OW and AA all partner award questions

[tsergori]

Hi all

I'm contemplating the following award booking (2 seats) and have quite a few questions for you experts out there.

CBR-SYD (QF J or Y)
SYD-BKK (BA F)
BKK-HKG (CX F or J)
HKG-YVR (CX F or J ... quite hard to find 2 F seats on the dates I prefer)
YVR-NRT (JL J ... no F on this leg)
NRT-SYD (JL J ... no F on this leg)
SYD-CBR (QF J or Y)

Mileage monkey shows that this is 21958 miles and so the award booking would be either OW150C or OW230F.

The only segment that I really want in F is SYD-BKK (BA) so we can use the wonderful QF first lounge in SYD . We would be happy in J for the rest of the trip. And we'd probably be ok in Y for the CBR-SYD legs since they are so short and the J seat are nothing special (the main benefit for J would be the increased luggage allowance).

So, could I book the CBR-SYD (J or Y) SYD-BKK (F) legs as an AA all partner award for 45K and the rest of the trip (BKK-HGK-YVR-NRT-SYD-CBR = 16071 miles) as OW130C for a total of 175K? While this is slightly higher than the OW150C, it is lower than the OW230F where realistically the only F flight other than SYD-BKK would be relatively short BKK-HKG leg (too hard to get HKG-YVR in F on CX). I'm based in Australia, so would there be any issues with booking an award that starts in BKK?

For availability, I've been using (1) the QF website to search for the QF+BF legs, (2) the Asiamiles website to search for the CX legs and (3) the JL website to search for the JL legs. If seats are available on these websites, will AA be able to see them too? (The only other booking I've made was CBR-SYD-BKK return on QF/BA and AA had no problems seeing the availability that I found on the QF website.)

SYD is the only city I will go through twice, so I am aware that I can only "stopover" once and must "connect" the other time. Are there any problems with my proposed routing?

I'm an AA plat member and usually call AA in the US. I've occasionally called the Australian AA number. Who would you call to book this trip? AA plat line in the US, AA round the world number in the US or the Australian AA number?

We also plan to fly from BKK-HAN-BKK using air asia. If for some reason we are delayed and miss our BKK-HKG flight, what are the consequences? I suspect the rest of the flights might get cancelled

In my infinite paranoia of JL going bust or major schedule changes or cancellations, in addition to the two bookings below ...
(1) CBR-SYD (QF), SYD-BKK (BA) as an all partner award
(2) BKK-HKG-YVR-NRT-SYD-CBR as a OW award
... I'm also thinking about booking
(3) BKK-SYD (BA), SYD-CBR (QF) as an all partner award. This is "plan B" in the event that JL goes bust or JL/CX make major schedule changes that make the booking (2) above unfeasible.
As the trip gets closer, I would then choose between (2) or (3) and cancel the other. I would therefore be holding two different awards that both involve flying out of BKK (but on possibly different days). Are there any problems with this plan?

Thanks in advance for any and all answers and comments!

Cheers

 

[drron]

Splitting into 2 awards should present no problems,not a bad idea if really only the one sector you want in F.Then of course absolutely no problems if you want to stopover in SYD twice.
JAL is not going to cease services(other than sectors already announced) anytime soon.Both AA and DL are still in there offering support.
The last Aaward I did I rang BNE.The fellow did a great job,efficient,helpful and friendly.Was able to access QF award seats not seen on the QF site(BKK-SYD).
No problems booking an Aaward from BKK.I have done it commencing NRT.
I certainly would make sure there was extra time in BKK if coming back Air asia.I would be coming back into BKK a day or 2 before my HKG flight but then i am type A and any excuse to stay in BKK is gladly accepted.
And welcome to AFF.

 

[NM]

Where do you want the stopovers?

You could book the whole itinerary as a OneWorld award. Of you cold book it as a series of one-way awards. There is no difference as far as booking is concerned. Can all be booked at the same time as multiple one-way awards.

I found in a recent AAward booking that it was cheaper to use 3 x one-way awards (one J and two F) rather than a single OneWorld F award.

Personally I would not be concerned about JL going broke and being stuck. But you may interpret the risks differently.

 

[Dave Noble]

The only issue I would see with the plan is if you are not planning to stopover in BKK in which case I would just be careful to allow enough time for connecting since, being on separate tickets, the protections of a through ticket would not apply

Otherwise, seems a perfectly valid approach

Dave

 

[Maca44]

Don't cut me down in flames, but would there be two award seats in F?

 

[tsergori]

Many thanks for all the helpful responses! Good to hear that people are confident that JL will continue.

NM: The stopovers would be BKK (about a week, including time in Hanoi), HKG (1-2 nights), YVR (about a week), NRT (1-2 nights) and possibly SYD on the way out (well a 5-7 hour layover to use the F lounge). In this case, I think a OW award is better value than a bunch of separate one-way awards.

Dave Noble: What does the "protections of a through ticket" mean? I assume that means that on a series of flights on a given award, e.g., A-B-C-D, that if say B-C is delayed, then the C-D flight would be rescheduled rather than the entire ticket being cancelled. Is this correct? So in my proposed scenario, what would happen if I missed the first leg (BKK-HKG) of the 2nd award (the one that would be BKK-HKG-YVR-NRT-SYD-CBR? Would the entire award be cancelled? If so, then perhaps I'll add extra contingency time in BKK on the way out as drron suggests.

drron: Is the BNE number 7 332 96060? The last time I called the Australian AA number (2 years ago perhaps), I think it was a 1800 or 1300 number, and after being on hold for 15+ min, I think I talked to someone in India. The quality of the phone line, and agent, was very poor, which was why I generally call the US numbers. I'll try the BNE number next time.

Maca44: For the segments with F, the SYD-BKK shows reasonable availability for 2 seats, as does BKK-HKG. But HKG-YVR has limited availability.

Thanks again

Cheers

 

[Dave Noble]

Dave Noble: What does the "protections of a through ticket" mean? I assume that means that on a series of flights on a given award, e.g., A-B-C-D, that if say B-C is delayed, then the C-D flight would be rescheduled rather than the entire ticket being cancelled. Is this correct? So in my proposed scenario, what would happen if I missed the first leg (BKK-HKG) of the 2nd award (the one that would be BKK-HKG-YVR-NRT-SYD-CBR? Would the entire award be cancelled? If so, then perhaps I'll add extra contingency time in BKK on the way out as drron suggests.

If you have a single ticket A-B-C , then if the A-B flight is delayed and you miss the connection then the airline is required to sort out getting you from B-C

If you book 2 tickets, A-B and B-C , then if the A-B flight is delayed, then the airline is under no obligation to assist you getting to C since their responsibility ends at B; if they decide not to assist you will then have to go back to AA and see whether they can get award availability for another day

I never book separate ticket trips without allowing ample time for contingencies and normally only do it if I have an overnight stop

As far as booking / making changes go, I always use the AA desk in the USA; they are much more conversant on rules of awards and a lot easier to deal with; I would book with the US desk and then just pay through the AU or UK desk

Dave

 

[drron]

Yes that is the number.A couple of years ago AA moved their call centre back to Australia.The major problem is that it can still take a while on hold.I used to ring the US but in March this year I wanted a points upgrade J-F on JFK-FRA.Rang BNE,got a male(sorry I dont remember his name) and he had me confirmed for the 2 of us within 10 minutes-and that was because only 1 upgrade available and he got through to the US to have the second released.
Soon after I got the same fellow booking a simple BNE-NRT-BKK-SYD-BNE j Aaward.Took him 10 minutes getting me the days I wanted on the flights I wanted.QF couldn't do that(using mrsdrron's account as she was then SG.).So I got JAL to NRT and QF2 from BKK whereas QF wanted me to do JQ to NRT and BA9 from BKK.Not only that but he did it as 3 one way awards as that was 5000 miles cheaper than a OW award so he was certainly on the ball as to award rules.
So my experience with BNE has been just as good as ringing the US.

 

[NM]

Don't cut me down in flames, but would there be two award seats in F?

Earlier this year I had no major problems finding two F award seats on BA BKK-SYD and on CX HKG-BKK.