seawolf

Most experience on this thread is on long haul and CX have been releasing them.

But it does seem unusual for CX to hold on to F5 JFK-YVR when JFK-YVR-HKG is F0.

SanDiego1K

No. Tickets are only valid for one year.

Also, consider JAL for your trip. When I booked my 2016 trip to Vietnam, Cathay was not available and JAL was. I was able to easily get 2 F seats on JAL. All reports are that Cathay is only releasing one F seat per flight.

susiesan

I actually prefer JL F to CX F and know availability is better. When to get the award tix question is the same whether I fly CX or JL.

Happy

Most likely so though when UA devalued, it let people keep the old pricing, even when change the O/D. Both changes done online or by agent, people only needed to pay the difference. However UA would bill you the difference versus AA would do a redeposit first. So mechanism is completely different.

Would not put a high hope on AA for doing the same though.

Therefore it boils down to, whether you want to travel at least 1 person in F and the other person in J or both persons in J. The reality is, there is NO 2Fs on same flight any CX routes that Fs are seen.

You MIGHT find JL 2Fs very sporadically if you dont mind to break the journey at NRT or HND. (mush shorter flight, more like from East Coast to Europe - not induced to get a good night sleep).

Global321

Just got back from HKG... flew over BOS-HKG in First, on TWO F/C award tickets. Mrs 110pgl found them on BA a few weeks prior to our departure. (Found late on a Sunday evening.)

Granted, it is rare and we were lucky to find, but it happens.

geniza151

To susiesan's original query: While a ticket is valid for a year, and AA's calendar is open 331 days earlier, there's a month that you can essentially arbitrage, that is I could book latest on March 22, 2016 for Feb 2017 travel (331 days out), and then move it as long as it is not beyond March 22 2017, correct?

iadisgreat

Basically yes, except I believe the award chart changes go into effect on 3/22, so you'd need to book on 3/21 and no one is yet aware of whether you will be able to change the date of a ticketed award booked prior to the changes after 3/21 for the old rates.

mkjr

"was" better. i see many burning AA miles on F in the near future.

Happy

Yeah, close to departure there are chances to see Fs. What I dont see 2Fs are for long range from now, i.e. 8, 9, 10, 11 months to departure. There are 1Fs spread out dates and routes, but I haven't yet seen 2Fs.

tng11

It was always extremely tough to get 2F on AA miles. Even earlier this year when CX seemed to release 2F on the occasional flight, either one or both would be scooped up by the 331 day window. I was lucky enough to get 2F on ORD-HKG back in March for February 2016 travel just before Chinese New Year (which in multiple years I've found to be a great period for F availability likely due to low demand from business travellers) by obsessively calling AA and booking at the moment they could see the seats in their system. At the time, CX also had 5J available.

I'm now waiting for a 3rd seat to open - been checking nearly everyday for the last 8 months and no dice. Cabin is still F4 (i.e. we are the only two pax in the cabin) and I'm determined to get the whole family in F! (If not, I'll be fine with letting the parents sit in F and "slum" it in the mini cabin behind F.)

JonNYC

For sure you'll be able to change the date until/unless any change to that is made in the T&C, but barring that, any award ticket booked under the current system is "sold as" full date changeable, availability allowing-- that cannot be revoked.

rawdata

I booked my CX business award ticket through US airway. Now, one F ticket is available for booking. However, AA agent said they couldn't change that one segment and transferred me to former US airway Agent. And USAir Agent said they couldn't book F seat without cancelling entire trip. However, the return segment is no longer available for booking. Was anybody able to upgrade just one segment?

seawolf

With F4, nothing more is going to be released as an award until around 14 to 10 days to departure.

iadisgreat

At the same pre-3/22 rate? You know better than I, but that is distinction I am trying to make. To my knowledge, no one, yourself included, has said 100% affirmatively that it will be possible to keep old rates for changes made after 3/22.

JonNYC

If you ticket and award now, the terms for same say that date changes are free, so for the life of that award ticket, those terms apply. I can't think of any example (no doubt there will be some obscure ones) where that wasn't honored, nor would it be legal in my opinion. Most recent example was when they did away with domestic gateway stopovers, the grandfathered the awards that were issued with stopovers to allow them-- and that required a lot of effort.

Routing changes might be more speculative as they aren't "advertised" to the same extent, but I can't see -any- way they could/would take away free date changes from tickets that are issued with them as part of the purchase.