Originally Posted by
chiefs1970
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My issue to address which most AA flyers relate to is that if the system says 30k miles will buy a Business Class seat, in reality it takes 60k anytime miles to match the needed flight dates even if booked six months early. So now a trip to San Juan is 120,000 miles for two. I did this last year and had the good fortune to earn them back before I retired, but I am missing the great promotion of 50k per trip to London this summer, so now I am being conservative as 120,000 miles in international travel is worth much more than $866 especially if two are flying for this...
The new one-way awards often make it possible to get F or J at a reasonable cost in miles, esp. if you are flexible about dates and routing. For example, I combined three awards to get my wife on the same flights I was on SFO-ORD-DEL, then DEL-ORD-STL-SFO. Some segments aanytime, some saver, some in F some in J. We didn't want to go thru STL with 35 min connect time, but again, some flexibility is required. That award ticket was purchased only 1 week ahead of departure, and I didn't think originally I would be able to get it at all for less than 270k aanytime miles.