American Airlines has had technical issues when AAdvantage members put frequent flyer mile award travel on hold, sometimes only holding a reservation for three days instead of the five days promised under their policy. There’s another glitch members are dealing with, and it’s costing them more miles if they don’t pay attention.
Many customers are reporting that when they put an award ticket on hold the flights are stored, but the price quoted doesn’t stick. Here’s one example where a single traveler was asked to pay an additional 122,000 miles:
I put a reservation on hold where I wanted to redeem 66,000 miles for a ticket. Today I go to pay for the reservation online and it automatically reprices to 188,000 miles. When I click the reservation in my account, when it loads, it says the correct 66,000 mile amount. It only reprices once I indicate I want to pay for the ticket. Am I out of luck here? I thought when you hold a reservation, the price you hold remains the same during the hold, even if the price otherwise changes for others wanting to purchase the same flight.
The same story is repeated repeated by numerous AAdvantage members. They put an award on hold, but then the price goes up when they try to issue tickets.
Here’s what to do:
- Watch out – many people won’t re-verify things like the number of miles required when going back to ticket an award they’ve placed on hold. There are no doubt many members having large numbers of miles deducted from their account in error and they don’t know it (and so they won’t ever get these miles back).
- The Twitter team and telephone reservations can resolve this.
- Not every agent realizes or understands the issue, or believes that the original price is supposed to be honored, so you may have to ‘hang up and call back’.
- Take screen shots of the original price so you know what you’re supposed to pay, and also so you can provide it as proof if necessary.
This is a known issue and American Airlines is working to fix it. In the meantime, let’s be careful out there.
That is good Information, at least they know and are working on a fix.
The ability to hold is nice, but unless you are transferring Bilt there really isn’t much of a compelling reason to do it if you have the mikes, since cancelations are free and miles redeposit so are usually quick. Holds are convenient when you see something and want to grab it while you look for other stuff, but AA makes redeposits so easy that mostly now I just book and probably will just continue to do it that way until these tech issues are sorted.
Sorry for putting this here. Unrelated, but a question.
Recently, trying to use BA Avios to book flights on AA(International) (MIA-BGI)
I get results and availability BUT, when selecting a flight, instead of pricing(miles) you get an error message “Sorry there is a problem with booking this journey online. Try selecting other flights”.
This is on any flight starting or ending in the US to any other country that I can see. Again, I’m only searching for AA flights using Avios
Domestic flights work fine.
Any idea what is going on and/or why?
AMERICAN REDEPOSITS- Question for Larry or anybody else… How quickly do American miles redeposit? Have a friend I just showed he can get 1st class for cheaper than he booked Main Cabin but…. he’s afraid it’ll take to long and he’ll lose his flight. Trying to ease his discomfort.
Thanks
Thanks for the heads up Gary.
@roman — redeposits are usually instant or close to it for cancellations on AA metal and more variable on partners. Even if not immediate, I have been able to call.
Thanks Larry. The “instant or close to it” is what I needed to hear. He’s quite anxious he’ll lose out on a flight if it say took 7 days. I’m having him put a flight on hold then cancel his other flight.
Thanks again for the info
Thanks for the heads up. Have something that is currently 108k miles when I held it and it comes up as that much when I look at the PNR but when I click pay it asks for 144k miles.
@Gary – this has been the case for a while. Last year, I had a couple of web-saver award seats on-hold and chose to complete the purchase the following day. I was surprised when I realized that the award cost had increased by 500 miles per passenger on the payment page, but reserved it all the same. The cash price for the flight had also increased incrementally, so with dynamic pricing the corresponding web-saver price increases too.
@Gary – thanks for the heads-up. I saw the title of your article and checked a flight I had on hold and sure enough, the glitch happened to me.
Why even bother with “hold”, especially since it’s so buggy?
Just book what you see and may need if using AA miles, and if plans change simply cancel it risk-free.
I had the similar happen (but in my favor)–one way reserved 3 days before flight was 43k miles. It auto-canceled due to not purchasing. When I completed purchase 24 hours before flight, it was only 29.5k miles.
Good advice from Billy Bob.
IMO it is not just miles. I learned a few years ago to log into AA from uncookied browser, without logging in, to check flight and date prices. It was just odd that when I went back later the prices had gone up.
I’ve seen this before & thought it was my imagination all this time?
Thanks…. I feel less dumber-er now
Now where are my keys?
Kind of related, I had DEL-JFK and the price has fluctuated from 212k down to 87k. I booked at 87k but the same flight went down to 70K. It’s a scary thing to have to cancel and rebook online if you don’t have the time to be on hold.
Dynamic pricing to that extent over a couple month period is irritating to say the least.
I had this issue. I contacted AA through the app chat and they fixed it
Flight prices change daily in my area, so when I saw my trip at a lower price ( to Japan) I put the hold on it, and verified all the info with my son in Japan. Had the same problem, when I went to pay it was charging me extra miles…. spent 55 minutes on the phone with customer service, who had to re- book my trip, then cancel the existing to get me my upgraded seats… at which point the seat price was higher, so I was on hold longer, only to have him come back and say they couldn’t “match” my original, so they gave it to me for free…. so I saved $78 for a 55 minute phone calk… I consider that a win. But they really need to fix the problem!!!