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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 591847 times)

Offline Hershelsdeals

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #780 on: December 07, 2015, 10:52:34 AM »

Offline benjie1305

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #781 on: December 07, 2015, 10:53:57 AM »
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Offline rileywiles23

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #782 on: December 07, 2015, 01:06:25 PM »
How come at times, when I search BA, the first class option won't even show up, and other times it will show up albeit with zero availability ?
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Offline benjie1305

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #783 on: December 07, 2015, 01:07:47 PM »
How come at times, when I search BA, the first class option won't even show up, and other times it will show up albeit with zero availability ?

Got to make sure when searching to select "First" as your class. Won't show up if you select Economy for example.
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Offline D93

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #784 on: December 07, 2015, 01:08:28 PM »
How come at times, when I search BA, the first class option won't even show up, and other times it will show up albeit with zero availability ?

If it's a 4 cabin plane, F won't show up unless you select "First" on the search page

Offline rediplus

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #785 on: December 07, 2015, 05:50:46 PM »
trying to burn 200k AA miles to get out of tlv to Asia or europe without going through amman. any suggestions?
« Last Edit: December 07, 2015, 05:56:15 PM by rediplus »

Offline D93

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #786 on: December 07, 2015, 06:08:14 PM »
trying to burn 200k AA miles to get out of tlv to Asia or europe without going through amman. any suggestions?

What's the issue with flying through Amman?

But to answer your question. There's no way to use AA miles ex-TLV to go to Asia on 1 award without flying TLV-AMM.

Offline rediplus

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #787 on: December 08, 2015, 09:51:53 AM »
my wife is too nervous to fly through amman.

Offline D93

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #788 on: December 08, 2015, 10:18:31 AM »
my wife is too nervous to fly through amman.

Why?

Offline benjie1305

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #789 on: December 08, 2015, 10:28:16 AM »
Why?

We have a thread for that.  :P
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Offline philbenjoe

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #790 on: December 24, 2015, 02:22:57 PM »
Is there any way to go from EWR-YYZ with AA miles? Trying to connect it to a HKG-EWR trip.
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Offline D93

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #791 on: December 24, 2015, 05:53:09 PM »
Is there any way to go from EWR-YYZ with AA miles? Trying to connect it to a HKG-EWR trip.

No

Offline SLMYRCB

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #792 on: December 27, 2015, 07:09:25 AM »
What is this?

Offline philbenjoe

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #793 on: December 28, 2015, 01:06:30 AM »
I've seen that too on the BA site.
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Offline D93

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #794 on: December 28, 2015, 01:59:56 AM »
I've seen that too on the BA site.

That screenshot is the BA site.

Offline SLMYRCB

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #795 on: December 28, 2015, 02:42:56 AM »
Is it a glitch or a fifth freedom type of thing?
I do see that its their only flight on that route which is operated on the A330 as opposed to the 777.

Offline Joe4007

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #796 on: December 28, 2015, 08:56:13 AM »
Is it a glitch or a fifth freedom type of thing?
I do see that its their only flight on that route which is operated on the A330 as opposed to the 777.
Seems like a glitch.

Offline Marco Polo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #797 on: January 04, 2016, 09:40:39 AM »
Trying to find MLE-DOH but nothing showing on BA. Any other place to check for that space?
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Offline benjie1305

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #798 on: January 04, 2016, 09:44:25 AM »
Trying to find MLE-DOH but nothing showing on BA. Any other place to check for that space?

No. Only QR flies that route > BA.com
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Offline Marco Polo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #799 on: January 04, 2016, 09:47:07 AM »
No. Only QR flies that route > BA.com
I don't see any space in anything on that route now.
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