Award Redemption CONSOLIDATED: Questions on booking Etihad First and Business with AA miles

Are you calling the US call center? Have you tried an international call center? I've always had luck with the Australian center. Google Voice/Hangouts can call internationally at pretty low rates.

 

Call the AA Australia office. They should see it. Use skype for inexpensive call.

 

Hi Mike, are you calling the Australian center or the US?

 

Yes - I was calling the US. Completely forgot about calling Australia, which I did for some flights last flights last year - thanks for the reminder!

Also, I realized that now if there are no guest seats on any flights on a particular day, instead of showing "sold out", then entire guest seat column disappears, which then makes it seem like there is more availability (but really only in the "open seats" category, which becomes the far left column. Should be obvious, but when scanning through a bunch of days it's easy to think those are guest seats.

 

thank you!

thank you!

 

US - totally forgot about Australia option. thanks!

 

Hello everyone,

I am trying to book a flight from MLE to JFK using my AA miles w/Etihad The award space shows up on Etihad for business class under "Guest Seat" but when I called Australia and USA several times, they were not able to see the award space.

Any advice?


UPDATE: I checked for the flights on separate segments and it seemed like there was no award space for the 1st segment of the trip. So with economy in mind for the 1st segment and business for 2nd segment, I called one last time and the award space was available for business on both segments.

It was a lovely surprise. I called about 8 times over the course of 5 hours (only once to USA). I used Skype.

Really excited for my trip!

 

No secret that I'm aware of other than keep trying unfortunately (just Australia, the US hasn't had any luck in a while).

 

Hi @Jenny C, and welcome!

Make sure you're searching MLE>AUH and AUH>JFK separately. Sometimes Etihad will show a false positive otherwise.

 

Can you book an etihad award with mixed cabins? I am looking to Kathmandu to New York via Abu Dhabi. Kathmandu to Abu Dhabi does not offer a first class cabin. If I call AA can I feed them the business class Kathmandu to Abu Dhabi segment and the first class Abu Dhabi to New York and get it books?

 

Yes. The award will be at the higher (First Class) level since there will be at least one F segment.

 

Is it possible to drop segments on EY Awards?

Currently i have AUH-ZRH (EY)-TXL-MUC (AB) booked but think about staying in ZRH for a few days. On AA / Oneworld awards you're able to drop legs as long as the destination zone stays the same.

Thanks!

 

I'd call and ask but usually I think it'll carry a few since it's changing the destination. Though if you're not planning to fly the last 2 legs at all and you don't have checked bags, just skip the last 2 legs.

 

Does anyone have experience using AAMiles to book EY/QF from DXB/AUH to India?

 

No but are you running into trouble? Generally for EY, you have to call a non-US call center to get the seats. I call the Australian call center and I've never run into problems.

 

Currently booked on EY using AA miles for the following route:

DEL-AUH A330 with 2 class service (economy)
AUH-LAX 77L with 3 class service (business)

If business class seats open on the DEL-AUH, is there a fee to change from economy to business? I have no status with AA. And I assume it would be best to call Australia call center to make the change.

EDIT: Thanks MidSouth for your answer. It looks like Etihad likes to open up seats close to departure date, so whatever changes I make will most likely fall within 7 days of departure. Hoping to find out the answer if close-in fees applies to changes. Thank you

 

Welcome @Vinh - since you're using AA miles there should not be a fee to change if business class opens up on the first leg. Your origin and destination are staying the same and when those change, that's what incurs the fee. I know AA has a close-in ticketing fee but *think* that only applies to new bookings, not to changes but perhaps someone else can confirm.

If you do find space I'd certainly try the US call center first and call Australia only if they can't see it.

 

Does anyone know what the approximate taxes and fees on AA award for RT JFK-MLE in the apartments? We were lucky enough to snag 2 seats in February of 2016 from JFK -AUH and paid a little over $48 pp RT, but looking at Etihad awards/ miles now it is significantly higher at around $800 JFK to AUH . And looking by segments when I add in the MLE leg on both parts it jumps to 2K!! Hoping it is a lot cheaper with AA awards.

 

@JRV1 Where are you seeing the $800 and $2k+ rates? And do you mean Feb 2018?

You need to use Etihad's website to check for award space but what AA charges is different from what Etihad charges for the same award.

 

Hi David,
Thanks for the reply, yes I am looking for February 2018 from JFK to MLE, I was using the flight that we had taken in 2016 as a reference for what we had paid at that time, sorry for the confusion.
I am using the Etihad site and they are quoting $820 for the JFK to AUH segment for 2 people and then $1165 more when I add add in the MLE segments. I know what AA charges is different then what Etihad does but when i booked the flight in 2016 there was not that big a discrepancy between the 2.