I thought it would be a good time to revisit the Award Success series that we use to feature good value flights that we have booked using miles and points from various programs.
It didn’t come to my mind that I would need to rely on Air Canada to pull up Etihad award availability before calling American Airlines to make the booking!
Air Canada has recently introduced quite a few airline partners, and, to be honest, I haven’t paid too much time playing around their website to see how convenient it is.
ExpertFlyer that I often use to check award availability on various airlines cannot show Etihad’s. So I thought it would be a good time to see what Air Canada offers and if American sees and if AA can book it.
American Airlines suggests that you should book partner awards online, forgetting to mention that you cannot book six airline partners there but need to call the reservations. Unfortunately, the list of airlines that cannot be booked online is well hidden.
Air Canada shows many options from Paris to Male. Many of these are not available with any other program because you can mix and match all their partner airlines, such as Turkish Airlines and Etihad, and Swiss and Etihad.
There have been recent horror stories about hours-long wait times calling US-based airlines. I have a lifetime Platinum with American, maps to Oneworld Sapphire, but was gifted Executive Platinum (must have been in 2019) due to AA’s partnership with Hyatt that was extended by a year due to Covid-19.
I called the EXP line, the number was recognized by the system, and I had to yell agent/agent/agent a few times before connecting with an agent.
The person was able to see the flights available, and the booking was completed in a total of 6 minutes and 30 seconds. The award requried 42,500 AAdvantage miles and $144,40.
It took 15 hours for American Airlines to issue the electronic ticket. In the meantime, I used the Etihad PNR, AA now lists other airline PNRs online, to choose the seats on these two flights.
Conclusion
I’ll try to see if I can change the flights to a day later, as I don’t need to be in the Maldives until the 15th of October, although I don’t mind spending a day in Male, and the Jen Hotel, part of Shangri-La, is quite comfortable.
You can book 19 of AA’s 25 airline partners online but need to pick up the phone and call for the rest. So you would think if Air Canada can bring the Etihad awards available for online bookings, American could do the same? Also, why is American Airlines unable to show electronic ticket numbers online? Instead, you have to rely on emails that they send.
I am not a huge fan of returning to Europe on my Singapore Airlines ticket from Thailand merely to start a new trip to a country close to where I am coming from. There is not, however, much connectivity from Thailand to the Maldives at the moment, and I would need to throw away the return of the SQ ticket or try to postpone it to 2022.
Aeroplan has quite an impressive lineup of airline partners and would be a good program to buy miles and later redeem them for awards even for airlines that are not part of the Star Alliance, such as Etihad and Gulf Air. I had a small number of miles with the program in the 2010s, but they ended up expiring unused. So perhaps I should have another look, although the reports of their customer service are abysmal.
No John, I don’t think it is “a good time to revisit the Award Success series” 🙂
There are more pressing issues at the moment that have a higher priority such as:
1) When are you going to share your feedback about the Sandbox Experience?
2) Can we come and party with You in an improvised full Moon party?
I was looking for an award ticket RUH->CAI. Aeroplan award search online only shows Etihad options, not Gulf Air, Egypt Air, Turkish Airline ones etc. But EY option is not good for me as it still requires a PCR test results even for fully vaccinated, “transit passengers”, unlike Turkish or Gulf Air. I don’t get why it fails to display either Gulf Air or Egypt Air options even if I checked their seats are available on the date that I was looking for.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t call Aeroplan customer service “Abysmal”. I’ve had some very, very positive experiences over the years.
About 6 or 7 years ago, I had some trouble with a business class award where I had disability-related seating needs that Swiss wasn’t willing to accommodate – nothing unreasonable and where I’ve had no problems getting on other airlines. I begged Aeroplan for help, and ended up getting a supervisor that was quite horrified indeed as to what was happening – I think they were able to see various notes that Swiss left on the PNR, and of course I was asked to send my communications with Swiss to them. They wanted to help, but there were various problems – one were that they could do nothing about the AC carrier surcharges ($$$ at that time) and of course they couldn’t do anything about partner availability (good luck finding I seats on United). Thankfully they were able to make something work – they found a Brussels Airlines flight from Brussels to JFK that had I seats available and no carrier surcharge. This was workable in my case, but the problem was LGA-YYZ where it was I0 across the board that day – and even EWR wasn’t an option. However, they somehow got an I seat opened up on the last AC flight of the day – which was needed to make the connection from the new Brussels Airlines flight. I was not charged a change fee, but had to incur some other fees – I later filed a Canadian Transportation Agency complaint against Swiss, which was settled, and I got reimbursed.
All went well save for the Brussels Airlines flight being very late (though not enough for the compensation) and me nearly missing my AC flight – making the check in by just 10 minutes.
abysmal ? No, the call services I received from Aeroplan are great, only you have to wait very long to get your term-it worth comparing what you get…
Great loyalty program-Aeroplan!
True! I too used the Aeroplan site to check availability on EY – it was awsome. Just checked, then called the Singapore AA office – they had the ticket issued within minutes.