Can you split a reservation (PNR) booked as a single AAdvantage award ticket for two passengers, if one passenger needs to change or cancel his/her itinerary, but you want to keep the other passenger's award intact? TravelSort reader Paula writes:
“I have a sticky situation with our award tickets. Booked 11 months out for a three week family summer vacation to Japan and Hong Kong in business class.
We got 4 round trip award tickets on 2 different PNRs since the miles are coming from 2 AAdvantage accounts:
PNR#1: Mom with kid#1
PNR#2: Dad with Kid#2
These are AA round trip partner awards in
JAL Business Class and Cathay Pacific Business Class. Now dad can't make the trip (or needs to shorten it in the best scenario) due to a new job, but mom and the two kids plan to stick with the original plan.
We want to split PNR#2 for dad to be on his own PNR so he can cancel or change later while keeping kid #2's flights intact.
I realized we need to pay change/redposit fee for dad's ticket which is fine.
However, from past experience (with United MileagePlus awards), splitting the PNR would cancel all flights for all passengers on the PNR, and we will need to rebook all the segments from scratch, and the cancelled flight may not go back to award inventory, especially for partner flights. Is this the same with AAdvantage awards? (There is no award space for the flights we booked now.)
Is there any way to save any of the 110K miles for dad's award ticket without risking kid#2's flights?”
AAdvantage Can Split PNRs, Both Before Ticketing and With an Existing Reservation
While United MileagePlus awards can, as Paula has experienced, be harder to split into separate PNRs after ticketing, AAdvantage awards can be split into separate PNRs, both before and after ticketing. Although I've only had to do this a few times for clients of my Award Booking Service, I've never had an issue and all segments remained intact on the two separate PNRs, after splitting.
Non-Elites Will Pay Change / Redeposit Fees
If you're not an AAdvantage Executive Platinum elite frequent flyer, you will pay to change flight awards (unless there was a significant enough schedule change to enable you to change it for free). Changing the destination or origin of the award is $150.
Fortunately date changes are free, as long as you're not within the 21 day close-in ticketing window. If you are within 21 days, the charge is $75, waived for AAdvantage Executive Platinum, Platinum and Gold members.
Need to cancel and redeposit miles? It's $150 for the first ticket, and $25 per additional award ticket redeposited to the same AAdvantage account at the same time. Make sure, then, that you redeposit awards booked with a given account at the same time, to save $125 on each additional award ticket after the first one.
Link the Child's PNR to Traveling Parent and Monitor for Flight Changes
While you can have AAdvantage “link” the child's PNR to the traveling parent and other child, so that the child (who is no longer traveling with Dad if Dad cancels and redeposits his flight) is not considered an unaccompanied minor, I would still carefully monitor all flights regularly, because there are times when a flight changes and passengers are rerouted. Paula will of course want to ensure that both kids, including the one on a separate reservation, remain with her for any potential reroutings.
What About Splitting PNRs with United MileagePlus Awards?
United MileagePlus awards are unfortunately not as easy to split into separate PNRs, and some agents will simply deny they can do this, and insist that you'll have to redeposit both awards and start from scratch because (most likely) it's a Star Alliance partner award. Obviously, that's risky since 1) those award seats may or may not come back into award inventory; and 2) even if they return to award inventory, someone else may manage to snap them up before you do.
If an agent tells you this and is intransigent, thank them politely and keep the hold or reservation intact, then call back and try to get a more helpful and capable agent. If the agent is helpful but not confident in being able to split it without losing segments, gently ask whether the Star Alliance / RTW support desk may be able to help.
Have you ever had to split an AAdvantage or MileagePlus award PNR and if so, did everything go smoothly?
Related Posts
