Just a heads up, Award Expert has been unable to confirm any award space on Air Tahiti Nui using AA miles for the last two weeks.
Air Tahiti Nui is one of my favorite ways to get from the West Coast to Europe. It operates between Los Angeles and Paris five times per week and offers dependable award space in both business (two seats) and economy (many). Of course its primary operations are to/from Tahiti and there is often good space on those flights as well. Here’s a look at Air Tahiti pricing:
- Los Angeles to Paris
- Business = 57.5K one-way
- Economy = 30K one-way (20K during low-season)
- Los Angeles to Tahiti or Auckland
- Business = 80K one-way
- Economy = 45K one-way
The Problem
Agents (and trust me, we have dealt with dozens) do not see the award space. It’s not that they see the flight and it shows no seats. Rather, the flight does not even show up when searching for award space.
Most agents are lazy and refuse to dig deeper, but I’ve spent long periods on hold with three particularly good agents as they tried to get to the bottom of this. Each time, after consultation with their support desk, they have come back with a final answer that the “systems are not speaking to each other”.
Yesterday, I dealt with a particularly good agent who was aware of the issue and said she would try to find a workaround. She ended up trying a direct sell (also called a long sell or manual request) and the seat still came back unconfirmed. She was angrier than I am and promised this “would be fixed soon”.
Let’s hope so.
No Trouble with Delta
We had a client this week who needed a business class ticket from Auckland to Los Angeles. Not only did Delta have no trouble confirming the Air Tahiti Nui seat, but we used this trick for booking space and it worked like a charm. Note, however, that Delta has never had access to space between LAX and CDG on Air Tahiti Nui.
CONCLUSION
There are all sorts of issues going on right now with the AA award booking system. Finnair phantom space continues to show online, the USA call center is unable to book most Etihad premium cabin award space and now the link between Air Tahiti Nui and AA appears severed. I’ll keep trying and provide an update once the space is bookable again.
have you tried to call the australian call center?
Yes. Unlike Etihad, this does not do the trick.
A few months ago, I tried to use AA miles to book an Air Berlin flight and was told Air Berlin was dropping out of the One World Alliance on March 15. So I booked our flight to Berlin on Iberia, making it a long trip to Spain first. When I didn’t read anything about AB dropping out over last few months I tried again and was told AB wasn’t dropping out but that AA wasn’t working with them anymore tho others in One World are. Crazy. I got a supervisor who tried to explain the misinformation (badly) and then got me on the AB flight from JFK and canceled out the Iberia.Cost me $175 for the change. nice going AA. wow..
Horrible info. Send this to AA and demand a refund of your $175. That’s ridiculous.
Had the same issue today- saw an I Business award inventory on Expertflyer, and AA EXP line saw it as well, but couldn’t book it. Said it was available as a Revenue ticket but not award. Agent’s Help desk was no help. I called back and another agent said the same thing. I asked her to check coach availability for the same day, and she saw nothing, yet I saw 6 seats available. We hung up and then I got a call back a few minutes later from this same agent Lupe, who said she checked further and remembered that a few months back there was a change to how AA accesses ATN award inventory, and the change was only for ATN awards. They now have to go into their ATN screen, and type the word AAdvantage- that then brings up the award availability that AA has access to. She immediately saw the I inventory I saw, and booked the award for me.
Any idea when this is going to be resolved or how to get ahold of someone that can help? I just tried to make an award reservation on TN through the AA call center and they still can’t see awards that ExpertFlyer shows as available.
If your agent can’t figure it out, tell them to try this:
Promo Box- leave empty
Carrier Code Box- TN
Inventory Box- ADV
That seems to get the information they need.
Mike this info is so valuable. Thank you for it.
I just called to make a business class reservation for some clients, LAX-CDG, and the agent I spoke to found the seats right away, no problems at all.
Some agents are in the know others are not. We just booked one at Award Expert that required the trick outlined in this post.