A couple of questions from an AAdvantage newbie

[scullkr]

Yes priced based on highest cabin.
You may be thinking of Asia miles where it is calculated based on distance of segments and class.

Thanks. I could see advertised price but was hoping that on completing the booking some miles might reappear in my account- not the case obviously.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks. I could see advertised price but was hoping that on completing the booking some miles might reappear in my account- not the case obviously.

No no. What you see as the price at booking is the miles you will be charged - no 'unwritten' refunds.

 

[Danger]

Guys can I just confirm that for mixed cabin redemptions in J or F there is no refund/reduced price upon completing the booking if entire journey is not in the booked class?

I thought there was but may be confusing myself with LifeMiles.

eg PER- DUB F is 115k points even if PER-DOH is F and DOH-DUB is Y, same as if both flights were F?

If that's the route you're looking at, I would try to get the F seat out of MEL or SYD for the longer flight and superior lounge. Of course, F out of Perth seems much easier to come by.

 

[scullkr]

Just speaking hypothetically for now but thanks for the advice.

 

[rogerkambah]

Trying to book an AA redemption trip from BKK-CBR and found seats BKK-SIN-MEL-CBR for 40k in J.
Unfortunately while trying to change my CC currency from USD to AUD the booking fell over.
Now when I search BKK-CBR I am not given the original trip but others via KUL and SYD that aren't as convenient.
I have tried a multicity trip with transits being < 24hrs but the points required has ballooned to 82.5 K with each flight being charged individually.
Is there a way to do a multicity trip for 40K miles?

 

[I love to travel]

Trying to book an AA redemption trip from BKK-CBR and found seats BKK-SIN-MEL-CBR for 40k in J.
Unfortunately while trying to change my CC currency from USD to AUD the booking fell over.
Now when I search BKK-CBR I am not given the original trip but others via KUL and SYD that aren't as convenient.
I have tried a multicity trip with transits being < 24hrs but the points required has ballooned to 82.5 K with each flight being charged individually.
Is there a way to do a multicity trip for 40K miles?

Wait for 20 mins original flight usually come back into the system

 

[burmans]

Apologies, while I have been following this thread for years I have got a bit out of date in recent times. Which airlines will I still need to phone up to book and what is my best way to search availability for these which don't appear on the AA site, is it via BA Executive club?

 

[I love to travel]

Most airlines now bookable on the site including Ethiad MH and CX. BA is ok to search but tbh I just use the AA one it is usually reliable.

 

[burmans]

Yeah, unfortunately every time I try and book what AA tells me is available I get a message that one of the flights are no longer available even though if you repeat the query they are still there. Extremely frustrating.

 

[burmans]

It also appears that JAL and Qatar flights that I can see on Qantas, I can't see on AA site , may just have to ring. Incidentally does anyone else have problems with the dates. Randomly it seems to want be to enter them in American date format even though the date pickler is in UK/AUs format?

 

[serfty]

Randomly it seems to want be to enter them in American date format even though the date pickler is in UK/AUs format?

Set your location to US - English - and keep an eye on it.

 

[Danger]

Yeah, unfortunately every time I try and book what AA tells me is available I get a message that one of the flights are no longer available even though if you repeat the query they are still there. Extremely frustrating.

I reported this phantom availability issue to AA's business ops unit in March 2017. Since that time, we've had three or four polite exchanges we're they've acknowledged the frustration and asked for further information. One "analyst" even wrote in an email to me "Yes, I agree, it's ridiculous." They seemed genuinely interested in correcting it. About three months ago I blew up and give it to them. No response since.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Trying to look at a flight from China to Australia - ideally Melbourne. I've found nothing direct, but I have found something that goes in to Brisbane. The engine won't pick up BNE as a transit point (so, for example PEK-xHKG-xBNE-MEL), and when I do multi-city (e.g. PEK-BNE, BNE-MEL) it prices out as two awards.

Does anyone know if it's valid to only be charged just the 40,000 miles for an award like that and I have to call up to get it sorted? Or is it correctly pricing separately. I seem to recall AAwards being more flexible in this way in the past.

 

[potm]

Yes, it should be a valid routing but getting an agent willing to piece it together for you might be difficult. Some will only do point to point search only.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Thanks potm, I will give it a go later on.

SQ would be the better option and is more convenient overall, but 84,000 KF miles is a steep price when compared to just 40,000 AA, which I've had sitting there for many years.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Trying to look at a flight from China to Australia - ideally Melbourne. I've found nothing direct, but I have found something that goes in to Brisbane. The engine won't pick up BNE as a transit point (so, for example PEK-xHKG-xBNE-MEL), and when I do multi-city (e.g. PEK-BNE, BNE-MEL) it prices out as two awards.

have you tried PEK-HKG and HKG-MEL? That may get you around the issue of the BNE transit. QF seems to have pretty good availability in business class ex HKG these days. And there's some CX to PER too. AA was offering HKG-PER-MEL in August, CX->QF

 

[Must...Fly!]

have you tried PEK-HKG and HKG-MEL? That may get you around the issue of the BNE transit. QF seems to have pretty good availability in business class ex HKG these days. And there's some CX to PER too. AA was offering HKG-PER-MEL in August, CX->QF

I have, yes, but no dice. But even searching other options with multi city it prices as two awards so I think it should be possible. I'll try and call later on tonight and report back. It's actually an overnight transit at BNE, I;I'm thinking it just doesn't seem to like CX -> QF overnight.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I have, yes, but no dice. But even searching other options with multi city it prices as two awards so I think it should be possible. I'll try and call later on tonight and report back. It's actually an overnight transit at BNE, I;I'm thinking it just doesn't seem to like CX -> QF overnight.

Gave the Australian phone number a ring (an internal debate had me wondering between the AU & US numbers...) and an agent answered almost immediately.

The agent was very understanding and I was up front that I couldn't get the website to spit out what I wanted and had all flight numbers & dates, which she asked for. A little hiccup with married segment of CX, but sorted that within a minute (we were searching legs individually, but needed to do it PVG-BNE, then BNE-MEL). Agent pro-actively decided to not charge the phone assistance fee given the difficulty I was having with the website, which I very much appreciated.

The call took less than 12 minutes from dial to hang up with a delightful agent. As for the flights, in the end I went for PVG-xHKG-xBNE-MEL in J, 40,000 miles plus $115 in tax - just waiting on ticketing. I am glad to have been patient as I was searching most days for about a month for these flights via OneWorld, and didn't want to use 84,000 KF miles (just seems like not as great value).

 

[FromTheRail]

Looking at booking a Europe trip, have found a redemption flight, but it's not the most direct, if I take that and the more direct one comes up which I switch to which has less taxes would I get a refund, i'm guessing the answer is no, but it would mean 2 flights instead of 3, the other flight might also not come up so may miss out compleatly if I wait for it, the 2 flight route would half the taxes

 

[Must...Fly!]

Looking at booking a Europe trip, have found a redemption flight, but it's not the most direct, if I take that and the more direct one comes up which I switch to which has less taxes would I get a refund, i'm guessing the answer is no, but it would mean 2 flights instead of 3, the other flight might also not come up so may miss out compleatly if I wait for it, the 2 flight route would half the taxes

You should receive a partial refund for the difference in taxes. Obviously works the other way also, if the new fights have a higher amount of tax then you'll have to pay the difference