Questions and Answers

Ben: I consider you the AA guru, so I’ve got a situation and don’t know how to proceed. In October, I booked two business seats using AA miles for DEN – SYD on March 27, routing DEN-LAX-HNL-SYD. The HNL-SYD leg was on QF, the rest on AA metal. After reading several posts yesterday that QF had opened business space on its new SFO- SYD flight, I checked the BA website and, sure enough, there were two business class seats available for March 22. I called the EXP reservations desk last night to change the reservation. The agent could see the seats in the system and after confirming all flight information I was told, “you’re all locked in. You’ll get a confirmation email in the morning.” Well, morning came and went and no email from AA. I was unable to call, but my husband phoned the EXP desk to find out what was going on and he was told QF had denied the request for the seats. While he was on the phone with the agent, she requested the seats on the SFO to SYD flight again (she could see them in the system) and they were again denied. She told him that QF had 72 hours to deny a request for seats. When we changed the reservation, we lost our seats on the QF HNL to SYD flight, so now we are without a flight. (We have a return booked on United). The agent told my husband that they will try to get our original seats on QF 4 on March 27 back, but I don’t hold out much nope that we’ll be able to get those back. Award seats are so hard to find as it is. I’m so disappointed. If I had known that QF had the option to deny the request, I probably wouldn’t have made the change, or at least put in on a hold status. What should we have done differently? I thought my newly minted EXP status would help me out in changing the reservation if space opened up (and with no change fee) for an earlier flight. But now we’re without a way to get to OZ. Any suggestions on how to proceed? Why would QF deny the request? If the seats are in the system, shouldn’t we be able to get them? What should AA do to fix the situation? Any advice you or your savvy readers can provide us will be much appreciated! Thanks! Coloradomom

Hi Coloradomom!

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this, and it sounds super frustrating. American is definitely able to make this right for you, but you might have to push a bit.

So what should happen next is that American either works with Qantas to get the seats back, or will open up space for you on their flight LAX-SYD (which is what I’d push for, personally). You probably will have to get a supervisor involved, or an alliance liaison, so it might take a few calls to get the ball rolling on that. A lot of those people don’t work weekends, so it may take a few days to get everything sorted.

But don’t worry — you had tickets, you didn’t do anything wrong, and this is fixable.

Last time I spent much time checking, J space HNL-SYD was even rarer than LAX-SYD, even though paid J loadings I suspect are lower (almost 100% leisure market), so I’m not sure what success you’ll have trying to get back to where you were. QF prefers to hold it’s J availability for upgrades for its own elites (who still have to buy fairly flexible tickets, pay big points, and often don’t get confirmed until the gate). People rubbish QFs stinginess with award/upgrade space, and the number of points needed, but QF points are very easy to acquire in Aus, and as it’s easily the largest Aus airline [I]everybody[/I] collects and has large balances of QF points, and since SYD is far from everwhere, [I]everyone[/I] wants an upgrade. Supply and demand, they can do what they want. My wife is QF Platinum (OW Emerald), flying fully flexible business on very profitable long distance domestic routes, and to my knowledge has never received any kind of upgrade, even on a 200 mile CBR-SYD hop. Doesn’t get exit row seating, or even to sit in the first few rows of economy. Qantas is like Delta – great airline, but its loyalty program stinks.

Looks like everything worked out OK for Susan

[URL]http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/01/16/how-to-fix-an-award-ticket-that-your-airline-screws-up/[/URL]

Further thoughts from Ben — [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/01/16/award-ticket-recourse/[/URL]

[QUOTE=”Tiffany, post: 11874, member: 7″]Hi Coloradomom!

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this, and it sounds super frustrating. American is definitely able to make this right for you, but you might have to push a bit.

So what should happen next is that American either works with Qantas to get the seats back, or will open up space for you on their flight LAX-SYD (which is what I’d push for, personally). You probably will have to get a supervisor involved, or an alliance liaison, so it might take a few calls to get the ball rolling on that. A lot of those people don’t work weekends, so it may take a few days to get everything sorted.

But don’t worry — you had tickets, you didn’t do anything wrong, and this is fixable.[/QUOTE]

I too moved my flight forward by 2 days based not the post. The ExPlat agent stated he was unable to open availability on the LAX-SYD flight. He queued it for review by the liaison. He stated that the if they can’t get Qantas to release the seats that I will need to look at other dates. Obviously that isn’t really an option as I have flights/hotels booked in Australia. How do you suggest I “push a bit” as the agent’s tone didn’t suggest this was necessarily “fixable”? The agent stated he was a supervisor so there wasn’t an opportunity to escalate.

[USER=1417]@J DUB[/USER] — Ugh. Hang up, call again, find someone more friendly. Just be polite each time so they don’t note the record with something like “Pax advised no open space LAX-SYD.”