American Airlines is keeping a closer eye on its reservation agents, warning them that their screens and calls are being monitored. Why? To discourage creativity in award bookings.
I’ve written about married segment fare logic in the past, including this detailed primer. Start there to better understand what I am writing about below.
> Read More: A Primer On Married Segments
American Airlines has increasingly used married segment fare logic for its award space allocation. For example, Los Angeles to Dallas to Little Rock may be available at the saver level, but neither are independently available (if you want to book either flight separately, both show as unavailable). The logic behind that is that airlines, including American, figure that they can charge a premium for a direct flight. Thus, people who only need to get from LA to Dallas may be willing to pay more to travel nonstop.
In the past, there was a workaround if you only wanted one of the two segments. American agents were able to book them both, then annul their marriage and keep one of the two segments. Certainly this contravened the intentions of American Airlines, but it provided a stable way to secure additional domestic awards seats. Often, this was accomplished with general travel waivers or minor schedule changes.
JonNYC, a very reliable insider, notes that American Airlines recently reminded their agents not to divorce married segments.
some folks do (and some folks don't) know of married segment logic being used for awards, can get some background here: https://t.co/clLjdiwZWD
Well, agents are now being reminded that their calls (and even their screens) are recorded and they better not get caught…
— ˜”*° JonNYC °*”˜ (@xJonNYC) December 10, 2018
..circumventing or using bogus schedule change or irrops waivers to get around same in an attempt to help a caller get availability where it's inhibited my married-segment logic. So, expect a chilling effect here, hopefully not spilling over too much.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) December 10, 2018
main thing; if the availability isn't showing and you try to get creative to have an agent help, it's a very shitty position to put the agent in– they most definitely are being watched and watched closely.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) December 10, 2018
A Pernicious Devaluation
As View from the Wing notes, this represents a huge devaluation of Executive Platinum status. Indeed, it represents a devaluation of the AAdvantage program itself. With agents unable to break up married segments, let’s say you booked Los Angeles to Dallas to Little Rock with a long connection in Dallas. You did this because the shorter connections did not have award space. If space later opens on a better Dallas to Little Rock flight, you are stuck with your original itinerary unless space is also available (on a stand-alone or married-segment basis) on the Los Angeles to Dallas flight.
Put simply, your miles become less valuable when the way in which you can use them is restricted. By further tightening the allocation of domestic award space, your AA miles are less valuable.
CONCLUSION
The only good news from all of this is that most agents do not read their memos…at least that has been my experience. Even so, look for American agents to tighten up further. Under the appropriate circumstances, I would still ask. But if an agent refuses, hang up and call again…do not keep pushing.
@ Matthew — How concerned would you be about using throwaway segments to get around the married segment logic on a one-way award?
This whole married segment shenanigan is just so ridiculously customer unfriendly for redeeming miles to travel on AA/OW.
I totally understand the logic for paid tickets… but how in the world does this make sense for awards??
If it’s 12.5k for LAX-DFW-LIT… it’s also 12.5k for either of the individual segments.
Seems counterintuitive since there’s nothing stopping throwaway segments. For example, I was in Tulsa and needed to get to San Diego– no availability per se. But I was able to book TUL-DFW-SAN-PHX and skip the last leg.
There is no logic for that. They incur more costs by transporting me that extra leg (if it took it). If I were not booked on the last flight, they would have the chance to sell my seat… what am I missing?
Funny to see this post tonight, where I’m having the opposite issue. Nonstops are available, but AA won’t allow my connection.
DFW-PHX is available at SAAVER
PHX-SJD is available at SAAVER
AA won’t let me piece that itin together. The connection time would be about 2h 45m. I’ve tried HUACA and all I’ve been told is Anytime inventory is all that is available.
@matt. I see your argument. But what I think you are missing is the risk of throwing away the last segment. If AA catches you doing that they can (per their terms) kick you out of the program and forfeit your miles.
@Mike Not sure I agree with your argument. Although I don’t know the AAdvantage terms in details, generally, if this was a revenue ticket, an argument can be made that if one purchased a connecting itinerary for a lower cost than just purchasing the used direct flight, it’s costing the airline missed revenue, which makes some sense. However, with an award ticket, as Mattt pointed out, domestic awards are fixed at 12,500 miles and the fee is usually 5.60 regardless of number of segments. So, how is the airline hurt in this case when they’ve set prices (in miles) to be the same regardless of number of segments or domestic destination? That’s a very tough case to prove damages, in my opinion.