Thursday, November 7, 2013

One Hell Of A Time Booking AeroMexico Award Tickets

I spent the past week pulling out my hair in frustration trying to book AeroMexico award tickets using both Delta Skymiles and Air France Flying Blue miles. Last Wednesday, I wrote a detailed post about AeroMexico's phantom award availability on the Delta website. While there may still be random occurrences that I'm not aware of, it does seem like the problem has mostly been fixed.

On Friday, I did my daily search using Delta's website for the flight I needed from SFO to CUN via MEX, all on AeroMexico. Of course, I used the multi-city search function with the non-stop option selected to get the most accurate results. Per usual, each segment of the AeroMexico itinerary showed up as available. Once I selected the last leg, however, instead of seeing an error message that typically indicates phantom award availability, I was shocked to see the summary page with taxes and fees listed!

AeroMexico award seats bookable on Delta!

I clicked all the way through, entered my credit card information, and amazingly, I had my itinerary booked without any problems. Just to be completely sure, I even called into Delta and reconfirmed my ticket with the agent. The total cost was 35,000 Skymiles plus $109.18 in taxes and fees.

Now the wheels in my head started turning. As some of you may already know, there are some hidden gems in the Air France Flying Blue award chart, mostly involving Latin America. A round-trip award ticket from the U.S. and Canada to Mexico only costs 25,000 miles, as opposed to 35,000 miles like most other programs. Going to Central America costs only 30,000 miles as opposed to 35,000 miles as well. Going to Northern South America costs 35,000 miles, which is identical to the American Airlines AAdvantage award chart. However, going to Southern South America costs only 50,000 miles as opposed to 60,000 miles like most other programs.

So, with a 24-hour cancellation guarantee on the Delta award booking I already made, I figured why not try booking the exact same itinerary using Flying Blue instead for 10,000 less miles? After all, they are an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner, and I had a small stash of points just sitting there. I went onto the Flying Blue website and tried searching for the same itinerary, and there it was:

Flying Blue website shows availablity

However, once I clicked through to the next page, I got this:

Cannot book this award ticket due to "technical reasons"

I could not book this itinerary online no matter what I tried. And since the Flying Blue award search engine is apparently even more broken than the infamous Delta website, I couldn't even do a multi-city search (try it and you'll see what I mean). Although it did seem to allow me to book each segment individually, but the cumulative price would total a whopping 50,000 miles instead.

So I called into Flying Blue... for the next five days. I must have spoken to two dozen agents, many of them I began to recognize by name because I would get connected to the same ones over and over again. And every single response was the same. They could see the award availability, but once they tried to grab the seats for me, it would fail. All of the agents blamed it on AeroMexico, saying they were not releasing the seats.

In the meantime, I was cancelling and rebooking the same itinerary like crazy over on Delta as a backup. I even called into Delta again and asked them if they could see how many award seats were available since I knew the AeroMexico award fare code was (X). They assured me they could see two seats available. At this point, I knew the issue was on the Flying Blue side.

Yesterday morning, I called into Flying Blue again, this time trying to elevate the situation to a higher level. Amazingly, I was connected to an understanding supervisor, who listened to my five-minute rant about how their website was broken and how Flying Blue agents could not book an award ticket that was clearly available. He apologized and told me he would get in direct contact with AeroMexico to see what the problem was.

A few hours later, I received a phone call back from the supervisor, saying that he had AeroMexico manually sell him the award seats, and everything was set! I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then, as we were going through all the booking information, I noticed he got the return date wrong. My head nearly exploded at that point. Unfortunately, he said he needed to call AeroMexico again and start from scratch.

About another hour later, he called back again, and this time, everything was correct. Total cost for the award flight was 25,000 Flying Blue miles and $113.72. He didn't even bother adding on the usual €15 phone booking fee. I still don't know why the taxes and fees were higher than Delta's calculation, but by then, I could really care less about a $5.00 discrepancy. I just wanted my tickets booked and done with.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Flying Blue program is riddled with problems like these. Numerous other bookings I tried to make on their website also came back with the same technical error issue. And from the experiences I've described, it seems like calling in won't get the problems easily resolved either. As with most things in life, persistence appears to be the key. If you are 100% positive that the award seat is available, then keep hammering away until you can get a supervisor to do a manual sell for you. Otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to take advantage of any hidden gems on the Flying Blue award chart.

17 comments:

  1. I'm so glad I came across this blog. I am trying to book the same thing on Air France. Do you know if the xfer from Amex to Air France is instant? Do you have the name of the supervisor you spoke to?

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    1. No problem, glad I could help in any way. Yes, the transfer from AMEX is instant. Unfortunately, I didn't get the supervisor's name. If you are absolutely sure the AeroMexico award fare (X) is available though, try to get any FB supervisor to do a manual sell for you and it should work. Good luck!

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    2. Thanks for the quick response! If it's showing up on Delta and on Flying Blue, it should be available right? Or should I call AeroMexico to make sure?

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    3. If it is showing up AND bookable on the Delta website (meaning you can get all the way to the payments page), then it should be available. But calling into Delta and confirming the availability is the best way. I noticed FB's website sometimes isn't accurate.

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  2. Hmm I selected a leg with 12.5K miles but when I went to the details page, it only gave me an option of 31.5K Business Class on Delta. Did this happen to you? I did not do a multi city trip on AirFrance, not sure if I can.

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    1. Are you using the FB website? As I wrote in the post, there appears to be issues with booking AeroMexico award seats using the website. There may be phantom availability and also technical issues. The best way is to first confirm AeroMexico award availability (X) by calling into Delta. Then call into FB and if they cannot book the award, press a supervisor to do a manual sell directly with AeroMexico. That's the only way I could get my tickets booked using FB miles.

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  3. I am running into the same issue with Air France. I see availability on AF, Delta multi-city search, and Aeromexico's site for the IAD-MEX roundtrip I want. Like an idiot I transferred some MR points to Flying Blue without calling first, and then when I did call, they said they couldn't see any AeroMexico availability. Zilch for like weeks. So I put an award with connecting flights on Delta on hold and instead of the taxes being $105, they're $370. Obviously I'm not going to book that one.

    So today I got a few minutes to search and checked that I could get all the way to the payment page on Delta. So I called in to verify that the space on AM was really there. Again the agents said they couldn't see anything on AM and only saw the same flights the Air France guy saw last night. So I hang up.

    I get back on Delta's website where I was at the booking page for the flights I wanted and decide to give it a try since they have a free 24 hr cancellation. Sure enough, the award books and I have a ticket #.

    So tomorrow I'm going to try and call Air France and hound them to try and get me seats on the same flight and cancel the Delta award. I guess we'll see what happens.

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    1. Matt, that was exactly my experience as well. If you can book the AM award seats with (X) fare on Delta, then that definitely means they should be available to SkyTeam members, AF included. For some reason, the Flying Blue system is just not letting them grab the seats. The only option is to try and escalate it up to a supervisor and tell them to contact AM directly. AM will manually sell them the award seat. Good luck!!

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    2. So I called Air France and they said they can see the award seat (1 on each flight I want), but it's not letting them grab it. He said he talked with a supervisor and they were having the same issue. They said I could book a connecting flight (on Delta, which I'd rather not do).

      I asked him if they should see the same availability that Delta sees and he said no since they have different programs. His example was that if Aeromexico has 10 award seats, they might keep 5 for their program, give 3 to Delta and 2 to Flying Blue. That doesn't sound right to me but I'm no expert.

      I guess I'll have to keep calling. I think I'm going to try contacting Aeromexico first though.

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    3. Yeah that doesn't sound right to me either. As far as I know, there is only one award fare bucket for AM in economy, and that's the (X) fare. All SkyTeam members should see and have access to the same inventory. Try to get transferred to a supervisor. They may be more willing to help, especially if you explain to them that the award seats are available and the problem is on the Flying Blue side.

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  4. These people at Flying Blue are driving me nuts. Every single one of them has a different excuse as to why they see the availability but can't get it.

    And then, when I try to book connecting flights on Delta, they want $370 in taxes and fees. How can that be right? It says on the FB site (which you can't book anything on) that it should be $105 (which is exactly what it was on Delta)>

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    1. Were you able to talk to a supervisor? Ask for one, and the agent should transfer you right away. Explain to the supervisor that the AM award fare (X) is showing as available, and FB should be able to book it. Then ask them to contact AM directly and request the seat manually. I'm not sure about the taxes and fees. If it says $105 on the FB site and on Delta, then that's the amount it should be. Sorry it's been such a frustrating experience. I completely understand what you're going through :(

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  5. Called up this morning and was able to book with no issues. The agent said they had been having some issues with their system and Aeromexico for a few days. He remembered me from calling over the weekend.

    They even waived the phone fee since I said I had issues booking online. Fees came out to the $105 they were supposed to be (not $370 like they were saying yesterday for the connecting Delta flights).

    I'm just glad i didn't end up stranding 25k MR points at Air France. That was one of the more frustrating awards I've ever booked though.

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    1. Matt, that's great to hear! Hopefully this means Flying Blue has finally fixed their AeroMexico award booking issues. Glad that everything worked out for the best.

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  6. wow! had no idea you went through such an ordeal to book these tix. behind the milesglu scenes! hlm

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    1. There's quite a bit going on behind the scenes! ;)

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  7. I am so glad I found this. I am having a very similar problem booking an awards ticket on Delta IAH-MEX-SJD. I can see that the award space is available on AM website but can not get to the second leg of my trip on Delta site and get the error message on FB. If it shows on AM shouldn't I be able to pull up and book on either site or is that not the case. Gonna try FB since 25k vs 35k.

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