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In general, search on AA.com for award availability.

BA
If you want to book a flight with Avios, it is known from Dan's Knowledgebase that BA.com doesn't show availability very well, but some flights definitely are searchable there. Nonetheless, it's easier to just search AA.com, and if you find a MileSAAver availability, check BA.com to see if it shows up there, too. If it does, book it there. If it doesn't, you can always call up BA and reference the flight you found. Note that there is usually a very long hold time before BA picks up, and they will charge a phone booking fee. If the flight was unsearchable on BA.com, try fighting that fee, but YMMV.

IB
IB availability will not show up on AA.com You can call AA to find IB availability, but it's hard without being able to browse dates and have to ask the rep to check flights over the phone. Searching on Qantas.com will show IB flights - supposedly if they appear there, they can then be booked by calling AA.

OneWorld Explorer [OWE] The OWE has officially been cancelled [4/8/14] as part of the latest AA no-warning changing to its award program. Here's what the OWE looked like:
This is an around-the-world [RTW] award that is calculated not by the mileage cost of specific flights, but rather by the actual distance travelled on your trip. It is especially valuable for flying business class, as the difference in miles needed between coach and business is not very great on longer trips. See this chart to see the different tiers of how many miles it costs to travel different distances. You can take up to 16 segments on a trip, but there are MANY rules to follow when booking such an award.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time when planning this trip. (Personally [@Yehuda], it took 2 months with a few weeks of break in the middle from frustration.) Availability changes everyday, so you need to constantly check back to see if flights you needed are now available. It will also likely require changing your itinerary/order of stops numerous times. An itinerary can be held for 5 days (and can be extended past that on Day 5, if they are willing to rebook each flight for you, getting you another 5 days), but itineraries with IB flights can usually only be held for 24 hours. You will find that you will have to use hub airports since you're limited to OW partners. You will not find a flight from CDG-FCO without either stopping off in LON or MAD - both of which are out of the way. It's unfortunate, as it adds unnecessary distance miles to your trip, but it can be done. Remember that BA flights have high YQ, IB/AB have semi-high YQ, US/AA have very little YQ. (Unsure about other airlines, as my trip was TLV-Europe-NYC, so those were the only airline I had to work with.) You should check flight availability, again, on AA.com but the ticket must be booked on the phone (and they will charge a $25 phone booking fee, but again, try to fight it since this ticket cannot be booked online - although, honestly, by the time you've ticketed, they will likely have helped you out with much more than $25 worth of time). Technically, you can book it with any OW partner, but the odds are you probably only have enough AA miles to book this trip. AA reps definitely know about this award, although most have never booked it before. You will find that after calling so many times, you'll know more about the rules than they do. Once you have your perfect itinerary, they will have to send it to their rate desk to price it out. This can take ~24 hours. Because it takes time, if you have IB flights on the itinerary, they will make sure IB allows the flights to be held for longer than 24 hours, but confirm this with the rep before you hang up. Once it's priced out, you can pay for it. You can use 2 or more AA accounts to pay for it, but they will require each account to have enough miles to pay for 1 ticket. (e.g. If it costs 80K pax and you have 2 pax, they won't ask you to have 1 account with 160K in it, but they will require 2 accounts with at least 80K in each.)

Feel free to contact @Yehuda with any questions regarding the OWE.

« Last edited by AJK on July 27, 2014, 04:45:43 PM »

Author Topic: One World Award Search Tips  (Read 591844 times)

Offline bb1836

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #580 on: December 11, 2014, 08:04:55 PM »
Looking for Jfk to lax 1/15-1/20
Need help pls! Either I'm searching wrong or everything is really unavailable
As @davidmal says: "Likes" feed the family

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #581 on: December 11, 2014, 08:08:34 PM »
Looking for Jfk to lax 1/15-1/20
Need help pls! Either I'm searching wrong or everything is really unavailable

Clearly searching wrong.



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Offline upside down

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #582 on: December 16, 2014, 11:32:13 PM »
sorry for the noob question, does AA allow one way domestic award tickets for 12.5k or only roundtrip? thank you

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #583 on: December 16, 2014, 11:44:05 PM »
sorry for the noob question, does AA allow one way domestic award tickets for 12.5k or only roundtrip? thank you
They allow OW.
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Offline upside down

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #584 on: December 17, 2014, 08:00:57 AM »
Thank you

Offline deusconsilio

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #585 on: December 18, 2014, 12:54:37 PM »
$100 Reward via Paypal for assistance here. AJK can vouch for me.

Trying to get from NYC to New Zealand round trip using AA points. My wife and I have just over 145,000 AA a piece.  I'm getting out of the points game and want to go out with a bang, but I don't have the time or the energy to find the right routes. I know the LAX-SYD route via Quantas is impossible. My wife and I are very flexible.

Free advice is great, but $100 goes to the person who recommends a round trip route that results in a reservation. Route standards:
1. Includes a "top 2" 1st class experience for anything in excess of 8 hours. If necessary, we are happy to do business anything <8hrs>3hrs, and we will do economy for any flight less than 3 hours
2. 3 weeks in NZ
3. Preference for End of Feb-March, but may accept anything that works since we have our hearts set on NZ.

Feel free to message me directly.

Offline sruly101

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #586 on: December 29, 2014, 12:49:42 PM »
Dont know if this belongs here, tell me if not!

Wanna cancel or change a leg on my AA award reservation, a flight on BA, they are asking me in any case a $150 fee,  is there a way around it, as Im not canceling the entire ticket just the last leg? (and I wanna do it as the taxes are more then $150 ;))

TIA

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #587 on: December 29, 2014, 12:51:06 PM »
Ar
Dont know if this belongs here, tell me if not!

Wanna cancel or change a leg on my AA award reservation, a flight on BA, they are asking me in any case a $150 fee,  is there a way around it, as Im not canceling the entire ticket just the last leg? (and I wanna do it as the taxes are more then $150 ;))

TIA
Are you changing orig/dest?
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Offline sruly101

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #588 on: December 29, 2014, 12:51:48 PM »
Changing destination

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #589 on: December 29, 2014, 12:53:28 PM »
Changing destination
Then you have to pay.
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Offline sruly101

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #590 on: December 29, 2014, 12:56:50 PM »
 :'( :'(

No way around it :-[

Offline nobiggy

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #591 on: December 29, 2014, 02:51:15 PM »
If I book on EY and want to change the flight to a different airline say QF but same departure and arrival city is their a charge? (Is EY fully part of OW)
Does QF F open up closer to the date? (LHR-SIN)

Offline dovmongi

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #592 on: December 30, 2014, 03:11:49 AM »
First post to these forums so I hope this is a right place for this:

I'm trying to book a flight from Buenos Aires (AEP) to El Calafate (FTE) as part of a larger Aadvantage award originating in the US (terminating in El Calafate).
I did the ol' check LAN availability on the BA Avios site trick and see the perfect flight with 7 seats available.

BUT when I try to tack that leg on to my journey calling Aadvantage gold desk, they say there's no award availability for that route leg that day. What gives? Has LAN given availability to BA that it hasn't given to other alliance members?

Incidentally, it's also weird that the AA rep was able to see the same flight I was seeing on BA.com (LA4434) BUT with a different time than what BA shows. (ExperFlyer agrees with what AA rep told me).

So any idea what's going on? And any idea how likely it is to get that leg tacked on to my AA award ticket?

Offline KidOOO

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #593 on: December 31, 2014, 01:00:24 AM »
Is there anyway to avoid the $75 AA close in fee, without status?

Offline KidOOO

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #594 on: December 31, 2014, 10:41:48 AM »
I see a USAir flight available on AA as saver business, however on BA.com won't show up

i called them and the agent insist she doesn't see any seats on that flights, what could be the reason for this?

EDIT: Never mind, HUCA worked as usual.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 11:01:24 AM by KidOOO »

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #595 on: January 15, 2015, 01:54:54 PM »
How do I search for CX flights using KVS Tool being that I need a membership number and CX charges to join?

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #596 on: January 15, 2015, 02:44:22 PM »
How do I search for CX flights using KVS Tool being that I need a membership number and CX charges to join?

BA Oneworld.
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Offline nobiggy

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #597 on: January 15, 2015, 02:46:42 PM »
BA Oneworld.
I know. I thought there might be a work around to do it on KVS.
Thanks for the help.

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #598 on: January 15, 2015, 02:50:23 PM »
I am talking about KVS.
2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #599 on: January 15, 2015, 02:52:31 PM »
I am talking about KVS.
Thanks got it,it works!
I was using Awards/Oneworld.