Hi Matt - my wife is a QF Platinum and we're looking at using AA points to book flights QF (EK) 8425/8149, PER/DXB/AMS flying 05SEP16. There are only F4 and A4 seats available in F, and 7 each of J,C,D,I. Assuming I can get AA to book two of the J seats, could I then waitlist as suggested by token01 above for any available F seat? I appreciate it is an EK aircraft but has the code share flight numbers.
Hi Franky,
I'm afraid you are making a couple of incorrect assumptions here. The first is that you'll be able to use AA points for an Emirates flight. Even though the flights you are looking at have Qantas codes available, they are on Emirates "metal". When it comes to award bookings, codeshares are not relevant - as AA is not an EK partner, you can't use AA points to book these flights. You could, however use QF points to book as Qantas is an Emirates partner.
Using AA miles, you might also want to consider booking on Etihad (which
is an AA partner).
The second incorrect assumption is that availability of airfares in revenue fare classes (A,F, J, C, D & I are all revenue fare classes with QF) equals award availability. Generally, there will need to be "U" availability in Business or "P" in First (with QF at least - these codes vary by airline) for you to be able to get an award seat. You can generally check this by looking specifically for award seats on the website of the airline you'll be flying.
The third incorrect assumption is that you can upgrade an award booking. This is generally not allowed, and certainly not if you've booked using miles with another airline. If you want to fly in F on AA miles, you will need to book that cabin. Otherwise, the only way to fly F on EK without getting an F award outright is to pay for J and then upgrade with EK Skywards miles (only).
In your case I would definitely look at using AA miles to fly on Etihad. (And make sure you book by 22 March 2016 as prices increase dramatically after this date!) Etihad doesn't operate a First cabin to Perth or Amsterdam, but they do have a nice Business class product. You will be able to get 2 J award seats on the PER-AUH flight on 5 Sept, then 2 on AUH-AMS on 6 Sept. An overnight stop in Abu Dhabi will be necessary. Using AA miles you'll need to book two separate awards but that's a non-issue really. There are seats on other dates too. You can check this by searching for "GuestSeat" availability on the Etihad website. Then you'll need to call American Airlines to book.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have more questions.
