I’ve redeemed well north of a billion miles for myself and for clients but I still hold my breath every time I go to pull the trigger on an award – especially if it involves transferring points, or making a phone call to an agent. I’m worried that the actual booking will fall apart, because the inventory will disappear in the seconds between making the transfer and grabbing the space, or that the award availability will be phantom (showing available, but not really there).
That’s why I always prefer to put an award on hold before making a transfer, and where that’s not possible I:
- Call the airline, set up the award – telling the agent that the points aren’t in the account yet, but as soon as we set up the reservation I’ll transfer the points
- Then make the transfer with the agent on the phone.
That way, at least, they’ve been able to grab the space before I make the transfer. That’s not a guarantee it’ll ticket, but it’s as close to perfect as you get.
Reader GrumpyToTheLeft, an American Airlines Executive Platinum and British Airways Gold Guest List member, shares his story in a guest post about phantom award availability and Alaska Airlines and it’s a great reminder as you go about booking your own awards.
The Phantom of Japan – Japan Airlines Award Inventory that Isn’t
Phantom inventory is a plague almost as old as the miles and points game itself. An airline website shows available flights but at some point during the reservation process it turns out that the space is not actually bookable.
This is especially frustrating when miles were transferred to or purchased for a rewards program to make that particular booking. When airline phone representatives confirm inventory only to later realize it does not exist, things become even more annoying.
The Oneworld alliance was notably affected by myriad phantom award space in 2020 when Japan Airlines recoded their first class awards from the commonly used Z fare class to A, which in many instances is used for paid first class inventory. In fact, while other Oneworld airlines adopted more quickly, Alaska Airlines Milage Plan members were unable to make redemptions for JAL first class for much of 2020 and into 2021, due to this fare code change and the time it took Alaska to update their IT. Covid related travel restrictions may have lessened the blow.
It appears the return of tourism to Japan also marks a return of phantom award space. As the below screenshots show, Alaska Airways shows plenty of Japan Airlines first class inventory for travel between the US and Japan in December and January.
American Airlines is impacted by this issue as well, although not nearly as heavily as Alaska. British Airways meanwhile seems immune to phantoms.
A recent experience with Alaska Airlines could have turned into a costly mistake. Needing an additional 80,000 miles, the Grumpies were hoping to make use of Alaska’s current offer to buy miles with a bonus of up to 50%. If interested, act fast, this promotion is only available until December 23.
Importantly, the only way to guarantee instant availability of purchased miles, at least in case of Alaska Airlines, is to make the purchase with an Alaska Milage Plan agent over the phone. The terms and conditions for online miles purchases state that it can take up to 72 hours for miles to become available and points.com customer service indicates that it can take 48 hours. In a recent trial, miles posted instantaneously on one occasion and took almost 48 hours on another.
After two phone agents confirmed availability with one even questioning Mr. Grumpy’s desire to assess inventory beyond front end website content, the Grumpies were ready to pull the trigger, even though neither American Airlines nor British Airways showed this award inventory. Since only Milage Plan agents can process mile purchases, that department’s closure should turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
The following morning plenty of inventory was showing on alaskair.com. Since neither aa.com nor ba.com displayed this award space, confirmation was first sought from Alaska reservations agents over the phone. Again, two different agents confirmed space was definitively available and the second agent transferred the call to a Milage Plan agent to make the purchase. Long hold times, such as the 1-2 hours in this case, paired with Alaska’s stated inability to hold partner award reservations, can complicate the situation further.
When confronted with this conundrum, the Alaska Milage Plan agent indicated that reservations agents can stay on hold with the customer waiting to purchase miles. This seemed helpful and so the call went back to reservations yet again.
There, a third, very experienced agent was aware of the problem and confirmed the fear that the ample award space displayed on alaskair.com was indeed just phantom space. At her suggestion a senior agent handling international partner awards confirmed the lack of availability. Nor Grumpy’s request to escalate the issue to the alliance representative nor a request to long sell changed anything.
There is however a silver lining: The Grumpies were fortunate enough to secure business class award space with Japan Airlines for 60,000 Alaska Airlines miles plus a 19$ copay per person, at least for their upcoming outbound trip.
At 450,000 miles American Airlines’ dynamic award pricing pales in comparison; even without considering the differences in the hard- and soft products of these carriers. While both airlines will get you there, Japan Airlines is widely lauded for offering one of the best business class products in the world.
Learnings/ Take Aways
- Use instant transfer or purchase options for miles or book with Airlines who allow for reservations to be put on hold while miles are procured.
- Crosscheck inventory with award databases of other airlines in the same alliance.
- Search segment by segment.
- Confirm and reconfirm inventory over the phone making sure agents actually “grab” the requisite seats.
Not all currencies transfer instantly, and that creates an even bigger problem when booking awards from accounts where you don’t yet have the points for an award. A classic example is ANA Mileage Club, which is an Amex transfer partner. They have some of the best award values, such as 88,000 miles roundtrip for Star Alliance business class to Europe (with fuel surcharges on many but not all partners). Unfortunately transfers from Amex usually take a couple of days. Real, non-phantom, space can be legitimately gone by then.
But in the case of instant transfers, where award space has been phantom, I’ve had good luck getting points transferred back to a credit card. It’s not supposed to be possible, but it frequently is when it’s legitimately the fault of the partner you moved the points to. Aeroplan has had a specific form an agent fills out, which used to be far more necessary than it is now (there’s not nearly as much Aeroplan phantom availability with partners as there used to be). When you’ve been enticed by phantom availability to make a transfer, for which the program gets paid, that’s a fraudulent inducement and there needs to be a way to solve it.
Fortunately GrumpyToTheLeft got the award he needed despite the challenges of phantom availability.
@ Grumpie — Sorry you ran into troubles. We are wrapping up a week in Japan now, and booking JL F from ORD and back to JFK, including domestic AA connections to/from out home airport turned out to be easier than expected. I guess we chalk this one up to some good luck!
The majority of the Alaska premium cabin awards shown have the little seat of death meaning mixed cabin and it always seems to be on the long haul portion. This is nothing new with Alaska.
This has been a problem for a while with JAL. AA and BA (and point.me) show phantom availability for JL on connecting itineraries (eg BUF ORD HND). Seats are never available if searching for the nonstop to Tokyo only. And of course there is no availability on the nonstop when looking at the JL website.
OT but one thing I’ve been lucky with twice this year is, despite JL showing no availability on their website, AA will show availability on a nonstop to Tokyo. I booked JFK HND and ORD HND using AA miles despite JL showing seats not available.
All examples above are for FC redemption.
@DaninMCI is correct. You have be very careful and don’t let your hopes get up when searching for business class awards on Alaska partner airlines. ( times out of 10 business class is only available on a short connecting segment, and the long haul portion is in economy.
Alaska have done something to their website recently so that many partners error at final payment (even when seat is confirmed available on other more reliable sites). Suspect its to do with the upcoming devaluation. Impacts JL, LA, SQ and more. Several posts on the Alaska FT site if you search for ‘confirm’
Prior to the BA Avios merge, on Qatar, saw AA availability all of the time. Always was a mirage. No pun intended. Frustrating of course.
I was able to book 4 JL business award seats on AS site that didn’t show up on AA site.
I appreciate the guest posts, but this one isn’t doing it. Lots of missing details
What was the actual routing of the 60k award they finally were able to book? They keep blaming JAL, but all evidence points towards AS mixed cabins or AA’s lack of connecting award space being the issue.
Elsbeth and DaninMCI’s comments are in-line with my experiences. AS has full connecting itineraries, but mixed cabins or phantom availability.
Elsbeth blames JAL, yet was able to book the direct redemptions via AA. The issue there is AA no longer pricing 99% of domestic connections within the MilesAAver range, aka no availability to your connecting home airport on a partner redemption (and same for AA metal, unless you pay a huge premium)
The lack of partner/MilesAAver space is killing multi-leg redemptions. I’ve done multiple this year where I had to book separate cash tickets to position for the redemption. Agents at the AA check-in counters were angry and confused when I had to recheck bags and show docs
I had this problem with AA this year booking Z or I mean A on JAL. It seems like false advertising to me that should not be allowed to exist on a known persistent basis. The original crypto currency is FF miles. AA and AS are a stand in for FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.
I had same issue with delta miles when mixing Am with KLM. It caused me 40K Amex. Long sale did not work
With respect, I think this is a non-story. I was able to book 4 biz tix and 1 first ticket on JAL from ORD to HND and back to JFK next fall. I use a combination of BA and AA to search and they always match. In fairness, I have never used Alaska, but I have had no issue finding availability. In fact, in the few instances where I have booked a JAL flight and then cancelled the ticket, the seat popped back into inventory within 3 minutes.
Same ghost problem with FinnAir and AA awards. I sat for 2 hours with an agent going through many dates and departures. Unbelievably frustrating. As for Keith Lehr’s remarks – consider yourself lucky rather than indirectly suggesting that something is wrong with us.
Only regarding West Coast to Thailand flights : 2 mixed cabin with Delta, 2 mixed cabin with United, business all the way with CX and JL 3 times with Alaska miles. The mixed cabins were always on the shorter segments thankfully. YMMV I’m sure.
Interesting how everyone seems to have opposite problems. I went to Japan in November and needed tickets for 3 pax. Flying from Florida and having to connect somewhere, I figured ORD is the best connecting point for me and concentrated on looking at availability there. I booked my tickets over the course of 3-4 weeks when I was checking availability a few times a day.
I learned that JAL F generally shows good availability approximately 2 weeks before departure. AA showed a whole lot of phantom which could not be verified neither via AS nor BA. AS and BA consistently showed correct availability. Availability in J was pretty much non-existent but F was typically available for 4 seats. Out of curiosity I tried to book a couple of different itineraries on AA and they all errored out on the web site.
I started using AS site exclusively to check availability and avoid dealing with phantoms. After availability showed up for the date I favored, I cross-checked it via BA and then tried to book on AA. I needed to use AA because I needed connecting flight to ORD. AA errored out but since at this time I was ready to book, I called. The first agent could not see availability and tried to find my alternative options but after I insisted that I can see availability via both AS and BA and explained to her that partner availability should be the same for everyone in OW, she transferred me to another agent who had no problem to see and book my itinerary.
Later on I needed to book my return flight. I used AS again to check availability and went to AA site to book. I fully expected same experience but surprisingly I was able to book return flights online without any issues.
This coming April 1 will be the 40th anniversary of JAL from Chicago to Narita, now to Haneda. I was involved set up a start-up operation in 1983 as the first airline from Asia to O’Hare International Airport. I spent 30 years with JAl working at various airports and this would be my last opportunity to fly this anniversary flight.
I am trying to book a flight first, business, premium economy, or even coach class using my American Airlines Advantage miles point. However, I tried to book online or even call AA’s reservation, but all classes are sold out.
Is this a typical case of all airlines that they give preferential advantage to their own frequent flyers and the yield management strictly controls booking for OneWorld partners booking on frequent flyers?