Can British Airways Avios Really Book Every American Airlines MileSAAver Flight?

If you're familiar with the British Airways (BA) Avios miles program, you know that Avios can book domestic-US flights on OneWorld Alliance partner American Airlines (AA) (and their recently merged airline US Airways) for fewer miles than AA will charge for the same flight. AA charges 12,500 miles for all domestic one-way coach tickets, but because Avios is a distance-based program, shorter-distance flights can be much less than 12,500. The amount of miles you need is based on the distance you are traveling. For example, NYC-MIA falls in the distance bracket that's only 7,500 Avios (a savings of 5,000 miles!), and NYC-CLE falls in the smallest bracket at just 4,500 Avios (a savings of 8,000 miles)! But, this isn't a post about the program; it's about phantom availability - a term used when you see available award space, but the airline can't book it.

Normally to find availability, you go on AA.com and search for the flight you want. In the results, you'll see AA shows different colors boxes, representing different award redemption levels. Take a look at this screenshot:

Avios is supposed to be able book any flight that shows up as MileSAAver (AA's cheapest redemption level) - that's the light green for coach (yes, even though it says 12,500 miles - that's if you pay with AA miles, remember you're on their website) and light blue for business. Click on the light blue box, and the calendar will update with all dates that business MileSAAver flights are available. (The AAnytime awards are much more expensive than MileSAAver and cannot be booked by partner airlines, like BA. You can see a few examples of AAnytime in the screenshot. The days with gray boxes that say "25K" are days when MileSAAver is not available, but AAnytime is.) Once you find a flight you want with MileSAAver space, you can go to BA.com, search for the flight there and book it. Why search on AA.com first? AA.com has a better calendar/search capability. You can see a month's availability at a time versus having to go day by day on BA.com. Additionally, there's one more benefit, which is the crux of this post.

Sometimes, AA.com will show MileSAAver space for a flight, but the followup search on BA.com won't show that space. Although it's a hiccup, it's not the worst thing, because you should be able to just call BA (unfortunately, they usually have a long hold time), and a phone rep can usually see the space and book it for you. However, 2 weeks ago, I came across an anomaly.

My wife and I were planning to visit friends in Pittsburgh for Memorial Day Weekend and the Jewish holiday of Shavuos (which coincided with Memorial Day this year). Obviously, Avios was the way to go as NYC-PIT is just 4,500 Avios per person each way. The round-trip would cost us 18,000 Avios total. If we were to pay with AA miles for the same flight, it would be 12,500 per person each way, for a total of 50,000 miles! What a steal, eh!? I always search flights one-way at a time since many award search engines won't show all availability if you search round-trips. It's easier usually to just search for your flight one leg at a time. So, finding a flight with MileSAAver space was not a problem for the outbound, and BA.com was showing the flight as well. However, I found a flight with MileSAAver for the return, but BA.com wasn't finding it. I knew that this happens, so I called up BA.com to book it on the phone. As expected, the rep saw the space and started booking it. However, when he tried pricing it out and ticketing it, it wouldn't ticket. He got an error that said the flight was not in inventory. I called several times over the next few days, spoke to reps and managers, but nada. No one could get the ticket to book. Calling AA didn't help either. Their reps obviously saw the space, but had no suggestion as to why BA couldn't book it. My last attempt was trying to convince a BA rep to call their "contact" at AA and figure out why it wasn't showing up in their inventory, but alas, that failed as well.

We ended up driving to Pittsburgh, about a 6.5 hour drive, and had a wonderful holiday weekend, but boy was the flight situation frustrating.

So, was this a one-time glitch, or can Avios really not book every available AA MileSAAver flight?