Earlier today I posted the following about booking Etihad Airways award space with American Airlines–
American Airlines Cannot Book Etihad Award Space…Again
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is a wonderful American Airlines AAdvantage partner, offering excellent premium cabin award space to top destinations around the world. AA ran into problems earlier this year confirming Etihad award space and it took several weeks for the problem to be resolved. Unfortunately, a new problem has arisen and since Friday, 24 October, AA has been unable to confirm Etihad award space. All Etihad space is now blocked.
The problem this time around is a bit different than the direct access availability issue last time: what was happening this time was that American Airlines would confirm the award space with Etihad and ticket the reservation, but then space would come back unconfirmed after ticketing. Thus, AA has blocked Etihad space until the problem can be resolved. Check your reservations if you recently booked an EY award with AA. There is no time frame on a resolution, but the blockage earlier this year ran from late May to the end of June, so I am not optimistic we will get a fix in the next few days.
Until then, alluring award space will be left dangling for Etihad’s own Guest members to grab without competition from the millions of AAdvantage members…
But as it turns out, the space is bookable. Which causes me to scratch my head.
Here’s how I came to the apparently inaccurate post above.
Call One: Agent could not see the Etihad space – said she could even pull up the schedule
Call Two: Agent said there was no space
Call Three: Agent checked and found no space, then found a “memo” saying that since 24 October 2014, AA reservations made on Etihad had been coming back unconfirmed after ticketing so AA had blocked all space and was working with Etihad to address the problem
Call Four: Agent confirmed what previous agent had said, checked space, and found no award seats
Call Five: Agent found no space
After five calls, I thought…shoot, this must be a real problem, and so I posted here.
But after reader and fellow award booker Del sent me a note saying that he had just booked award space on Etihad, I called back and easily and immediately was able to book the space I wanted.
A String of Bad Agents or A Timely Resolution to the Problem?
While it is conceivable that AA fixed this space in the few hours between my post and now, I think it more likely that I actually encountered five agents in a row at the Executive Platinum desk (!) who were incompetent and/or uninformed. That is very concerning.
So there you have it. I apologize for the false alarm, am thankful it was only a false alarm, and note that even five checks may not be enough checks.
Be sure to get the EY confirmation number and check with EY that it was actually ticketed. I had this issue during the last outage and I was monitoring space for a first class ticket IAD-AUH on the 789. Agent after agent couldn’t book the space, but then suddenly one was able to. Two days later I called EY and they said it wasn’t ticketed, despite AA saying it was. Always better to double check
Did you get those five “incompetent agents” on a weekend during off hours?
‘Incompetent’ is a requisite skill set for many so-called service industry jobs. Ref.: Dumb and Dumber To (sic). Now hiring.
@SFOPhD: This was Monday morning.
Welcome to the new AA. I have been EXP for over 12 years and the call center competency has fallen like a rock from the best in the industry a few years ago. All the call center closings and automated options have created nothing but problems. United’s 1k desk is WAY better than the AA EXP desk. This year, I have dealt with plenty of agents on the EXP desk who barely spoke comprehensible English, agents who tried to cancel entire award itineraries to make a change to an existing one, agents who refused to help me, agents who wanted to help but were clueless and one agent who hung up on me on purpose. And that doesn’t even account for the absurd hold times earlier this year during the bad weather spells in Dallas when I could not get anyone on the phone for hours and it took 2 days to get back to me with a rebooking. I just webt ahead and bought UA tix and dealt with asking for refunds a week or two later. That was what really cemented me moving my flying to UA. And while I fly a lot more in the back of the bus now, I find that the network, punctuality and service are a lot better on UA. YMMV though.