Thanks remdk for welcoming the original poster! I forgot my manners
AA will make changes in an itinerary if the miles are correct and you do not change either the dates of flights or the origin and final destination. Originally my wife and I were to travel SEA-LAX on Alaska (AS) then go ground-side from Terminal 6 to Terminal 2 to change to Qatar LAX-DOH. The AA agent said to check back often to see if a routing that did not require going ground-side opened up.
One month later, AS opened up 4 F seats SEA-DFW for the 0700 flight (found it on the AA site as 25K one-way Business/First Mile Saver awards. I checked on the BA website and found that 4 award tickets were available DFW-DOH for the 1845 flight. I was able to call AA and the agent changed the flights without any trouble.
Why switch? Transferring at DFW allows us to remain air-side. We can use the Skylink trains to go from Terminal E to D without encountering TSA "in all it's glory"
, and can use wheelchairs as my wife and I are disabled. It's a longer stay at the QR lounge, but worth it to avoid the Feds.
Now you may have more of a problem if you have a mixed award. If you spent 75K for CPT-DOH-IAH, you could find that QR opens up more award seats in business for the DOH-IAH segment. But I would not necessarily count on it. There are seats DOH-DFW on 17, 23, 29 May.
Good luck cherry0105 in your efforts. Enjoy the Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl (Go Pats!)