Difficulty booking domestic US flight with Avios

[dqtvsound]

Hi all,

Trying to book a pair of seats on AA from New York (any) down to Orlando MCO in December. BA website constantly gives me no availability on any date in December. Out of curiosity I tried a few other months, and even other routes, still to no avail. Next step was to book with cash, still no joy. American’s website shows available rewards flights and cash flights.

Perplexed I am, and not looking forward to the phone marathon tomorrow, does anyone have any success recently trying to do this?

ta

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[davefl]

Just looked at AA.com and there are no direct flights at Saver level from any NYC airport in DEC. There’s one on the 28th but it’s not a Saver award.

You need a direct flight and a Saver award.

AA have killed off a lot of routes and have partnered with Jetblue for them but you can’t book JB with Avios.

[dqtvsound]

Thanks, that explains a lot. Wasn’t aware of that restriction.

[NorthernLass]

I was looking for DCA to either Miami or Key West in December a couple of months ago and found a fair bit of availability (went for Key West in the end as MIA is best avoided if possible). I think travel period has a lot to do with it – there is going to be very high demand for Florida at that time of year.

I’ve also found previously that Americans tend to book award seats speculatively and cancel nearer the time so you often get extra seats appearing a month or two before your departure date.

If you want to buy cash tickets though, just do it via the AA website, you can still credit them to your BA account. Be aware you won’t get checked bags included in economy unless you’ve got status – you can select seats for free though!

[davefl]

NorthernLass wrote:

I was looking for DCA to either Miami or Key West in December a couple of months ago and found a fair bit of availability (went for Key West in the end as MIA is best avoided if possible). I think travel period has a lot to do with it – there is going to be very high demand for Florida at that time of year.

I’ve also found previously that Americans tend to book award seats speculatively and cancel nearer the time so you often get extra seats appearing a month or two before your departure date.

If you want to buy cash tickets though, just do it via the AA website, you can still credit them to your BA account. Be aware you won’t get checked bags included in economy unless you’ve got status – you can select seats for free though!

It’s not about availability of award flights, AA don’t fly any planes from NYC to MCO which is what the OP wanted. Jetblue fly those routes, AA have codeshares but you can’t book JB flights with BA Avios.

You can’t credit JB flights to BA either, not even AA codeshares

You can credit JB flights to Qatar now and transfer on to BA. It may be possible to book JB award flights on Qatar but I don’t have a login so can’t check the availability

[NorthernLass]

Ah ok, that wasn’t clear, that surprises me about that route. OP could still book the cash flights via the AA website, the avios earned on those routes tend to be minimal so it’s not a huge loss. There might also be cheaper options with another airline, e.g. Delta.

[Michael C]

Was initially going to look at MCO-NYC for next April, but think we’ll
do MCO-DCA (plenty of AA availability), half a day at the revamped Smithsonian
(which should be reopening this year), then train up the next day for the fun of it.

[NorthernLass]

We’re doing it the other way around with DC at the beginning – will definitely check out the revamped Smithsonian!

If AA First is available it’s an extremely pleasant way to fly, sort of between CE and CW if comparing to BA. We did MIA-BOS a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[AndyGWP]

davefl wrote:

Just looked at AA.com and there are no direct flights at Saver level from any NYC airport in DEC. There’s one on the 28th but it’s not a Saver award.

You need a direct flight and a Saver award.

AA have killed off a lot of routes and have partnered with Jetblue for them but you can’t book JB with Avios.

AA website has changed since I last used it – how do you easily spot ‘saver’ rates please?

[davefl]

AndyGWP wrote:

davefl wrote:

Just looked at AA.com and there are no direct flights at Saver level from any NYC airport in DEC. There’s one on the 28th but it’s not a Saver award.

You need a direct flight and a Saver award.

AA have killed off a lot of routes and have partnered with Jetblue for them but you can’t book JB with Avios.

AA website has changed since I last used it – how do you easily spot ‘saver’ rates please?

You can’t easily do so any more. Refer to the chart here for MileSSaver and look for the routes that are those exact values

https://www.americanairlines.co.uk/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/redeem/award-travel/flight-award-chart.jsp

It gets complex because even cheaper web specials exist such as the 6k redemption 1 stop from NYC to MCO are great value but cant be booked with Avios as they’re 1 stop.