Originally Posted by
mcgahat
If you use soon to be expiring points for an award and then decide you do not want to use that particular aware and have the reward returned to your account which adds the points back to your account with a new expiration date...
I'd love for you to be right here- but Wiki post at the start of this thread gives exactly the opposite advice:
Returning Unused Awards - Electronic Flight Awards may be returned free of charge within 5 calendar days of redemption. All other unused awards may be returned for a $150 fee (waived for AAdvantage Executive Platinum members) and points will be reinstated with the original expiration dates. Thus, this method cannot be used to extend the life of expiring points.
Is the Wiki wrong? Presuming it's correct - only possible workaround I could think of was exchanging the award for another type. Will try to call about this next week and see what's possible.