Uncategorized

Is American blocking partner access to awards?

a seat in a plane

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


I’m in the midst of planning a trip down to South America and have been working on piecing together a premium cabin flight into Brazil for my buddy and I. I’ve been noticing a weird thing going on…award seats that are showing up on AA’s site are not accessible to Alaska or even British Airways. And in case you’re wondering…I’m not an AA elite anymore so increased access because of status isn’t a factor, and I’ve even put a couple of the flights on hold without any issue. Perhaps a problem would arise when going to ticket, but I’ve noticed an increasing trend with AA marrying segments using their own miles, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’ve taken a step towards releasing more seats to their own loyalists than partners. Let’s take a look at an example.

Here’s a flight from LA to GRU on November 2nd. Both First and Biz are avail all the way through.

However, when you search on Alaska…the space doesn’t match.

I phoned into Alaska and inquired to see if perhaps there was a ticketing glitch, or if it was because they couldn’t have access to the first leg ( their partnership has changed considerably and some fares don’t earn miles, but as far as I was concerned if Saaver space was avail, they could still access the award even if they didn’t sell that specific ticket) – so I also had the rep look for just the JFK to GRU segment in either cabin. Nothing could be found.

a screenshot of a flight schedule

I then broke the first leg off and searched via BA for JFK to GRU

Only space on LATAM shows up

a screenshot of a flight schedule

I then searched on Expertflyer…

No seats avail.

a screenshot of a computer

However…as I mentioned above – no problem putting the ticket on hold.

a screenshot of a reservation

Thoughts

If this is true – This is a big deal if you’re looking to redeem partner miles on American metal – especially short haul flights that BA and Iberia have access to at favorable rates to AA. If the AA chart is showing space that isn’t avail to partners, it devalues its use considerably.

Perhaps this is phantom space and when I go to ticket I’ll get an error, but typically in that situation the error occurs when trying to place on hold.

With the rising number of occurrences I’ve run into recently with AA married segments it makes me wonder if AA isn’t taking a page out of SQ’s book and opening up more space to their own loyalists that isn’t avail to partners.

Have you experienced this?

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

15 Comments

  • Gretchen P Crigler October 8, 2018

    Slightly different problem. I can find 2 separate legs ROM to PHL and PHL to CVG – all show as available at the milesaver rate, but the system won’t put them together. When I call and ask, I am told that they can only be bought separately so the mileage is higher, and cannot be “combined.” This is ridiculous since I booked the exact same flights for another family member a few days ago as a combined rate. This is another way to steal miles from members as the system shows no availability otherwise. The only way to get from point A to point B is to book separate flights with higher miles.

    • Miles October 8, 2018

      Gretchen – totally feel your pain. try sticking both legs on hold and call in – see if the phone rep will combine them once on hold.

  • Nelson September 25, 2018

    Isn’t this something that other OW partners also do to AA? LATAM is a an example; LATAM Pass and AA availability for LA award flights never matches, much more inventory available on the LATAM Pass website than on AAdvantage when I call.

  • Bails from Oz September 24, 2018

    It seems to me that Qantas is also blocking almost all of its international premium award flights from Alaska’s Mileage Plan. The alliances seem to be breaking down. Further examples are Iberia flights not available through BA Executive Club, and BA premium domestic awards not available through Iberia Plus. This one is especially insidious as the two airlines are part of the same group.

  • Renee September 24, 2018

    I have been searching Alaska for AA flights for many months. What I see is that saver awards are not showing up. I am searching for flights to europe and no matter what airports (departing or arriving) Alaska has no AA award availability except business, while AA shows plenty on their website.

  • Steve September 24, 2018

    As an AA elite member, and no one else, I hope this is true.

  • Gary Scott September 24, 2018

    Similar, but not identical issue: Trying to book DUS-HEL in April 2019. Found two non-stop Finnair economy seats using AA for 12,500 miles plus about $30. Went to BA to see if it was less miles, but BA only shows connecting flights,, not the Finnair non-stop. Ended up doing hold w/AA. Wondered why they don’t show up on BA?

  • Gary Leff September 24, 2018

    BA.com can’t see married segments but BA phone agents can. They do have to search LAX-GRU and not just JFK-GRU.

    • Christian September 24, 2018

      Would that require actually ticketing both segments, or booking both then cancelling the unwanted portion?

    • Miles September 24, 2018

      Gary – very interesting – thanks for the info!

  • Christian September 24, 2018

    Horrible news for customers (what else is new?), but good to know.

  • John September 24, 2018

    Happened to me last night on flights to Mexico. Not showing up for phone agents, but able to hold on aa.com. Twitter team can’t see it either and I sent them screenshots. Was trying to change an economy anytime to a business saver on the exact same routing.

    • Miles September 24, 2018

      very weird – hopefully a glitch producing phantom, etc and not an outright change in policy

  • Angel September 24, 2018

    I think it is only available as married segments. BA is useless for finding connecting flights (not sure about AS). If you search LAX-GRU via JFK on ExpertFlyer you’ll see the space…..

    • Miles September 24, 2018

      Angel – could be, but the space still showed avail on AA when I broke it apart into segments ( at least jfk to gru was avail) And the AS agent couldn’t see it at all from LAX-JFK-GRU in any cabin…something I haven’t experienced in the past when Saaver is avail on AA.com

Leave a Reply to Steve Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.