Questions and Answers

I know that American has supposedly increased the number of available SAAver tickets available, but when I try to book any of them online they are not bookable. The example of where I am experiencing this is on flights from PHL-FCO at the end of September. Regardless of which flight I choose and try to book, the system returns a message that the flight is no longer available. I then choose one of the remaining options (because the previous one has been removed of the available flight list) and the same thing happens. This continues until all flight options are removed and no flights are available. I’m not sure if this is a system glitch or phantom award tickets, but it is very frustrating. And I did try and find the same flights on British but nothing shows as available, which is why I think it is phantom rather than a glitch. I will call as another option, but I wanted to know if you have any information on this issue.

I haven’t experienced this lately but I have in the past. Completed the entire booking process and then received a message. I noticed the flights were still available after my failed attempt to book online so I phoned and was able to book and was not charged for the booking via phone.

[USER=1743]@gsd101[/USER] – I was recently catching up on the comments to [URL=’http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2017/08/18/how-to-use-american-airlines-miles’]Tiffany’s great post about using AA miles[/URL] and found where she had this to say about which airlines she relies on aa.com to find award space:
[I]
In theory: airberlin, Alaska, British Airways, Finnair, Hawaiian, Iberia*, Royal Jordanian, and Qantas. In practice, many of those show phantom space, or don’t display space that is available. I only rely on aa.com for flights on American, Alaska, or British Airways.[/I]

So I’d look at ba.com and qantas.com for available seats for that flight to Rome. Then you can call AA and book and they should waive the call-in fee if you can’t find that routing online.