Originally Posted by
Time traveller
The golden era of saver J/F awards to Europe with AA miles has long passed. There was a time many years ago when availability was much better. But that was before the US-AA merger and the AA bankruptcy.
As others have mentioned, *A has many more European partner airlines, which offer more flexibility. AA only has BA, IB and Finnair as European partners. And of those, BA is the only one that release regular J/F awards, albeit with high taxes/fees. Enjoy your trip to VCE as it makes for a nice getaway.
That probably has more to do with the strong economy than anything. Things are going well for many people. People have the disposable income to travel at will. That is going to change at some point in the next 24 months and people are going to get slapped in the face with reality. And these airlines are going to be begging us to patronize them.