Trip Booking Report: First and Business Class SNA-DFW-MAD-AGP with AA Miles on American Airlines and Iberia

This is my second installment of my Trip Booking Report series, where I show you how to find and book award flights.  My first booking was Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles.

In this installment, I will *represent* how I booked 2 business class flights for my parents from Orange County (SNA) to Malaga, Spain (AGP) with American Airlines miles (dates and times have been changed to protect the innocent my parents).  Looking at AA’s award calendar for March shows plenty of business class seats from Orange County  to Madrid.

I found seats on a very good flight from SNA-DFW on AA First Class with a 3.5 hour connection in Dallas (hitting up the AMEX Centurion Lounge) before boarding their 6pm flight from DFW-MAD on AA Business Class.

The price is a steal.  50,000 AA miles and only $5 in taxes and fees.  You can’t beat that!

Since they wanted to add an Iberia flight from MAD-AGP, I went through the booking process until I got to payment screen.  At this point, you can hold the reservation for up to 5 days.  That should be enough time to find a decent flight (or move SPG points to AA, if necessary).

Your AA held reservation gets its own AA Record Locator Number, which you can give to AA phone reps to make any necessary changes over the phone.

You will also receive an email from AA with details about your held reservation.

At this point, I wanted to find a flight from MAD-AGP.  Looking on ITA Matrix (beginner guide), I see the perfect flight on Iberia for only $54.

I wanted to see if there was award space for that flight, so I went to the British Airways website and looked for the flight.  For more info on booking BA flights, read this post.

The results look good.  There is award space on the 11:40am flight in economy from MAD-AGP.  There is also business class space on the 5:55pm flight.

I don’t care about the price of the award flight.  Since all the Avios cash prices would cost a lot more than $54.  I only care about the flight information and the fact that there is award space open on this flight.

To add the above Iberia flight onto my held AA reservation, I called the AA reservation department at 1-800-433-7300.  After giving the AA Record Locator Number to the agent, she informed me that I would have to be transferred to the international ticketing department.  After a short hold, I was talking to the friendly, and very experienced, representative.

I gave him my AA Record Locator Number and told him I wanted to add an Iberia award flight after my flight to Madrid.

I gave him the destination airport code and he found the above 11:40am flight.  He told me that since the award was not bookable online, there would be a $35 award booking fee per person plus any additional taxes.  I asked for a fee waiver, but he said it was not possible for Iberia awards.  Then he told me that the connection time was only 80 minutes.  Iberia requires a minimum connection time of 90 minutes.  He said the system wouldn’t let him book the earlier flight, but he reserved 2 business class seats on the 5:55pm flight.  He mentioned that if the AA flight to Madrid arrived 10 minutes earlier or the Iberia flight to Malaga left 10 minute later, I should call back and try to get seats on the 11:40am flight.  Since the trip is 7-8 months out, I am not too worried.  Schedule changes happen frequently, especially on long haul international flights.

He confirmed the dates, times, flight numbers, and we proceeded to the payment section. He told me that there were no fees to change the dates or times of the award flights, but if I wanted to cancel the reservation and redeposit the miles, it would cost $175.  Since Iberia is somewhat old school, he said that the confirmation email from Iberia might take a few days, but to expect it on Sunday or Monday.  I thanked him for all his help and we were done.  I’ve never had an easier experience making changes to a held reservation.  So now we wait.  Hopefully there will be a schedule change soon.  Fingers crossed.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great weekend everyone!