Originally Posted by
iahphx
Domestic travellers can try to beat the system by adding an int'l segment. Like if you want to fly HNL-JFK during the embargo period, add a European segment to the itinerary and saver inventory may come-up (for fewer miles than domestic, because it's Europe off-peak!).
[...]
If you look now at Thanksgiving 2012 travel, you'll see that both DFW-CLT and DFW-LGA follow the embargo pattern: great normal availability, but completely blacked out between Nov. 13 and 27.
Please explain to me how you add an international segment onto DFW-CLT or DFW-LGA, when there are no international flights on AA from CLT or LGA?
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
But, meanwhile, if you do manage to do this, and do this
every year (because you face the same situation every year), do you think AA won't notice?
I would think that the very least that AA would do if they noticed you doing this is retroactively pull the extra miles it would have cost if you had only booked the flight you actually flew. (The worst, of course, would be to shut down your account and wipe it clean.)