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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 591785 times)

Offline MEIR613

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #240 on: April 06, 2014, 09:25:46 AM »
If that was sarcastic, I didn't mean that exact wording obviously.
If it wasn't, I tried variations of that 3-4 times and nada.
If it's really worth your time and effort, try a sup told me....

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #241 on: April 06, 2014, 10:30:28 AM »
If it's really worth your time and effort, try a sup told me....
Ehh... http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=12784.0 ;)

Offline MEIR613

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #242 on: April 06, 2014, 08:27:31 PM »
AS can't see all of CX.

Seems if it's available on BA then AS can see it, but if not even though on KVS and QF it's there, reps can't see it.


Offline davidd75

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #243 on: April 08, 2014, 09:22:11 AM »
Dan has mentioned before I believe that BA website only displays nonstop flights but don't they also show AB flights nyc -tlv which always have a stop over?  Did he mean that BA website only displays nonstop us domestic flights ?

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #244 on: April 08, 2014, 09:32:47 AM »
Dan has mentioned before I believe that BA website only displays nonstop flights but don't they also show AB flights nyc -tlv which always have a stop over?  Did he mean that BA website only displays nonstop us domestic flights ?
He said that they don't deserve a A+ for showing stopovers. That's all.
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline davidd75

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #245 on: April 08, 2014, 12:47:58 PM »
He said that they don't deserve a A+ for showing stopovers. That's all.

so BA website show flights with stops both international and domestic routes? because when I searched flights on AA.com  there was both nonstop and flights with stopvers on same route and date but when I searched  BA for same dates and routes only the nonstop showed on BA website

Offline aradisc

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #246 on: April 08, 2014, 10:03:30 PM »
Is there a such thing as married segments on award tickets? There's a CX routing with a connection that I found using the KVS tool JL-OneWorld method that lists business award availablity for both segments of a one-way (HND-HKG-DXB) but the second flight does not have availability when searched by itself. I verified this is also searchable on the JL site. Is this phantom availability, or is it actually a married award pair?

I tried to book with AA over the phone but they said that they couldn't book it because there was no availability on the second segment. Even if potentially CX releases award space to JL that it doesn't give to everyone else, why would the second segment show no availability when searched individually on JL?

I ended up making other arrangements, but I'm curious for future reference whether this really exists and what I could tell the AA rep to book it.

Offline jaywhy

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #247 on: April 08, 2014, 10:15:45 PM »
Is there a such thing as married segments on award tickets? There's a CX routing with a connection that I found using the KVS tool JL-OneWorld method that lists business award availablity for both segments of a one-way (HND-HKG-DXB) but the second flight does not have availability when searched by itself. I verified this is also searchable on the JL site. Is this phantom availability, or is it actually a married award pair?

I tried to book with AA over the phone but they said that they couldn't book it because there was no availability on the second segment. Even if potentially CX releases award space to JL that it doesn't give to everyone else, why would the second segment show no availability when searched individually on JL?

I ended up making other arrangements, but I'm curious for future reference whether this really exists and what I could tell the AA rep to book it.
Rare but it exists.
Especially with CX and EK.

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #248 on: April 08, 2014, 10:16:18 PM »
Is there a such thing as married segments on award tickets? There's a CX routing with a connection that I found using the KVS tool JL-OneWorld method that lists business award availablity for both segments of a one-way (HND-HKG-DXB) but the second flight does not have availability when searched by itself. I verified this is also searchable on the JL site. Is this phantom availability, or is it actually a married award pair?

I tried to book with AA over the phone but they said that they couldn't book it because there was no availability on the second segment. Even if potentially CX releases award space to JL that it doesn't give to everyone else, why would the second segment show no availability when searched individually on JL?

I ended up making other arrangements, but I'm curious for future reference whether this really exists and what I could tell the AA rep to book it.
With other airlines like KLM there is such a thing. So it's very possible that CX has the same policy.
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline DXD

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #249 on: April 09, 2014, 10:58:06 AM »
Quick question for the group:

My wife and I are trying to price out an east Asia trip in June. We are looking to use oneworld for at least a part of it.

For travel within Asia, what are some suggested research avenues. AA.com doesn't show anything within Asia. BA.com actually shows quite a bit, but we would like to play with routing (i.e. see if we can get a 23 hour stopover somewhere on the way) instead of dealing with BA.com per segment pricing. Any other sites to look into?

Thanks in advance!

Offline jaywhy

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #250 on: April 09, 2014, 11:17:16 AM »
Quick question for the group:

My wife and I are trying to price out an east Asia trip in June. We are looking to use oneworld for at least a part of it.

For travel within Asia, what are some suggested research avenues. AA.com doesn't show anything within Asia. BA.com actually shows quite a bit, but we would like to play with routing (i.e. see if we can get a 23 hour stopover somewhere on the way) instead of dealing with BA.com per segment pricing. Any other sites to look into?

Thanks in advance!
Stopovers don't matter with BA. It's distance based per segment.

Offline aradisc

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #251 on: April 09, 2014, 06:29:53 PM »
Rare but it exists.
Especially with CX and EK.

Any way to book these with AA?

Offline DXD

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #252 on: April 11, 2014, 12:16:58 PM »
Stopovers don't matter with BA. It's distance based per segment.

Yes - correct. We are trying to do short stopovers (for instance last summer we booked Air Berlin with AA miles that had a 23.5 hour stopover in Berlin. Any other avenues besides aa.com for oneworld travel within Asia?

Offline jaywhy

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #253 on: April 26, 2014, 10:24:31 PM »
Anyone flown Finnair A330 J?
How was?

Offline ilherman

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #254 on: May 05, 2014, 01:06:13 AM »
I know they are not a part of OW, but where can I search for Jet airways availability?
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline davidd75

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #255 on: May 05, 2014, 01:18:47 PM »
AA wants to charge me 75$ fee for booking with 21 days of flight per passenger anyway to avoid fee?

also I am trying to find award flights from NYC, phl to TLV week of May 11 but not much success I have UA points, flying blue and avios it appears flights to israel are harder to find this week and next then flights from israel?

Offline bobzilla

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #256 on: May 05, 2014, 01:22:54 PM »

AA wants to charge me 75$ fee for booking with 21 days of flight per passenger anyway to avoid fee?


Try booking for a later date, then wait a few days and call to change the dates, they might not charge you...

Offline DXD

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #257 on: May 05, 2014, 09:48:23 PM »
Question about booking through AA - will the reps let me book by parts.

For example I am seeing SaverAward availability ORD -> CLT and then CLT -> BCN. However, when I search ORD -> BCN, I get nothing. Is there a way around it?

Thanks!

Offline Ez

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #258 on: May 05, 2014, 10:57:53 PM »
Try booking for a later date, then wait a few days and call to change the dates, they might not charge you...
Very small chance it'll work, their system is hard coded to charge that fee :(

Offline Dr Moose

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #259 on: May 05, 2014, 11:28:46 PM »
Try booking for a later date, then wait a few days and call to change the dates, they might not charge you...
IINM there's also a fee to change a flight
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