Learned Something New Regarding Award Tickets on American Airlines for Partner Airlines - at least my QANTAS experience

[SelectSys]

So with the help of this board I picked a flight home from Sydney back to the US on QANTAS via Melbourne.  This flight follows a transpacific cruise so I only needed a one way ticket.  For whatever reason/airline the one way tickets are really expensive so I decided to use miles.  I found a good points deal on American's website so I booked it.

 

I went back about a week ago and tried to pick out seats via the web.  All was fine until I tried to complete the final confirmation step and I received a cryptic error message from the web site.  I tried a couple of times and then called QANTAS to see what was up.  The end result was that I discovered that American had only booked me a standby ticket and I had no confirmed space on my flights.  I asked to be transferred to American and the customer service agent told me they do this all the time.  They said talk to QANTAS if I wanted a confirmed space.  The end result was that I needed to pay an additional $300/ticket to get confirmed and this was after spending almost an hour on the phone with QANTAS reservations and getting a "discount" on the fare change.  

 

I don't know if this was always the case or if it's simply a new feature of the AAdvantage program in 2023.  Needless to say I was shocked and couldn't image if I had been denied boarding because my wife and I were on standby tickets.  I guess I am "happy" that I called in advance rather than being surprised at the airport.  I guess my advice to anyone travelling on AAdvantage awards at a discount level to check and see what they are really getting.  Maybe for other airlines too.

 

BTW - I anyone has good ideas for buying reasonable one way international flights to or from the US let me know.  This would be above and beyond buying the roundtrip ticket and throwing away the return.

[FlyerTalker]

18 minutes ago, SelectSys said:

BTW - I anyone has good ideas for buying reasonable one way international flights to or from the US let me know.  This would be above and beyond buying the roundtrip ticket and throwing away the return.

 

Depends on your definition of "reasonable".  Most folks want rock bottom equivalent of a $99 ticket to Florida.

 

To/from Australia, best pricing is usually Fiji for Sydney flights.  One can also look at pricing for MEL or BNE -- often worth a domestic positioning flight if in SYD.

 

Worldwide, you should use ITA Matrix (not ITA Airlines) and be open to offbeat routings.  Another tip - if flying to/from Dubai, you can often find significantly better pricing into Abu Dhabi, and then take a $70 taxi to Dubai.  That trick saved me thousands on a pair of business class tickets.

 

Finally, the ultimate answer is trial and error, search and search again, and be flexible and creative.

[CruiserBruce]

Cruise line air programs are usually pretty good for one way international fares.

 

We book one way international award fares pretty frequently...leaving on one a week from today ... SFO-AMS, coming back CDG-SFO. Did SFO-CPH last summer. Other than taxes, never costs a penny. We fly United most of the time. Your situation with AA doesn't impress me much.

[6rugrats]

I have never heard of this happening on a ticket booked with FF miles, and I’ve booked plenty using Aadvantage miles.  Something is odd here.

Edited June 7, 2023 by 6rugrats

[Globaliser]

4 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

I have never heard of this happening on a ticket booked with FF miles, and I’ve booked plenty using Aadvantage miles.  Something is odd here.

 

I agree. IME, confirmed award tickets are booked into confirmed space. I've had experience of booking a partner award using AA miles when the initial booking has been on request, and AA has had to wait for the operating airline to confirm the space. But that was made clear in communications, and the ticket wasn't issued until the space was confirmed.

 

It's also odd to have the operating airline demand an additional payment for the reservation and the ticket when the booking was made by and charged by the frequent flyer scheme. The only thing that I can think of that might be a plausible scenario that is QF wasn't charging for either the reservation or the ticket, but only for seat pre-allocation - which is something typically paid directly to the operating airline.

 

I wonder if there's been some confusion here between a reservation and a ticket for the flight on the one hand, and a seat allocation on the other.

[6rugrats]

Agree.  Award tickets are not standby.  There’s something wrong, or some miscommunication here.

[Zach1213]

8 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

I have never heard of this happening on a ticket booked with FF miles, and I’ve booked plenty using Aadvantage miles.  Something is odd here.

 

Yes, absolutely. My wife and I travel internationally using AAdvantage miles several times each year, including at least 1x yearly on Qantas. Never happened to us. 

[FlyerTalker]

The only place where I have seen "waitlisted" for an award ticket has been with ANA.  Who makes it VERY clear that you are on a waitlist, with no mileage charge until actually ticketed.  This is for an award directly with the ANA FF program, and for flights only on ANA itself.

 

At one time, Cathay had a similar waitlist, but I don't think that happens anymore.  Again, not with a USA partner, but with Asia Miles itself for CX metal.

 

 

[CruiserBruce]

$300 for seat allocation? For how many people?

[SelectSys]

Thanks to all for their input!  This has been definitely a learning experience for me.  My thinking and selection of these tickets was really based in "old school" thinking and doesn't seem to reflect the "way things are now" coupled with my new status of being "retired."

 

 

14 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Depends on your definition of "reasonable".  Most folks want rock bottom equivalent of a $99 ticket to Florida...

 

Worldwide, you should use ITA Matrix (not ITA Airlines) and be open to offbeat routings...

 

Finally, the ultimate answer is trial and error, search and search again, and be flexible and creative.

 

I definitely didn't want to sit in economy from Australia to the US for 16 hours.  If this was the case, I could have booked a 40k economy ticket on American metal and received an extra leg room seat.  My goal was to find a business class seat or at worst a premium economy seat.   I will fly on discount carriers/economy in the US and Mexico but not for long haul.

 

I did look on Google Flights for a seat but not on the underlying ITA Matrix software.  I just looked a few minutes ago on ITA Matrix and found a reasonable flight on Asiana in business that would have worked at a decent price.  These flights might have shown up on Google Flights as well, I think, but I made a fundamental error in my original search- being too loyal to a specific airline alliance.  I flew mostly on American during my work career and always looked there first.  All of my recent searching of late suggests that OneWorld rarely delivers the best price and the miles redemption #'s on AA are typically ridiculous for anything other than economy - more on this later

 

13 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Cruise line air programs are usually pretty good for one way international fares... Your situation with AA doesn't impress me much.

I have never tried the cruise airline program.  This was probably my error #2 in making this reservation - not even checking to see what the cruise line ticket price would be.

 

Trust me AA didn't impress me on this one either.

 

 

12 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

I have never heard of this happening on a ticket booked with FF miles, and I’ve booked plenty using Aadvantage miles.  Something is odd here.

 

This was a first to me as well.  I have been a member of the AAdvantage program for many years and this is a first for me.  What is different now than in the past is that the award pricing was not dynamic as it is today.  Also, the  the miles I paid for my SYD-LAX tickets were substantially less than what was shown on other days.  It seems that "cheap" reward tickets for anything other than coach are really difficult to find via American these days again showing the diminished value of the program today.

 

7 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

I agree. IME, confirmed award tickets are booked into confirmed space. I've had experience of booking a partner award using AA miles when the initial booking has been on request, and AA has had to wait for the operating airline to confirm the space. But that was made clear in communications, and the ticket wasn't issued until the space was confirmed.

 

It's also odd to have the operating airline demand an additional payment for the reservation and the ticket when the booking was made by and charged by the frequent flyer scheme. The only thing that I can think of that might be a plausible scenario that is QF wasn't charging for either the reservation or the ticket, but only for seat pre-allocation - which is something typically paid directly to the operating airline.

 

I wonder if there's been some confusion here between a reservation and a ticket for the flight on the one hand, and a seat allocation on the other.

 

I spent over an hour on the phone being passed back between QF and AA. I started with QF and they told me that my ticket was standby and if I wanted to confirm it I would need to spend more money.  AA basically told me that they booked the cheapest available fare and that they could do nothing more.  Finally, a QF supervisor told me they would discount the ticket based on the situation but still charged me $600 US to reissue the two tickets as confirmed space.  I was then able to select seats normally based on my Sapphire status.

 

Whether an error was made or not or there was some confusion was made regarding seat allocation or not, I was told by the QF customer service agent that I had a standby ticket.  Again, it was a super strange experience that has never happened to me in many years of travel using award tickets.

 

5 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

Agree.  Award tickets are not standby.  There’s something wrong, or some miscommunication here.

 

Could be.  Even though I called into QF twice on the same day to resolve the issue, I probably should have simply let it sit for a while rather than going along in the moment.  Not taking a "time out" in this situation where months remain until my actual flight date reflects a 3rd error that I made in booking this system.  There really was no time crunch and I could have simply waited and searched again for a suitable flight.

 

1 hour ago, CruiserBruce said:

$300 for seat allocation? For how many people?

 

$600.00 for two people.  The price actually started at $1200.00  for the two tickets after some additional discounts were applied.  Again, it was all such a crazy experience.  

Edited June 7, 2023 by SelectSys

[CruiserBruce]

This is beginning to sound like a "cash and miles" upgrade situation. Does AA do that? Doesn't sound like a good deal in this case.

[SelectSys]

3 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

This is beginning to sound like a "cash and miles" upgrade situation. Does AA do that? Doesn't sound like a good deal in this case.

It wasn't presented as such when I made the original reservation on the American website.  I actually would have been OK with that if it had been presented in a clear manner. 

 

The QF agent told me specially that I had a standby ticket.  The AA agent told me they "bought" the cheapest available ticket.

[SelectSys]

BTW - I just saw a video yesterday for a website called seats.aero which helps people find reward space on airlines.  I played around with the free version which looks out 60 days.  A paid version allows you to search out to one year or however far out airlines publish flight availability.  It looked interesting and really shows the value being able to transfer miles/points between loyalty programs.

[6rugrats]

I can see a couple days where these award seats for this routing are as low as 80,000 miles.  Very cheap.  This is still strange and I don’t understand what happened.

[Bo1953]

2 hours ago, SelectSys said:

It wasn't presented as such when I made the original reservation on the American website.  I actually would have been OK with that if it had been presented in a clear manner. 

 

The QF agent told me specially that I had a standby ticket.  The AA agent told me they "bought" the cheapest available ticket.

They sure did, it was standby... unfortunately, not clearly or explicitly told you.

 

bon voyage

[Globaliser]

44 minutes ago, 6rugrats said:

I can see a couple days where these award seats for this routing are as low as 80,000 miles.  Very cheap.  This is still strange and I don’t understand what happened.

 

The AA website says that for 80,000 miles, you get a U class seat - which is the booking class for a standard business class award.

[SelectSys]

18 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

The AA website says that for 80,000 miles, you get a U class seat - which is the booking class for a standard business class award.

 

So I want to be clear on something.  I booked a premium economy seat for 65k as business at the time was unavailable at "reasonable" cost  for my required date range.  

 

The amazing thing is that I just went back and checked my original reservation confirmation from American for the ticket and it lists booking class Z for my MEL-LAX fight.  It even says first class on the email print out!  Crazy?

 

Just to prove I am not crazy, I have looked up another 65k premium economy flight on November 6th and it returns booking class Z even though the class of service on the web site says it's a premium economy ticket.

 

Strange things are definitely afoot inside the AA reward system...

Edited June 7, 2023 by SelectSys

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

The amazing thing is that I just went back and checked my original reservation confirmation from American for the ticket and it lists booking class Z for my MEL-LAX fight.  It even says first class on the email print out!  Crazy?

 

Just to prove I am not crazy, I have looked up another 65k premium economy flight on November 6th and it returns booking class Z even though the class of service on the web site says it's a premium economy ticket.

 

I think Z class is used by QF for premium economy awards.

[SelectSys]

16 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

I think Z class is used by QF for premium economy awards.

 

Thanks.  I looked up class Z (classic premium economy reward ticket) and found the following information that may "dovetail" with the statement of QF that this is a standby ticket.  Still it just doesn't make sense to me.  I probably never should have called and everything would have been fine.

 

14.1 Classic Flight Rewards - general

14.1.1 Classic Flight Rewards are subject to airline inventory management and availability is limited. Qantas, oneworld Member Airlines and Airline Partners (including Jetstar Airlines) limit the number of Classic Flight Reward seats available to Members at their absolute discretion. The number of Classic Flight Reward seats available will depend on the flight, date, season, destination and commercial demand. Some flights may not have any Classic Flight Reward seats available. Once Classic Flight Reward seats on a flight have been filled there may be no more Classic Flight Reward seats available on that flight. Classic Flight Reward seats are booked in special classes of travel. If Classic Flight Reward seats are not available on a flight, Members may choose another flight, date or destination that has Classic Flight Reward seats available, or another Reward.

[Astro Flyer]

Checking AAdvantage Miles award travel for next spring (LAX/BNE/LAX) & the only award available is in economy (80,000 miles) on Fiji Air.

[BOB999]

Sorry but this doesn't smell right.  American doesn't have standby awards and if there was some sort of glitch that resulted in your itinerary not being ticketed then they should have fixed it for free.

 

If you don't mind sharing, what phone number did you call that charged the fee?

[SelectSys]

1 hour ago, BOB999 said:

Sorry but this doesn't smell right.  American doesn't have standby awards and if there was some sort of glitch that resulted in your itinerary not being ticketed then they should have fixed it for free.

 

If you don't mind sharing, what phone number did you call that charged the fee?

OMG - you are right.  I got scammed by looking up the # on the web.  I am glad I will have time to fix this.  I may be out the money and maybe the miles.  Now it is time to start trying to recover...  

 

First time something like this has ever happened to me...

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, SelectSys said:

OMG - you are right.  I got scammed by looking up the # on the web.  I am glad I will have time to fix this.  I may be out the money and maybe the miles.  Now it is time to start trying to recover...  

 

First time something like this has ever happened to me...

 

https://viewfromthewing.com/customers-are-getting-scammed-when-they-google-airline-phone-numbers/

 

 

[SelectSys]

So I just got off the phone first with QF, my credit card company and then finally AA.  QF told me that the ticket I had was now invalid and/or awaiting payment as my original reservation was taken over by the scammers.  The net effect of this is that I had no flight home from my cruise. That would have been a real shocker to show up at the airport or discover at check-in time that my reservation was garbage.

 

Next in talking with the credit card company I discovered that I didn't have any way of getting my money back as I had provided consent via an email.  This was my key error in terms of responding to the fake email and not seeing that the underlying email domain wasn't right.  So dumb...

 

Finally I called American and was able to cancel my first reservation that got hijacked and get the miles reinstated along with booking a very similar award ticket.  This included getting my seats reserved via the agent at no additional cost.  The American representative really went out of their way for me in getting the whole process of cancelling and rebooking handled. 

 

In hindsight, I should have recognized that the process was unlike any other airline call center experience I have ever had and that my award tickets are never result in a standby ticket.   What was I thinking?  Not much obviously...  

 

Finally, I want to thank everyone this board for questioning what was going on with my ticket.  This led me to finally discovering the fact that I had been duped by scammers.   I must confess as to feeling embarrassed by the whole episode but I suppose it could have been worse - like showing up at the airport and not being able to check in.  Hopefully at least one person here can learn something from my very hard lesson.

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by SelectSys

[Globaliser]

Thank you for letting us know what happened. I'm sorry that it happened to you, but it's a salutary lesson for all of us.