Originally Posted by
84fiero
It's not as simple as just booking the same trip under the Explorer award. The Explorer award has its own set of rules - some better, some not, depending on what one wishes to accomplish. Just two basic examples - it can only be used with oneworld partners and you have to work in at least two carriers. Plus it normally is more expensive than the all-partner awards, if you're talking about fairly simple trip like those above.
And one cannot make routing changes after departure. Explorer awards can be awesome is some situations, which is why even after BA imposed it's wretched YQ, I still don't hate AA. My use of Explorer awards is going down since it is useful for long trips which need long vacations.
The loss of BA was HUGE especially for those who need to go to India. I'd rather have the old agreement back.