AA: No J-class cabin question

[t-bug]

Hi,
I have booked an award (on hold) with AA miles from SYD-SCL-xx_. First leg J class on LAN and the latter Y class on TAM. AA priced this at 60,000 miles. 50,000 miles for the SYD-SCL on J and 10,000 for the SCL-xx_ on Y class. I was told because there was no J cabin operated on the SCL-xx_ leg that the SCL-xx_ had been priced as a separate leg because it’s a different class as the first SYD-SCL leg (J class). It would have priced out at 50,000 miles for the complete SYD-SCL-xx_ trip had the SCL-xx_ leg been also J class. So I would be effectively paying an extra 10,000 miles for an inferior SCL-xx_ leg in Y class. How can that be!

I later searched again on the BA site and found a flight in F class for the SCL-xx_ leg but no J class operated on that flight. I also found on the AA site a link for Award Details which says (under the Business/First MileSAAver column): If a Business Class cabin does not exist, this award is valid for travel in First Class. So does that mean that I should be able to book the SCL-xx_ leg in F class (and treat that as a J class seat since no J class cabin was operated on that flight) and only incur 50,000 miles instead of the 60,000 miles booking that I have on hold?

Does anyone have any similar experience? Any other options anyone can think of? I don’t really fancy paying more miles for the “privilege” of a leg in Y class!

 

[drron]

Yes you should get the F if on an AA award.If QF it will be Y.
I have done a J Aaward Quito-MIA-DFW but all on AA.The 1st leg was J,MIA-DFW was F.

PS.I should add that your second leg is not on AA and presumably intra South America.Might not be the same rule.However you should definitely not have to pay the extra 10000 miles as long as SCL not a stopover.

 

[t-bug]

Yes you should get the F if on an AA award.If QF it will be Y.
I have done a J Aaward Quito-MIA-DFW but all on AA.The 1st leg was J,MIA-DFW was F.

PS.I should add that your second leg is not on AA and presumably intra South America.Might not be the same rule.However you should definitely not have to pay the extra 10000 miles as long as SCL not a stopover.

Just to clarify, the 2nd leg is AA (OW on TAM) and SCL not a stopover. Region-wise, it's basically South Pacific to South America Region 2. So hopefully you're right about the F class. I'll call AA to confirm.
Thanks.

 

[Jobeki111]

I had just this experience. I put an F apartment with Etihad from Syd-Auh then Y Auh-mal on hold. First call to put the flight on hold was great. She knew what she was doing. Said the price is coming up incorrectly on their system (on her own initiative not through me questioning) and talked to her manager and got it corrected... so I put it on hold. Bought the miles and called back to make the payment and was told it was counted as 2 legs (ie 60000 for f apartment and 17500 for Y even though they are both in the Middle East zone). I told them what there award chart indicated and that I had specifically asked during the first call if I could make a split class booking and how many miles I needed to buy. On that advice, I had purchased the number of miles specifically based on what I was told on the first occasion when putting the flights on hold. He checked with his managers and an hour later :S it was all sorted . 120000 AA miles for 2 F Etihad suites Syd-auh and 2 Y Auh-mal... Honeymoon to the Maldives sorted

 

[t-bug]

I had just this experience. I put an F apartment with Etihad from Syd-Auh then Y Auh-mal on hold. First call to put the flight on hold was great. She knew what she was doing. Said the price is coming up incorrectly on their system (on her own initiative not through me questioning) and talked to her manager and got it corrected... so I put it on hold. Bought the miles and called back to make the payment and was told it was counted as 2 legs (ie 60000 for f apartment and 17500 for Y even though they are both in the Middle East zone). I told them what there award chart indicated and that I had specifically asked during the first call if I could make a split class booking and how many miles I needed to buy. On that advice, I had purchased the number of miles specifically based on what I was told on the first occasion when putting the flights on hold. He checked with his managers and an hour later :S it was all sorted . 120000 AA miles for 2 F Etihad suites Syd-auh and 2 Y Auh-mal... Honeymoon to the Maldives sorted

Thanks for sharing and great to hear it turned out right for you. Hope I get similar results!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Are you sure the original routing was a valid award for a single redemption? Mixed class awards aren't usually a problem, provided the award itself is 'legal'. Plenty of times I've sandwiched business to first and then back to business on the final leg (but paid the full F pricing end-to-end).

 

[t-bug]

Are you sure the original routing was a valid award for a single redemption? Mixed class awards aren't usually a problem, provided the award itself is 'legal'. Plenty of times I've sandwiched business to first and then back to business on the final leg (but paid the full F pricing end-to-end).

Not sure what's a valid award? Region-wise, it's basically South Pacific to South America Region 2 with no other intervening regions, and no stopovers. The last leg was priced at 10,000 miles, SCL-GRU on Y. So the complete one way travel SYD-AKL-SCL on J then SCL-GRU on Y.
Should be a valid award? and was it incorrect of AA to price the last Y leg separately?
Thanks.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not sure what's a valid award? Region-wise, it's basically South Pacific to South America Region 2 with no other intervening regions, and no stopovers. The last leg was priced at 10,000 miles, SCL-GRU on Y. So the complete one way travel SYD-AKL-SCL on J then SCL-GRU on Y.
Should be a valid award? and was it incorrect of AA to price the last Y leg separately?
Thanks.

I'm no expert on AAwards... and don't have access to paid award tools to help with the answer on this one... but from what I understand... LAN needs to have a published fare SYD-GRU in order for you to take advantage of the through fare...otherwise AA will construct the ticket for you as two separate awards.

I note on the LAN website they do have connections on TAM via SLC... however those seem to book onto the LAN codeshare, not the TAM flight number... and codeshares can't usually be booked for award travel.

I'm not sure whether the agent is giving you the correct reason why they want to break the award into two parts.

There seems to be one connection LAN->LAN, and the booking tool is showing that as business class -> premium economy. And premium economy can't be booked for AA awards.

 

[Nizar]

I had just this experience. I put an F apartment with Etihad from Syd-Auh then Y Auh-mal on hold. First call to put the flight on hold was great. She knew what she was doing. Said the price is coming up incorrectly on their system (on her own initiative not through me questioning) and talked to her manager and got it corrected... so I put it on hold. Bought the miles and called back to make the payment and was told it was counted as 2 legs (ie 60000 for f apartment and 17500 for Y even though they are both in the Middle East zone). I told them what there award chart indicated and that I had specifically asked during the first call if I could make a split class booking and how many miles I needed to buy. On that advice, I had purchased the number of miles specifically based on what I was told on the first occasion when putting the flights on hold. He checked with his managers and an hour later :S it was all sorted . 120000 AA miles for 2 F Etihad suites Syd-auh and 2 Y Auh-mal... Honeymoon to the Maldives sorted

For the same number of miles couldn't you could have flown J on the AUH-MLE flight ?
Or was the J cabin unavailable on the day you wanted to fly ?

 

[Jobeki111]

No J on the auh-mle for my date