Linking record locators?

[msmayor]

Looking to the travel experts here...

 

My husband and I are flying from PHL to LAS in April on American Airlines - it's a business trip for me (conference) and husband is tagging along, so my ticket is on the Company and husband's ticket is on me.

 

On a whim, I decided to see what I could get with my Amex points and discovered I had just enough to get a first-class ticket for him.  Thanks to the incredibly generosity of my boss, he told me I could buy a ticket in first as well and expense it.  

 

There wasn't a way for me to get one ticket for cash and one for points on the same locator - I had to get them separately.  No issues getting same flights, and was able to immediately select seats for both tickets.  I'd like to somehow make sure that AA knows we are traveling together because, well, you never know what can happen.   Is there a way to do this, and if so is it just as simple as calling AA and asking them to link the tickets?

[terry&mike]

Yes, they can link the reservations. Just give them a call.

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, msmayor said:

Is there a way to do this, and if so is it just as simple as calling AA and asking them to link the tickets?

 

34 minutes ago, terry&mike said:

Yes, they can link the reservations. Just give them a call.

 

Just don't overestimate what the linking will do. In many airlines' systems, it's nothing more than a manual comment that appears in each booking record that records that there's a link to another passenger on the same flight. If things go pear-shaped, the agent reading each booking record (perhaps at speed, under high pressure) may or may not see it for themselves. The existence of the notes won't necessarily mean that the "linking" will get noticed or acted on, although it's nice when it happens.

[zdcatc12]

11 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

 

Just don't overestimate what the linking will do. In many airlines' systems, it's nothing more than a manual comment that appears in each booking record that records that there's a link to another passenger on the same flight. If things go pear-shaped, the agent reading each booking record (perhaps at speed, under high pressure) may or may not see it for themselves. The existence of the notes won't necessarily mean that the "linking" will get noticed or acted on, although it's nice when it happens.

That happened to my brother and I a few years ago coming back from LAS.  I had status on AA, so linked our reservations (we were coming at different times from different places, but leaving on the same flight to DFW) which allowed him better seats on the return trip. We had an equipment change on the return, and AA split us up leaving LAS onto two different flights. I called and had us put back on the same one. Of course it went from a new A321 to a POS LUS A321.

[waterbug123]

You can have an agent link the reservations, but as mentioned already, it may be meaningless.  In an automatic rebooking situation, the computer cannot "see" the manually entered comment and will still treat the reservations and two independent reservations.  Only an actual person who takes the time and/or initiative to read the comments screen will see that you are flying together.