I am a lifetime PLAT as well as my spouse on AA, and this means *zippo* when trying to secure seats. Maybe Plat Exec gets special access and special inventory, but AA PLAT does not.

Two recent experiences have me concerned that AA is falling for the Continental OnePass (aka "NonePass") "trap" of making too few seats available relative to miles sold annually:

1) needed two seats to Cabo (SJD) 2nd week of May. No go. Started trying to book them back in early feb and could not get a return flight at the base (plan-ahead) level.

2) needed five seats for DFW-MCO (Orlando) Thanksgiving week. While I realize MCO is a high-demand city and my need is for a high-demand week, *still* I too had never had problems getting domestic 25K seats on AA *this* far out. And what exposes the "rawness" of this lack of availability is the plentiful number of cheap seats still available (according to orbitz under $300) for the same routing and times, indicating to me AA is still pricing them as if there is plenty of unsold seats...but just not willing to allocate them to 25K seat awards. Could not find even a single seat, mcuch less five, for the travel dates I needed...

So, what was once the model IMO for being very prolific to SELL the miles, yet to make proportionate seats available...the AAdvantage program I have been so fond of over the years...has lost some lustre with me in recent months. Hope the trend is reversed and we don't read more and more of this. Continental has really ruined their affinity program's reputation and I now go to active lengths to avoid flying them even on a paid basis...why accululate worthless "Nonepass" affinity points ?

[This message has been edited by ILUVCITIBANK (edited Mar 14, 2004).]