primefaces (3.2) autocomplete pojo - autocomplete

Question

I am trying to implement PF Autocomplete component (v3.2) with POJO. Things work fine when a user selects an entry from the possible drop down options provided. However, the scenario where a user enters some text into the input field and simply hits enter does not work well for me.
If a user simply enters some text to the autocomplete input box and hits enter, all I have to do is redirect them to a new page with 1 query parameter. I noticed that if I hit enter before AutoComplete has a chance to show suggestions, then the redirect happens just fine. Once drop down suggestions are shown, hitting enter simply clears the input box.
I would expect something like this to work just fine, so I must be doing something silly.
<h:form>
<p:autoComplete id="globalAutoComplete" value="#{autoCompleteBackingBean.selectedResult}" completeMethod="#{autoCompleteBackingBean.globalSearch}" var="aResult" itemValue="#{aResult}" converter="autoCompleteConverter" queryDelay="200" maxResults="6" minQueryLength="3">
<p:column>
#{aResult.label} <br/> #{aResult.desc} <span class='ui-icon #{aResult.icon} autocompleteResultsIcon'/>
</p:column>
</p:autoComplete>
<p:commandButton id="submitAutoComplete" type="submit" icon="ui-icon-suitcase" action="#{autoCompleteBackingBean.doRedirect}"/>
</h:form>
Converter:
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext fc, UIComponent uic, String value) {
if (value == null || value.length() == 0 ) {
return null;
}
Object obj = null;
try {
List<AutoComplete> results = AutoCompleteBackingBean.getResults();
for (AutoComplete aResult : results){
if((aResult.getDreRef()).equals(value))
return aResult;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("AutoCompleteConverter getAsObject Error: " + e);
}
if (obj == null) {
AutoComplete empty = new AutoComplete();
empty.setDreRef(value);
return empty;
}
return obj;
}
public String getAsString(FacesContext fc, UIComponent uic, Object object) {
if (object == null) {
return null;
}
Class entityClass = getEntityClass();
String value = null;
if (entityClass.isInstance(object)) {
try {
value = ((AutoComplete)object).getDreRef();
}catch (Exception e){
System.err.println("AutoCompleteConverter getAsString Error: " + e);
value = "Unable to obtain String from Object";
}
}
else {
value = "AutoCompleteConverter.getAsString(): Object " + object + " is of type "
+ object.getClass().getSimpleName() + "; expected type: "
+ entityClass.getSimpleName();
throw new ConverterException(new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR, value, null));
}
return value;
}
Backing bean:
private AutoComplete selectedResult = null;
//getter and setter
public String doRedirect() {
System.out.println("doRedirect()");
return "entities.jsf?query=" + selectedResult.getDreRef() + "&faces-redirect=true";
}