Booking an Avios flight with a American Airlines problems

[JonathanC]

Hello all

I’m looking at booking a flight to CTG from MIA, cash prices are so crazy, it works out half price when booking a reward seat (assuming you value 1 Avios at 1pence)

The only issue is that there’s very limited options for booking online, since BA’s systems that customers use can’t recognise the airport, and you have to ring up to get a quote for the flight cost, and it also makes things more awkward when looking for availability if you add or remove a day.

Iberia’s systems recognise the airport, so it gives options, but there are some days that show no availability at all, and this is for a flight in January (I know that’s a very popular time of year for Colombia), and just shows indirect LATAM flights on some days, not really something I want to be doing

I’ve tried looking for flight options when paying with Avios on Qatar’s Privilege Club (via the app) but despite recognising the airports, it can’t produce any flight option results…

How do we all get around problems like these, where you need to book an Avios flight with a OneWorld airline that BA / IB / QR / EI doesn’t offer their own flights to the destination, and it isn’t easy to book online, and or requires a helpline call

[Richie]

Are there JetBlue flights from FLL on sale yet?

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

If you type in the full airport name rather then the 3 letter code that usually gets around the “not recognised” problem.

Then there is the issue where AA only makes its cheapest level of rewards to partners which is why you can see availability on some dates but not others because the cheapest rewards have already gone.

[JonathanC]

Richie wrote:

Are there JetBlue flights from FLL on sale yet?

As far as I’m aware there’s no options for booking JetBlue flights via schemes that are frequently mentioned on HfP (the agreement with EK SkyWards has now ended, and QR is earning only).

I’d ideally like to travel via MIA since I’m going to use a VS credit card upgrade voucher for my flight to MIA, I’ll have to spend the first night there, since all flights don’t offer evening options but there’s nothing wrong there at all

[JonathanC]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

If you type in the full airport name rather then the 3 letter code that usually gets around the “not recognised” problem.

Then there is the issue where AA only makes its cheapest level of rewards to partners which is why you can see availability on some dates but not others because the cheapest rewards have already gone.

I’ve tried it, but it doesn’t work, you can try yourself and you’ll almost certainly get the same problem. The joys of BA not bothering to invest some decent IT software systems !

It seems a bit soon that the reward seats are gone already, from what I understand, AA only release their seat’s approximately 11 months before departure, so I’d have to be a bit unlucky if the seats have already gone.
What is strange is that flights for the Saturday and Sunday are showing, but nothing at all for Thursday and Friday immediately before when looking on Iberia

[JonathanC]

Richie wrote:

Are there JetBlue flights from FLL on sale yet?

I’ve checked options with JetBlue, but there’s nothing direct from FLL, there’s a flight from JFK, but the option of going to MIA then an AA flight from there is far more feasible

[Lyn]

Have you checked availability on American’s own web-site? As BA Flyer IHG Stayer says, American only make their lowest level of awards, called Saver Awards, available for booking via partners. I think if you use their month award calendar only the dates when these are actually available would show up.

[JonathanC]

Lyn wrote:

Have you checked availability on American’s own web-site? As BA Flyer IHG Stayer says, American only make their lowest level of awards, called Saver Awards, available for booking via partners. I think if you use their month award calendar only the dates when these are actually available would show up.

I’ve checked AA for my desired dates, and there’s plenty of availability, I’m not too sure how it’s best to book AA redemption seats via IB+ / BAEC and QR Privilege Club if it’s possible for the latter…

[Lyn]

Are you sure the availability on AA is for their “Saver Awards” though? Otherwise BA and IB etc. won’t be able to book it.

I’ve just checked and unfortunately I don’t think my suggestion of using their month award calendar to identify Saver Awards works anymore. Perhaps someone else could help here?

[JonathanC]

I’ve just looked and there’s some ‘Web special award’ but that’s just a deeply discounted rate for those who’ve got enough AA points to pay for the flight, I’m almost certain it doesn’t have any effect on availability for other OneWorld airlines programs

I didn’t see any reference to ‘Saver Awards’ when I just looked

[JDB]

JonathanC wrote:

I’ve just looked and there’s some ‘Web special award’ but that’s just a deeply discounted rate for those who’ve got enough AA points to pay for the flight, I’m almost certain it doesn’t have any effect on availability for other OneWorld airlines programs

I didn’t see any reference to ‘Saver Awards’ when I just looked

All the info you have been given above is accurate. Unless AA shows MileSAAver award seats for the flight you want, you can’t book it on Avios via BA.com or BA on the telephone. These flights are very popular so it isn’t particularly surprising they are full on Thu/Fri for the weekenders.

[marcolau]

For redeeming Avios on AA flights, sometimes I found checking the availability via AS (Alaska) to be quite useful.
Results on AA flights shown on AS are generally available to book via BA/Avios, and AS also show connecting flights and mix-class options as well (though mixed-class option need to be booked via the phone)

[davefl]

JDB wrote:

JonathanC wrote:

I’ve just looked and there’s some ‘Web special award’ but that’s just a deeply discounted rate for those who’ve got enough AA points to pay for the flight, I’m almost certain it doesn’t have any effect on availability for other OneWorld airlines programs

I didn’t see any reference to ‘Saver Awards’ when I just looked

All the info you have been given above is accurate. Unless AA shows MileSAAver award seats for the flight you want, you can’t book it on Avios via BA.com or BA on the telephone. These flights are very popular so it isn’t particularly surprising they are full on Thu/Fri for the weekenders.

It’s probably easier to refer to this chart now https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/redeem/award-travel/flight-award-chart.jsp because the booking calendar doesn’t reference MileSAAver.

If the number of miles for the flight in the booking calendar is the same as the chart for the route you want, or below, it should be bookable via BA

[JonathanC]

On the days that I’ve looked at, all days are showing ‘Web Special Saver’ along with the regular pricing
(After just checking, all these WSS fares have disappeared for all dates by the looks of it, maybe a need to wipe my safari history, and see if they come back or not !

The Saturday and Sunday options show this (that ARE bookable via IB – online), as well as the Thursday and Friday options, where IB app doesn’t currently show any availability.

The flight options for Thursday and Friday are a lot more expensive than flights for the Saturday and Sunday, about double the amount of points for Thursday and 50% extra compared to the Saturday and the other options from then onwards into the week

It’s rather weird that the price in points drops over the weekend, since that’d usually be the starting time for holiday for families and or people who must work every working day in the week, so these types of people wouldn’t usually be able to travel mid week