New One-Way Flex Award / Awards, <NO> Stopover Rule, and Booking Engine (May 9, 2009)
 

Okay, looks like the other posters were correct, AA.com is now showing one-way awards at half the miles (12.5K for domestic one-way). It's only showing the amounts currently, but no flights are actually listing when you select the award type:

Award Miles

12.5K
Economy
MileSAAver

25K
Economy
AAnytime

25K
Business/First
MileSAAver *

50K
Business/First
AAnytime *

32.5K
First
MileSAAver

65K
First
AAnytime

* Valid for Business/First on flights with two classes of service where applicable and Business Class on all other flights.

when trying to redeem miles for one way online it seems to show 1/2 the mileage options, but still not fully supported as you can't book it.

They're showing now!!!

One way flights for exactly half the miles!!! Very excited. Now let's see if it applies to OW awards.

And of course, let's see what we've given up for this privilege.

Take it at face value:

An AAdvantage AAgent attempted not to tell me that the option to have both a stopover and an open-jaw on awards was going away. Sounds plausible as it'd match how UA does it.

If half-price one-ways become available (and they are certainly showing on AA right now), then they can't prevent open jaw trips. In fact some open jaws are improved because if you mix zones you don't have to pay the price of the more expensive zone.

Stopovers on one-ways could certainly go away.

I think it's more possible that stopovers on round trips will cease to be free and instead will require miles for each flight.

e.g. that ticket i am taking from JFK to ICN with an NRT stopover presently requires a mere 65K during peak season for Y cabin. Maybe 90K if they no longer allow stopover (even though it will still involve switching planes at NRT).

(as pure speculation)

Here's what I don't understand. What are they doing that requires them to change the award reservation system FIRST and only announce it AFTERWARDS?

If it's just half-price one-ways, there is no reason they couldn't have put out a press release to say "good news, starting next week (or in two months) you'll be able to book one-ways..." And with undesirable rule changes, like increases in the redemption levels or changes in stopover rules, you'd expect AA to let us know as a normal courtesy well in advance of implementation.

Somehow the changes are such that if they are announced in advance, people will be able to take unfair advantage (sorry, pun not intended), so it has to be hush-hush until it is in place. Of all the speculated changes, what fits the bill?

New award booking engine - including one way awards
 

Not sure if this was mentioned but it looks like the AAdvantage booking system has been redesigned. I noticed you can now mix award levels (i.e economy one way, first return). Seems like a big improvement!

New One-Way rewards redemption!!
 

So, I was in the process of looking up a rewards ticket when I noticed that AA's website has this message, currently:

So, to see if the EPlat desk could help me at all, I called them up to try to reserve my rewards ticket that way. However, I was greeted with different, more welcoming news. It appears that American is upgrading their rewards bookings to allow you to book different rewards types per segment. Coach on the way out, business on the way back for whatever reason (because you want to or because coach wasn't available on the return)?... sure, why not. The new system will allow it.

The new rewards system should be up and running by Saturday morning. Happy redeeming :D

Alright, this post can be closed or moved. There is more information on this post here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...2009-a-16.html

^

(Moderator's note: all posts regarding confirmed changes of the award system have been moved to this thread. Rampant, sheer or wild speculation can still be read or posted to the thread mentioned.)

Its up now, does def look different and does have one ways.

Ticketed an award ticket from USA to Europe with a stopover and openjaw for 60,000 miles. The agent told me if I wait till today then I will have to use additional 20,000 miles for the stopover since each segment is going to be counted separately due to new changes in award travel. Bad news.

The good news is that now people would be able to combine classes of travel for each segment spending less miles and eliminating the issue of open jaws (for instance LAX-London business 50,000 plus Madrid - SNA coach 30,000 - total 80,000)

no more free stopovers ((( The agent said people are going to be upset and it will be all over the news today.

No more free stopovers ((( since each segment is being counted.

The updates are not done yet... just placed a call to a AA and had a 5 minute hold time. Never seen that at 5AM on Saturday morning. :eek: The agent was not able to help me though as she couldn't yet see any flights from Qantas or JAL. :(

So apparently there's more to come.

Also - AA.com will allow you to book a multi-city award and you get this message:

"This international award allows a stopover at Los Angeles - LAX for no additional miles. Mileage required for both flights is displayed on the Award Legend for the international flight."

But it won't let you get any further - so a stop over (in the US at least) may just be allowed.

I was on hold for 25 min at 10.40 PST. The end to free stopovers I was referring to concern flights to Europe. Other ones I don't know about.