Manipulating the American Airlines booking computer

stoneman

manc29 wrote: »

Is the link for the mastercard offer now dead?
When i click on it it just takes you to the mastercard website but the offer no longer there.

Any ideas?

It worked for me last week. Look through the flights and continue to the booking stage, then instead of buying, hold the flights. then phone them up with your identifier number and say you want the 15% off deal buy paying with your MasterCard, if they ask you for a code it is "MASTER" but I didn't need to give them this, she just knew about it.
BTW I didn't know the promo was running, I just phoned up and asked because I heard it in an earlier post by Murphy The Cat

Murphy_The_Cat

manc29 wrote: »

Is the link for the mastercard offer now dead?
When i click on it it just takes you to the mastercard website but the offer no longer there.

Any ideas?

Not only is the link dead, but it looks like the Mastercard 15% 'MASTER' offer has come to an end - I couldn't find any current links for it at all.
Well done stoneman, it looks like you got there just in time :j

bairn7

I have just made a booking through the AA website and called up the reservations line to try my luck with the mastercard offer and it worked! So it is still applicable, although I suspect it may only be until the end of the month as all promotional info has been removed. So be quick!! Only a reduction on the base fare but still saved over £30...which is £30 more to spend on the Vegas tables on my trip

stoneman

bairn7 wrote: »

I have just made a booking through the AA website and called up the reservations line to try my luck with the mastercard offer and it worked! So it is still applicable, although I suspect it may only be until the end of the month as all promotional info has been removed. So be quick!! Only a reduction on the base fare but still saved over £30...which is £30 more to spend on the Vegas tables on my trip

Well done!! I was going to suggest doing just that.:beer:

Murphy_The_Cat

American Airlines are giving away free AAadvantage Air Miles !!!

register your AAadvantage Card, travel before 15th May and get you extra miles free.

More details here

stoneman

Manchester is included, look at second paragraph of the T&C.
BTW almost all of the cheaper economy tickets are on a W, and as such, you will not get the miles. Check what category your ticket is when you look at pricing, it might be worth getting a dearer one to get the points, but only you can decide on that.

Murphy_The_Cat

stoneman wrote: »

Manchester is included, look at second paragraph of the T&C.
BTW almost all of the cheaper economy tickets are on a W, and as such, you will not get the miles. Check what category your ticket is when you look at pricing, it might be worth getting a dearer one to get the points, but only you can decide on that.

You're right :j

I saw this bit " * Based on return travel LHR-LAX, LHR-MIA, or LGW-DFW." which was referring to a specific part of the offer and not this bit " AAdvantage bonus mile offer is valid on American Airlines marketed and operated nonstop flights for return travel between the UK (LHR, LGW, MAN, STN) and the US, 11 January 2008 through 15 May 2008."

As for the W Class ticket price, you're right. Thats a descision for each person to decide on :beer:

Katys_Grandad

stoneman wrote: »

Manchester is included, look at second paragraph of the T&C.
BTW almost all of the cheaper economy tickets are on a W, and as such, you will not get the miles. Check what category your ticket is when you look at pricing, it might be worth getting a dearer one to get the points, but only you can decide on that.

Deleted (misread previous post).

jamescredmond

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I realise that this tip will only appeal to a very small number, but the savings can be quite substantial.

I always fly with AA when I go TransAtlantic because they do everything that I want in an airliine. One of the things that I really appreciate is the ease of use of the AA booking computer and I've come across a three things that can save a LOT of money on a flight. One is obvious, one isn't and the last one only works sometimes.

The obvious one first, when you are making an enquiry on the system, always have a look on the 'price & schedule' option as making a just a days change can make a huge difference in your fare if it crosses a 'season' (on my most recent booking it saved me 36% of the price).

The sometimes one. When you put in your 'arrival' airport, select an airport within 90 miles of your 'ideal' destination. In some instance, you can save money big time by taking this option (plus, you may reduce your number of flights).

The final one in the very unobvious one, and is completely illogical to me.
When you are making your enquiry, you have the option of selecting how many stops you want, in the price section. The default setting is 'no preference' and this will bring up their regular price -- however, if you change the number of stops to '1 or less', this will often bring up a lower price, sometimes a MUCH lower price, for exactly the same seats, on exactly the same flight. On my most recent booking, the saving on this method varied from nil, to £15, to £25 all the way upto £50 per seat before I made my booking - which made for a very healthy reduction of £200, from a ticket price that was already very, very competitive.

******as a money saving finale, once you've picked the flight that you want, at the price that you want to pay, DON'T PAY FOR IT. Reserve it instead. Make a note of the Record Locator and then, within 24 hours contact AA reservations amd pay for your tickets with your MasterCard which will get you a further 15% off the flight price (but not the taxes/surcharges).But as Katys Grandad says, you must make it clear that you're using the booking offer codeword MASTER*****
Sadly, it appears that this offer is no longer being promoted. By all means, contact the AA Booking Office, but don't be surprised if the answer is 'no'.

I hope that I've helped someone out there. If someone needs any extra details, please shout.

In my most recent flight booking (& I didn't get the MasterCard discount), I saved over £700 by manipulating the computer and changing my flights marginally.


p.s. The AA computer can change many, many times in a day. Keep logging on until you find the price that you're happy with !

begod what a quality post for anyone looking to travel usa this year. sadly I can't. given the no. of thank you's you've had it looks like people have got more dispos. income than me.

thank you very much.

duchy

stoneman wrote: »

Phone up the AAdvantage number in the U.S. not here as they aren't very good. [
/quote]

I'm amazed to read this-I have found AA in Europe (call centre is actually in Dublin) to be excellent. I've organized challenges, upgrade requests (I got Gold the hard way and just finished the Plat challenge) payment with bump vouchers etc and never had any issues whatsoever. The only time I've ever spent money on a transatlantic call is when I've needed to call very late at night-and to be honest I found the response to be OK but not as good as the European reservation depts.