Jan 1, 2015, 8:43 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
MODERATOR GUIDEPOST
This is the ARCHIVE through 2015 for older posts from the MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion (consolidated) thread.
This wikipost can be edited by members with 90 days' tenure and 90 posts; wiki contents may be printed by using the
(lower right wiki corner).
Other useful resources include:
MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity >= Aug 2011 onward (consolidated)
oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on
Help with British Airways / BA surcharge / YQ (AA award on BA, consolidated)
UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures
This is the ARCHIVE through 2015 for older posts from the MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion (consolidated) thread.
Some of you might have found your thread merged into this "consolidated" thread. If your desire is to become thoroughly familiar with the knowledge that has been accumulated about the process for acquiring MileSAAver awards feel free to read this entire thread. If you only want the assistance from those who have the knowledge your request has been merged at the end. Feel free to wait for a forthcoming answer.
If you have reached this thread by using the search process you have the same choices as above. Read the thread and become knowledgeable or post at the end and wait for a forthcoming answer.
thanks
~magic111
If you have reached this thread by using the search process you have the same choices as above. Read the thread and become knowledgeable or post at the end and wait for a forthcoming answer.
thanks
~magic111
This wikipost can be edited by members with 90 days' tenure and 90 posts; wiki contents may be printed by using the
(lower right wiki corner).Other useful resources include:
MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity >= Aug 2011 onward (consolidated)
oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on
Help with British Airways / BA surcharge / YQ (AA award on BA, consolidated)
UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures
ARCHIVE: 2009-2015 MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability Help etc.
May 1, 2014, 3:45 pm
#4726
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: SJC, Northern Cal.
Programs: SWA RR BIS 6.2M, A+'20, CP'20, AA, UA Gold, Hertz PC, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 909
Thank you salty! Ok I'll go look at IB on BA. Then call AA and book on the phone I assume. Any better number than AA's 800-882-8880?
Sorry all firsts for me as for business I use SWA to fly and AA/Citi for expenses. SWA I'm a pro, AA nosomuch.
Sorry all firsts for me as for business I use SWA to fly and AA/Citi for expenses. SWA I'm a pro, AA nosomuch.
Last edited by Wingrider; May 1, 2014 at 3:57 pm Reason: Giving Salty Props!
May 1, 2014, 3:52 pm
#4727
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: San Antonio
Programs: AS MVP
Posts: 2,276
Wingrider - If you can make these dates work:
9/23, Leave just after midnight on US 611 from SFO or 488 from LAX to CLT, US 1983 to JFK arr 13:22, IB 6250 to MAD leave 17:05 arr 6:20+1
8/5, IB6123 leave MAD 11:50, arr MIA 15:30, continue on via PHX on 8/6
- or, and I'm not sure this is a viable itin per AA rules -
8/8, IB6501 leave MAD 11:50, arr SDQ 14:40, AA1481 SDQ-MIA 16:10-18:35, continue on AA/US
9/23, Leave just after midnight on US 611 from SFO or 488 from LAX to CLT, US 1983 to JFK arr 13:22, IB 6250 to MAD leave 17:05 arr 6:20+1
8/5, IB6123 leave MAD 11:50, arr MIA 15:30, continue on via PHX on 8/6
- or, and I'm not sure this is a viable itin per AA rules -
8/8, IB6501 leave MAD 11:50, arr SDQ 14:40, AA1481 SDQ-MIA 16:10-18:35, continue on AA/US
May 1, 2014, 3:57 pm
#4728
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: SJC, Northern Cal.
Programs: SWA RR BIS 6.2M, A+'20, CP'20, AA, UA Gold, Hertz PC, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 909
Wingrider - If you can make these dates work:
9/23, Leave just after midnight on US 611 from SFO or 488 from LAX to CLT, US 1983 to JFK arr 13:22, IB 6250 to MAD leave 17:05 arr 6:20+1
8/5, IB6123 leave MAD 11:50, arr MIA 15:30, continue on via PHX on 8/6
- or, and I'm not sure this is a viable itin per AA rules -
8/8, IB6501 leave MAD 11:50, arr SDQ 14:40, AA1481 SDQ-MIA 16:10-18:35, continue on AA/US
9/23, Leave just after midnight on US 611 from SFO or 488 from LAX to CLT, US 1983 to JFK arr 13:22, IB 6250 to MAD leave 17:05 arr 6:20+1
8/5, IB6123 leave MAD 11:50, arr MIA 15:30, continue on via PHX on 8/6
- or, and I'm not sure this is a viable itin per AA rules -
8/8, IB6501 leave MAD 11:50, arr SDQ 14:40, AA1481 SDQ-MIA 16:10-18:35, continue on AA/US
Will the CS reps let me try these if I call them? This will be by first time calling AA CS.
May 1, 2014, 4:27 pm
#4729
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: San Antonio
Programs: AS MVP
Posts: 2,276
The AA reps should try them, no problem. Or you could just put the AA and US segments together as a LAX-JFK, MIA-LAX (or whatever) multi-city a2ard, and then call in to add the IB segments. Each one-way with an IB long haul segment will have a surcharge, around 100 PP IIRC.
May 1, 2014, 5:08 pm
#4730
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: SJC, Northern Cal.
Programs: SWA RR BIS 6.2M, A+'20, CP'20, AA, UA Gold, Hertz PC, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 909
Well I'm on hold with AA now and she sounds like she's willing to do some digging. I've been on hold for about 5 minutes now and they don't have my AA number yet so I'm not on the hook for anything.
Wish me luck.
Wish me luck.
May 1, 2014, 5:27 pm
#4731
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: San Antonio
Programs: AS MVP
Posts: 2,276
Wingrider - I didn't check via MEX or CUN which might result in better itins if allowed. If you get something ticketed, you can change or cancel free within 24 hrs.
ETA: there are indeed business class seats on exactly your requested dates by flying MEX-MAD IB6400 on 9/15, 12:25-6:20+1 and returning MAD-MIA IB6123 on 9/30, 11:50-15:30. You can complete that with AA or US flights or position with a cheap paid flight or WN points.
If this itinerary works with AA rules, AS has a nonstop with business class seats LAX-MEX on 9/15.
ETA: there are indeed business class seats on exactly your requested dates by flying MEX-MAD IB6400 on 9/15, 12:25-6:20+1 and returning MAD-MIA IB6123 on 9/30, 11:50-15:30. You can complete that with AA or US flights or position with a cheap paid flight or WN points.
If this itinerary works with AA rules, AS has a nonstop with business class seats LAX-MEX on 9/15.
Last edited by KennyBSAT; May 1, 2014 at 7:42 pm
May 1, 2014, 5:34 pm
#4732
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,804
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)
You're not on the hook until they get your credit-card number.
Also, I believe that awards on IB metal can be held without charge for 24 hours, so I'm not sure that you can cancel for free for 24 hours after paying for the award.
Originally Posted by Wingrider
Well I'm on hold with AA now and she sounds like she's willing to do some digging. I've been on hold for about 5 minutes now and they don't have my AA number yet so I'm not on the hook for anything.
Wish me luck.
Wish me luck.
Also, I believe that awards on IB metal can be held without charge for 24 hours, so I'm not sure that you can cancel for free for 24 hours after paying for the award.
May 1, 2014, 9:39 pm
#4733
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: DFW/LAX
Programs: HH Diamond, AA EXP
Posts: 534
You can definitely fly through MEX to Europe. I would assume CUN okay as well. Not sure about Caribbean islands.
May 2, 2014, 11:51 am
#4734
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,230
Ok, how about shifting this from Brazil to Spain for some Award help… :-)
9/15 out- 9/30 back (dates flexible about a week or more each way) 2 PAX flying Bus. out of your choice of west coast- SJC/SFO/LAX headed for MAD/LIS or in a pinch BCN. Also willing to fly out of DFW. I have 293k. Also willing to at least buy Econ and upgrade. Have SW points to burn so we can fly to most any AA hub to get into position.
This looks like a lost cause so I'm really hoping you sAAvy pros can help a newb.
All help appreciated.
9/15 out- 9/30 back (dates flexible about a week or more each way) 2 PAX flying Bus. out of your choice of west coast- SJC/SFO/LAX headed for MAD/LIS or in a pinch BCN. Also willing to fly out of DFW. I have 293k. Also willing to at least buy Econ and upgrade. Have SW points to burn so we can fly to most any AA hub to get into position.
This looks like a lost cause so I'm really hoping you sAAvy pros can help a newb.
All help appreciated.
May 4, 2014, 9:37 am
#4735
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: East Coast
Programs: AA CONCIERGE KEY & 1MM, HILTON DIAMOND
Posts: 11,970
Hmm. You're the second person I've heard say this. I'm not sure we're on the same page here. Have you flown on this?
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/12/04/tam...riestmangoode/
If you have, from the looks of it, it's hard to believe it's not good.
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/12/04/tam...riestmangoode/
If you have, from the looks of it, it's hard to believe it's not good.
May 4, 2014, 10:04 am
#4736
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Yes, that's the new F product. While the hard product has greatly improved, the soft product is still very weak, and TAM hasn't retrained its F cabin crews. I don't think it is acceptable for F standards for me to constantly have to ask the crew for basic things like water.
May 7, 2014, 1:25 am
#4737
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Melbourne
Programs: ►QFWP/LTG►VA WP►HyattExpl.►HiltonGold►ALL Silver
Posts: 22,007
Thank you armus for the post from last year which I have re-quoted below. I was surprised that there was no comment on it at the time - it is worthy of a Wiki.
What you describe is exactly how I saw things when researching and booking an ex LAX award this evening for April 1st 2015. (I did a couple of dry run sover the last week or so.)
.________
Cliff Notes:
Availability showed up (E/F) just after midnight Central time but was not bookable from West coast origins. Awards were bookable from Central (DFW) and Eastern ports (NYC).
Two hours later after midnight WST time I was able to book ex LAX.
________
Expertflyer showed no availability on the target flight at around 11:30pm DFW time, but appeared soon after midnight in Dallas.
It was not showing as bookable on AA.com however.
At about 3 minutes after midnight in LAX these flight showed up and I was able to make my booking.
What you describe is exactly how I saw things when researching and booking an ex LAX award this evening for April 1st 2015. (I did a couple of dry run sover the last week or so.)
.________
Cliff Notes:
Availability showed up (E/F) just after midnight Central time but was not bookable from West coast origins. Awards were bookable from Central (DFW) and Eastern ports (NYC).
Two hours later after midnight WST time I was able to book ex LAX.
________
Expertflyer showed no availability on the target flight at around 11:30pm DFW time, but appeared soon after midnight in Dallas.
It was not showing as bookable on AA.com however.
At about 3 minutes after midnight in LAX these flight showed up and I was able to make my booking.
I haven't seen a centralized & complete hot-to guide on how to grab sAAver seats on flights that typically offer such seats when the flight first becomes available 330/331 days (aka 11 months) in advance. Either I'm not looking in the right place (I'd expect it to be here in the wiki) or y'all are trying to avoid empowering more people compete with you for those seats 
.
I'll share my observations for someone based in US trying to book strictly AA metal for Europe to US. Your options/experiences may vary -- experiment in advance of the day you want to determine if a different model applies (or if days have shifted due to a leap year). Today is Sunday and I'll use that as an example.
On Sunday you can see next year's Monday departure on the website. The following day's flight (on Tuesday) will appear on the website at the flight's local time-of-day departure time (e.g., Tuesday's 2 PM LHR departure will first appear at 2 PM LHR time on Sunday, or morning in US).
For sAAver, Monday's flight will first show saver seats on the website when it's midnight in the departing time zone (e.g., afternoon/evening in US for an LHR departure). The seats won't actually be bookable on the website (attempting to book flight results in a message that it's no longer available) until it's midnight in Dallas. I don't know if calling will have the same problem. Prior to midnight in Dallas about the most you can do is experiment to see how many sAAver seats will be made available by increasing the seat count until the flight disappears as a sAAver option (some flights only get 1 seat, while some get more allocated mid-week compared to weekend flights).
When it's midnight in Dallas you can jump on the flight(s) that depart in or east of the Dallas time zone. An example source of time is http://time.gov/timezone.cgi?Central/d/-6 . If the first flight(s) you want are east of Dallas time zone then you can get to the flight selection step a few minutes before midnight (be sure to be logged in already), have the flight selected, wait for midnight in Dallas, and then click on "Continue" to start the reservation process. Jump through the steps as quickly as possible to place a hold. Skip the seat selection step. After the hold has been placed you can go back later to pick out seats.
If you need to get more flights that depart west of Dallas (e.g., LHR->LAX->HNL), then you'll need to wait until it's midnight in the flight's departing time zone. You can then call AAdvantage to revise your held reservation to add that next flight (if you expect a large hold time, e.g., due to recent flight disruptions, then you might want to call before midnight expecting to reach at agent at/after midnight). This should not incur an additional booking fee (at least not if you opt to keep the reservation on hold and later book via website, but regardless the website is probably faster and less error prone than via phone). While on the phone you may want to confirm via website that the flight does appear as sAAver in case the agent tells you they see no availability -- they sometimes need the prod to try harder. If you're anti-social and want to avoid the phone you can risk cancelling your held reservation and try to rebook from scratch with the additional flight (it can take up to 15 minutes for the seats to show up again, assuming they show up again at all).
That’s it. The above targets the paranoid, though the last time I did this I could tell that the remaining sAAver seats on a flight were all grabbed within the first 60 seconds of availability and they too skipped the seat selection step (either that or they really like the back row of the plane and then decided they'd rather join me up front
). Some of the things I mention here aren’t original to me – I just tried to centralize the advice a bit and fill in some voids with my own observations (and no doubt some will say it’s wrong or bad). If there’s already a post like this then maybe it should go in the wiki.
.I'll share my observations for someone based in US trying to book strictly AA metal for Europe to US. Your options/experiences may vary -- experiment in advance of the day you want to determine if a different model applies (or if days have shifted due to a leap year). Today is Sunday and I'll use that as an example.
On Sunday you can see next year's Monday departure on the website. The following day's flight (on Tuesday) will appear on the website at the flight's local time-of-day departure time (e.g., Tuesday's 2 PM LHR departure will first appear at 2 PM LHR time on Sunday, or morning in US).
For sAAver, Monday's flight will first show saver seats on the website when it's midnight in the departing time zone (e.g., afternoon/evening in US for an LHR departure). The seats won't actually be bookable on the website (attempting to book flight results in a message that it's no longer available) until it's midnight in Dallas. I don't know if calling will have the same problem. Prior to midnight in Dallas about the most you can do is experiment to see how many sAAver seats will be made available by increasing the seat count until the flight disappears as a sAAver option (some flights only get 1 seat, while some get more allocated mid-week compared to weekend flights).
When it's midnight in Dallas you can jump on the flight(s) that depart in or east of the Dallas time zone. An example source of time is http://time.gov/timezone.cgi?Central/d/-6 . If the first flight(s) you want are east of Dallas time zone then you can get to the flight selection step a few minutes before midnight (be sure to be logged in already), have the flight selected, wait for midnight in Dallas, and then click on "Continue" to start the reservation process. Jump through the steps as quickly as possible to place a hold. Skip the seat selection step. After the hold has been placed you can go back later to pick out seats.
If you need to get more flights that depart west of Dallas (e.g., LHR->LAX->HNL), then you'll need to wait until it's midnight in the flight's departing time zone. You can then call AAdvantage to revise your held reservation to add that next flight (if you expect a large hold time, e.g., due to recent flight disruptions, then you might want to call before midnight expecting to reach at agent at/after midnight). This should not incur an additional booking fee (at least not if you opt to keep the reservation on hold and later book via website, but regardless the website is probably faster and less error prone than via phone). While on the phone you may want to confirm via website that the flight does appear as sAAver in case the agent tells you they see no availability -- they sometimes need the prod to try harder. If you're anti-social and want to avoid the phone you can risk cancelling your held reservation and try to rebook from scratch with the additional flight (it can take up to 15 minutes for the seats to show up again, assuming they show up again at all).
That’s it. The above targets the paranoid, though the last time I did this I could tell that the remaining sAAver seats on a flight were all grabbed within the first 60 seconds of availability and they too skipped the seat selection step (either that or they really like the back row of the plane and then decided they'd rather join me up front
). Some of the things I mention here aren’t original to me – I just tried to centralize the advice a bit and fill in some voids with my own observations (and no doubt some will say it’s wrong or bad). If there’s already a post like this then maybe it should go in the wiki.
May 7, 2014, 11:53 am
#4738
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 2,384
Does SAAver inventory get loaded at the same time as AAnytime AA inventory?
May 7, 2014, 1:40 pm
#4739
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,804
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)
Not necessarily. SAAver inventory is dynamic, and can change from day to day.
Originally Posted by bmchris
Does SAAver inventory get loaded at the same time as AAnytime AA inventory?
May 7, 2014, 3:57 pm
#4740
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Melbourne
Programs: ►QFWP/LTG►VA WP►HyattExpl.►HiltonGold►ALL Silver
Posts: 22,007
With my evaluations of the past week, I could book a business (for example) AAnytime AAward LAX to North Asia for 155K miles if I had wanted to.
I needed to wait until midnight LAX time to book the same flight as a SAAver for 50K miles.