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

Old Oct 28, 2012, 8:27 pm
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For AA's announcement of their new One-Way Flex Awards, see: http://www.aa.com/i18n/amrcorp/newsr...FlexAwards.jsp

For AA's FAQ on the new One-Way Flex Awards, including the new stopover rule, see: http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...award_faqs.jsp
Q: Do one-way awards include any stopovers?
A: Awards between North America and Europe, India, Asia, and Central / South America allow a stopover at the North American gateway. However, other one-way awards do not allow stopovers.
Note that free stopovers have been eliminated as of 8 April 2014, so that portion of this discussion is no longer current.

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

Old May 9, 2009, 10:44 am
  #31  
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Originally Posted by riteshraja
Where on AA.com are the changes documented?
It would be nice to know what the rules are, wouldn't it!

I like the apparent addition of one-way awards. ^
I hope that there are still some free stopover or open-jaws allowed. I wouldn't be too upset with limiting them compared to the current system--I've often concocted some great 'valuable' routings on paper, but I've never actually had occasion to use them--but I would hate to see them gone completely (and that wouldn't be competitive with other programs).

It would also be nice to know how the new rules differ between All Partner Awards and AA awards.
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Old May 9, 2009, 11:36 am
  #32  
 
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I just booked a one-way partner award by calling Reservations. It was half the mileage of a regular partner award, everything else being the same.
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Old May 9, 2009, 1:29 pm
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by jamienbaker
Several months ago I booked JL for NRTDPS (just that one segment) through AA, had to pay the round-trip price even though only flying one-way. One-way OW awards have long been available through BA, though I had exhausted my points in that account.

Anyhow, I'm curious if AA will refund the 50% of my points that they took, given the recent change to one-way awards. My phone service is out, I just haven't been able to check yet. Anyone else experience a refund?

Jamie
Good luck with that one. AA eliminated the downfaring a while back, so I doubt they will do it on awards now.
You could cancel your trip, redeposit the miles for a fee and rebook yourself. Of course that means you lose your seat, availability might be an issue, etc...
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Old May 9, 2009, 1:32 pm
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by ellylex
No more free stopovers ((( since each segment is being counted.

I think the speculated loss of int'l stopover is the biggest negative here.

However, and this is pure speculation on my end, if you have two one way awards for 50% of the miles, then the return award originates in say Europe. Therefore, you should be able to have a free stopover on your return flight in say FRA/CDG/LHR because it is your European zone gateway.
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Old May 9, 2009, 1:33 pm
  #35  
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Originally Posted by Deltahater
Good luck with that one. AA eliminated the downfaring a while back, so I doubt they will do it on awards now.
You could cancel your trip, redeposit the miles for a fee and rebook yourself. Of course that means you lose your seat, availability might be an issue, etc...
Best thing to do would be to put a new one-way on hold, cancel the R/T (paying the redeposit fee), then pull the trigger on the one way, pick up your reserved seat when it is returned to inventory.
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Old May 9, 2009, 2:19 pm
  #36  
 
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Could someone clearly spell this out for me, as I am not clear. Going from DFW to EIS (Tortola), the flight usually stops in San Juan. Since we like that city, we usually extend our stay here 2-3 nights to party before heading to the islands without penalty. With an award ticket this has always been free. Is this no longer???? Very disappointing if so!!!
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Old May 9, 2009, 4:17 pm
  #37  
 
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Hold on. Is each segment separate, or each stopover?

If each segment is separate, how much are you looking at paying in miles to go between say LGA and PER? LGA-ORD-LAX-SYD-PER-SYD-LAX-ORD-LGA? That's a lot of segments!
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Old May 9, 2009, 4:38 pm
  #38  
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Originally Posted by stevenshev
Hold on. Is each segment separate, or each stopover?
Each stopover. Segments are definitely not counted individually. Now that would be catastrophic.
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Old May 9, 2009, 4:59 pm
  #39  
 
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NICE! That is fantastic news. I was really hoping to get a one-way award for RTW positioning and this is just exactly what I needed. ^^
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Old May 9, 2009, 5:01 pm
  #40  
 
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This is fantastic news. To me, the benefit of one-way award definitely surpasses the disadvantages of no-more-stopover.
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Old May 9, 2009, 5:07 pm
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by gozetta
Could someone clearly spell this out for me, as I am not clear. Going from DFW to EIS (Tortola), the flight usually stops in San Juan. Since we like that city, we usually extend our stay here 2-3 nights to party before heading to the islands without penalty. With an award ticket this has always been free. Is this no longer???? Very disappointing if so!!!
There are no stopovers on NA awards. If EIS counts as NA, then no more SJU parties for you.

If EIS is in a different zone, then you can still do it because SJU counts as an NA gateway
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Old May 9, 2009, 6:25 pm
  #42  
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Originally Posted by WalkinBackToTexas
played around with the new site a bit. It doesnt seem to be "truly" one-way pricing for award travel in that it doesnt seem to let me mix award types. For example:

select 20K outbound
no 20K return, so select 30K
now the outbound changes to 30K

Now I wonder what happens if you try to game the system and book on two different tickets?
Originally Posted by MIKESILV
Okie dokie .. now explain why two one ways would be "gaming the system"

mike
No, I wouldn't consider it "gaming the system". But there are downsides to booking the roundtrip as 2 separate 1-way awards, most notably, that fees will double (expedite fees if inside 21 days; redeposit fees if you cancel). So, it would be more consumer-friendly to let you mix award types to build a roundtrip.

Still, this is a big improvement. Thanks, AA.

ETA: see update in post 44.

Last edited by swag; May 9, 2009 at 6:39 pm
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Old May 9, 2009, 6:33 pm
  #43  
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And one other huge new improvement that I'm surprised isn't being discussed here:

AA.com now lets you book multi-stop awards online!

I just checked LHR-JFK (stopover), LGA-DFW, DFW-LHR. It explicitly said:
"This international award allows a stopover at New York - JFK for no additional miles. Mileage required for both flights is displayed on the Award Legend for the international flight."
and priced the whole thing out to 40K (off-peak); bookable online means no phone fees.
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Old May 9, 2009, 6:39 pm
  #44  
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Thumbs up

Originally Posted by swag
No, I wouldn't consider it "gaming the system". But there are downsides to booking the roundtrip as 2 separate 1-way awards, most notably, that fees will double (expedite fees if inside 21 days; redeposit fees if you cancel). So, it would be more consumer-friendly to let you mix award types to build a roundtrip.

Still, this is a big improvement. Thanks, AA.
Wait, scratch what I just said.

It does let me mix award types. I checked for DFW-EWR for later this month, and I am able to select Coach (12.5K) on the outbound and First (25K) on the return. The total comes to 37.5K, and only a single $50 expedite fee.
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Old May 9, 2009, 6:46 pm
  #45  
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OW awards are a godsent. Haven't redeemed anything but them already for quite some time on other airlines.

Also OW fares are typically very expensive.
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