Savvy Navigator posted on November 16, 2008 10:37
This one’s for the airline geeks…
Approximately 330 days ago, Savvy Navigator called AA reservations and booked the following outbound, business-class itinerary on oneworld partners Iberia and British Airways/Comair using AAdvantage miles:
IAD-MAD-JNB-CPT
The purpose of the trip was a busman’s holiday with the husband to scout out some new luxury gay tour locations in Botswana.
Several months later, after the few rounds of schedule changes from Iberia, it became this more circuitous routing:
IAD-ORD-MAD-JNB-CPT
A few months later, it became DCA-JFK-MAD-JNB-CPT, which was the final itinerary when Mr. and Mr. Savvy Navigator headed out to the airport yesterday. After an American Eagle creeping delay at DCA, causing them to miss onward connections at JFK. The next 2.5 hours were spent at the ticket counter trying to get rerouted. The friendly, yet incompetent AA agent at DCA truly struggled to reaccomodate them, but he kept coming up empty. He finally said,” There’s nothing I can do,” which was, needless to say, infuriating beyond belief. After some more keyboard tapping, this was his suggested routing:
DCA-JFK-LHR-MAD-JNB-CPT, which then became
DCA-LGA-JFK-LHR-MAD-JNB-CPT after the Eagle flight finally cancelled.
Routing from Hell
As this seemed totally inane, and the chances that the DL Shuttle DCA-LGA would also cancel, Savvy Navigator, asked, “Hey, any space on the BA flight to LHR out of BWI?” Well guess what? There WAS space and the duo happily taxied (on AA’s dime) over to BWI.
Once they arrived at the BA counter in Baltimore, the very-kind agent took pity on them and said, “Why are you going through all those different cities just to get to Cape Town? Why don’t I book you on the LHR-CPT nonstop?”
The Final Routing
And the best thing about this new ticket is that chance that they’ll possibly accrue lots of frequent flyer miles, despite flying on award tickets. The kind BA agent could only accommodate them in the full-fare business-class inventory. Savvy Navigator does not want to count the proverbial chicks before they hatch, but stay tuned for some possible good news in the near future.