Topic Wiki

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 591821 times)

Offline moisheyb

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #980 on: February 01, 2018, 05:16:05 AM »
Does qantas show phantom cx availability?

Offline brumms56

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #981 on: March 16, 2018, 01:05:50 PM »
Anyone know how to get agents to find an Etihad flight using AA miles?

Etihad website shows guest availability, but agents don't see it. Preferably for the JFK-->AUH route.

Offline shimino1

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #982 on: April 10, 2018, 07:04:54 PM »
Does qantas show phantom cx availability?
Iv'e seen many times space on Qantas that doesn't show on BA, AS or AA.
It may be Phantom or it may match the Asia miles availability.
 

Offline moisheyb

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #983 on: April 11, 2018, 03:07:55 AM »
Iv'e seen many times space on Qantas that doesn't show on BA, AS or AA.
It may be Phantom or it may match the Asia miles availability.
Ya i never went through and booked, but I wonder if they have more seats available

Offline TAVI

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #984 on: April 28, 2018, 09:15:29 PM »
i see award availability on qantas.com (for flights operated by Latam), but called Asia Miles and they can't see it, called AA and they can't see it, BA.com doesnt show it, and alaskaair.com doesnt show it.

Can i assume its Phantom?

Offline djrat

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #985 on: May 27, 2018, 11:57:36 AM »
newbie here - what's the best way to use American Airlines miles? I have about 160k and booking intl flights seem to be very expensive. Is domestic flights the best way to go for this?

Any advice on this would be helpful

thank you

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #986 on: May 27, 2018, 06:50:05 PM »
Where do you want to go? Everything has its uses..

Offline KidOOO

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #987 on: May 27, 2018, 08:27:55 PM »
First Question - I want to book JFK - AUH - MLE with AA miles, it will be 1 pax in F, 3 in J and one infant

rep told me F and J cannot be on the same itinerary. so which one of these 2 would make more sense to do in terms of future flexibility with changes/cancellations?

A. one RT booking in F for one pax, and one RT booking in J for 3 pax + infant
B. 4 one way bookings, same as above but to split into one ways


Second Question - does anyone know if the close-in trick for united works for AA as well? i.e book more than 21 ahead than changed date within 21 days without getting charged the $75 fee

Third question - anyone know how much AA will charge for infant flying in EY J ?
« Last Edit: May 27, 2018, 08:36:49 PM by KidOOO »

Offline lubaby

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #988 on: May 27, 2018, 09:41:15 PM »
First Question - I want to book JFK - AUH - MLE with AA miles, it will be 1 pax in F, 3 in J and one infant

rep told me F and J cannot be on the same itinerary. so which one of these 2 would make more sense to do in terms of future flexibility with changes/cancellations?

A. one RT booking in F for one pax, and one RT booking in J for 3 pax + infant
B. 4 one way bookings, same as above but to split into one ways


Second Question - does anyone know if the close-in trick for united works for AA as well? i.e book more than 21 ahead than changed date within 21 days without getting charged the $75 fee

Third question - anyone know how much AA will charge for infant flying in EY J ?
2) It does not.

3) 10% of published.

Offline Eru Ilúvatar

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #989 on: May 30, 2018, 11:07:22 AM »
For an NYC - TLV award in economy, how much YQ (and other fees) does BA charge? How much if booked using asia miles?

Offline hvaces42

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #990 on: May 30, 2018, 01:52:30 PM »
For an NYC - TLV award in economy, how much YQ (and other fees) does BA charge? How much if booked using asia miles?
Look on ITA
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Offline zemz2005

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #991 on: June 03, 2018, 03:12:08 PM »
im trying to book a trip to Israelusing my British points.  I found oneworld  availability on Qantas website through ELAL. Can i book this using British miles?

Offline hvaces42

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #992 on: June 03, 2018, 03:13:50 PM »
im trying to book a trip to Israelusing my British points.  I found oneworld  availability on Qantas website through ELAL. Can i book this using British miles?
no
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Offline buenos naches

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FYI
« Reply #993 on: June 27, 2018, 07:22:00 PM »
Probably not important enough for the WIKI, but I found this interesting. 

AA.com award searches may show awards with layovers of up to 23:59, while paid ticket searches only show stops of up to 4 hours.  If you want to see the price of an AA award in $ with a longer-than-4-hour stop, use the multi-city search tool (click on "Plan Travel", then "Flights"

Offline efflpetzel

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #994 on: June 29, 2018, 02:03:27 PM »
Whats the best way to search LATAM award availability for domestic Brazil flights?

AA, BA & Qantas don't seem to work

Online Joe4007

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #995 on: June 29, 2018, 06:04:50 PM »
Whats the best way to search LATAM award availability for domestic Brazil flights?

AA, BA & Qantas don't seem to work
You sure they don't work? Perhaps there's no availability.

I used BA in the past.

Offline jose34

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #996 on: August 08, 2018, 10:53:10 AM »
If I needed to fly in a week or so and I was looking to fly Alaska using BA Avios how likely is it the award availability will open up?

Should I just fly a different flight or is still safe to wait a few more days?

Offline gamblord

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #997 on: August 21, 2018, 09:31:36 PM »
If I needed to fly in a week or so and I was looking to fly Alaska using BA Avios how likely is it the award availability will open up?

Should I just fly a different flight or is still safe to wait a few more days?

50/50.  If you find something else acceptable, book it.

Offline farmbochur

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #998 on: October 03, 2018, 02:04:19 PM »
Has AA started blacking out saver availability within 2 weeks?

I've been monitoring PIT-NYC over the last couple weeks. There seems to consistently be plenty of availability for many dates, but it all disappears once I'm within 14 days.
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Offline ludmila

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #999 on: October 03, 2018, 05:18:21 PM »
Has AA started blacking out saver availability within 2 weeks?

I've been monitoring PIT-NYC over the last couple weeks. There seems to consistently be plenty of availability for many dates, but it all disappears once I'm within 14 days.
I just booked a within 7 days RT last night, though flying out of IND.
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