American FF Award Flight Question... USA--Greece?
 

Hello,

After our European trips this coming February and May, my husband and I will both have in excess of 45,000 FF miles on AA. (yeah!!)

We have been tentatively planning a May 2006 trip to mainland Greece. DH got his undergrad in ancient history and this is his dream trip.

From the AA website, it looks as if we would only need 40,000 miles each for a roundtrip European ticket (we will travel April 30 - May 14 so it is "low season").
I know it's too early to look at actual flights since it is more than a year out, so I used May 2005 dates on the www.aa.com website. The website does let you look at flight schedules from Denver to Athens (so I know they exist), but when I tried to punch it is as an "awards flight", I got a message saying there are no awards flights from Denver to Athens. I got this message no matter what dates I entered in...

Does this mean we can't use our FF miles to get free RT tickets? I know One World includes airlines flying to Athens, but can we use our AA miles on those airlines?

Many thanks to anyone in the know...!
Jill

You should call the AA awards desk and not rely on the website, even if it costs a few dollars to book through a phone agent. If AA's site is anything like UA's site, it will not provide you anywhere near the award options that a phone agent can (including, for AA, routes on One World carriers).

Good luck!

Thanks for the heads up.
The website is so confusing for awards flight booking (Esp. using alliance airlines) that I think attempting it on my own could be very disastrous!! ;-)

Yes - call the American Air office.
There are not many seats on each flight designated for "Award" travel. My husband called last May to book a flight to Paris for March 2005 using his flight miles and even that far out, he had to leave a day earlier.

If you look at the AA website, they will only give you itineraries with AA flights. If you call them, you can get itineraries on all the One World Alliance flights. Going AA usually means changing in Chicago or New York. If you call, you will find that there are lot more possibilities because there are gateway cities in Europe.

One word of advice. AA has about the worst service to Europe that exists. If you can, try to at least fly as much as possible on another One World airline. Last time, we went BA on 3 out of 4 segments. BA was very nice.

FYI-On booking AA awards. You can only book awards 330 days out. (Today you can only book thru Dec 20, 2005). You can book, with the AA awards agent, the outbound flight as soon as the flight opens up (330 days out), have them but your booking on hold, then call back when the date opens up for your return. They will only hold for 2 weeks, but you are allowed to call in and extend the booking at the end of your two weeks. These awards are hard to come by. I have been known to get up at midnight to see if the return flights have loaded into their system.

In October '04 we used AA miles from DFW to ATH. We flew DFW to ZRH and connected with Swiss, from ZRH to ATH. I think you cannot book international flights on AA's website, especially if there is a change of carrier and for the same reason will not be issued an Eticket, but there is no charge for a paper ticket. AA will not book you on a route that they fly as well as BA.

Wow...
It looks like we are going to do April 29th - May 14th of 2006.
We fly back from Italy on May 25th of 2005 - this is the flight that puts us over 45,000 FF miles.
It sounds as if I need to be ready to call AA pretty much as soon as we get back (well, I think June 4th 2005 would be the 330 day mark) and try to book our April 29, 2006 flight with our FF miles. Then we would have to ask (beg) them to hold our return flight (May 14, 2006) for 2 weeks until June 18th at which point we could call and get our return flight for May 14, 2006 booked with FF miles? Is this right?
If so I need to write some large notes to myself not to forget to do this!

It sounds like FF miles tickets fo FAST.
Should we really call at midnight?
This trip means the world to my husband and using FF miles for the tickets would allow us to do so much while we are there.

TexasAggie, I'm getting to be an expert at doing this since almost every summer we do AA award travel to Europe.
First of all, you don't even need the total number of miles to reserve the first leg of the flight. You need to call them and have them figure out the first day you can actually book the first leg, and then do it on that day. They've changed their policies for the next part -- they used to hold one leg for up to a month, but then they reduced that to two weeks. But yes, they will hold the flight over until it is time to book the return. And yes you do need some big notes for yourself. For a couple years I was doing this for one year WHILE we were in Europe the year before, counting off each deadline, since we would do four flight segments on a reward ticket and the total trip was five months long -- so we had to keep "renewing" the holds on some legs of the trip.

Yes, you should do it as early as possible. Much will depend on your origin airport. Plenty of cruisers heading out to the eastern Med at that time.

Note, though, that your miles will also work on other oneworld Alliance carriers over the water, except British Airways. So you could (concievably) go US-Madrid (Iberia) -London-Athens, or even British Airways all the way, provided you start your trip in Canada. Generally three segments each way are permitted (i.e., two connections) for example (Home) -JFK - London - Athens, or Home -JFK- Zurich - Athens. So be flexible on your timing and routing.

The AA website might be easier to navigate by the time you're ready to book, but probably safer and easier to do it on the phone, even if it means $10 or so.

More advice. Be sure and check AA.com to see if any of your upcoming flights qualify for bonus miles. Check the Aadvantage bonus pages. You may already have done this.

We are using AA award to fly to Spain and France in March but booked in May of 2004 and still didn't get the routing I wanted. Also they let me on 45,000 fly state side to Malaga Spain, Madrid to Paris and Paris back to the states. Weren't aware we could add the extra leg. But all agents didn't mention it either. Also we are on Iberia becuse AA doesn't fly to Spain but partner does. It takes time and a lot of patience. Did a Hawaii routing a few years ago for 10 people and forgot the 2 week call in and all were deleted. What a mess.

As I'm reading about AA/FF bookings, and I am getting anxious. We are using AA/FF miles for four people from JFK to Rome in April 2006. I have already spoken to the AA representative, and she gave me the exact date in April 2005 to start calling for seats.

Operative word: start. She said that I may have to call every single day because AA doesn't always open up the FF seats early. To compound the problem, we need to leave the day before Easter because it is school vacation, and we are taking our grandchildren. AA said that particular flight is going to fill up quickly because everyone else has the same idea. There's only so many flights to Rome, and about 15 million people who live in the tri-state area!

I've used AA/FF miles for the past two trips to Italy, but never traveled on a holiday. I would just die if after two years of planning, I couldn't use the FF miles for this long-awaited trip.

I may be waking up at midnight also to call AA!

That last statement is important. One reason I've had good luck getting my FF seats from AA is because I was calling from Europe and calling just after midnight US time on the day booking starts.

To clarify what she was saying about releasing seats, what I've been told is that they may only release two seats on each flight on that first day, then more later on, and even more later. So getting four at once may be REALLY hard. Persist and you CAN make this happen. (I hope).

AA FF awards are only in specific cities. I wanted to fly to Milan, but that wasn't a choice so I'm flying into Zurich. Check their website for a map to see where you can fly to on FF awards.

Patrick, Releasing two seats at a time when you are traveling with children seems unconscionable to me. My quandry: Do I book one parent with one child two times, or do I book two adults, then book two children?

I guess to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Thanks for the heads-up. I appreciate it.

Now that I think about, I may have been a little off on that comment, as the two seats at a time referred to the free business class seats which I've booked. Hopefully they have more at a time in coach. But I'm a little confused. Are all four tickets on award? Or are you doing award tickets for the adults and paying for the kids?

Desert Sue, don't be too sure about the map and the limited cities they fly to. You may be able to use award tickets for any of the oneworld cities -- a much greater selection than the basic AA map shows. Call them!

And by all means call customer service again and question them. Someone may be able to tell you exactly how you need to do this and what your options are. I can't keep up with the rules. The other good thing has been that you can change your ticket free, for example if you book two, and can't get the other two for that date, you can rebook all four for an alternate date. But who knows if they charge for that kind of change now?

Heads up on other problems that can happen with FF miles during high traffic times. It was 8 months ago I was flying with a paid ticket person and our out bound orginal flight was 2 hours delayed so in Denver all next 3 flights to LA we were stand by and every time a seat came up they addressed the paid ticket and pasted me up each time. So beware. There is no doubt that they could care less that these FF are there longtime loyal customers. So there is definite priority for paid tickets.

Patrick, This is a mixed-bag: The four FF tickets (mine) will be for my son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and grandson.

My husband and I will be traveling with them, but paying for our tickets. It would be ideal if I could get a decent fare for the two paid tickets when I book the FF tickets. In a perfect world that would happen but...

Not only do I have these issues, I want open jaw. Fly from JFK into Rome on AA, and return to JFK out of Marco Polo Airport with a code share partner. The way the flight schedule is now, we can't fly British Airways because they only fly to Gatwick from Venice and AA doesn't fly Gatwick to JFK.

We either have to go through Brussels or Madrid, transfer to an AA flight and onto New York (not a big deal).

I won't even go into my other son, who is moving to Florida next week with his family (surprise, surprise). He's got to get to Italy from Florida and there are fewer flight options, plus his children will are young: 5 and 7.

Keeps life interesting.

Ah, one more very important detail to keep in mind. When you book your first leg, which I assume is all on AA, make sure you tell them that you are doing an award that will include BA for the return. It makes a difference of which code they use, and once they book the first leg, they can't change that code. It's no difference in miles, just the actual ticket code. We once did this, planning for one leg within Europe, heading back to be on BA, and when we got ready to add that leg to the schedule, it was too late, they had already coded our trip as all AA, so we couldn't do that.