty difficult search for award flights that can be booked with Avios.

Use American’s website to search. Space bookable on American should be bookable by BA but you have to call.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 28964, member: 29″]Use American’s website to search. Space bookable on American should be bookable by BA but you have to call.[/QUOTE]

Advice might not be absolutely rtue anymore. Since merger, looking up AS flights on AA.com yields very limited Alaska inventory at lowest miles price. Do a simple search on lax-sea or even pdx-sea and you will find AA.com rejects your query. Those two routes are the two most common routes with “saver” award space and AA.com has no inventory for the whole year. It probably has something to do with the redemption miles structure that AS has instituted.

I am just not sure if it’s a system display issue or truly an inventory block for AA and/or BA avios.

[USER=2987]@FlyerGuy12[/USER] — AA and BA should have access to the same inventory, namely whatever saver space Alaska is making available to partners.

Searching on AA.com just now, SEA>PDX has space almost every day this year, on multiple flights. Maybe inventory was just being updated when you looked last?