Originally Posted by newyorkgeorge

There is a thread on this but AA at times will proactively call you and offer you a direct route over a connection that you have booked for a $49 fee. AFAIK, you cannot request this yourself. I assume its when AA has excess capacity on the direct flight and/or is oversold on one or more of the connecting flights.

Routing was originally LGA/CLT/MIA as the direct flights to MIA were nearly double when I booked. A direct flight is what I really wanted so even paying the $49 I'm ahead of the more than $125 I would have paid if I had originally booked a direct flight.