Originally Posted by
luv2vacay
I guess it depends what's important. I should've clarified that AA's miles "pricing" for "dynamic" is nothing compared to Delta for Skymiles (again, IMO).
Would you rather a website that fluctuates every time you look at it (I was monitoring First class airfare from ALB to HNL a while back and checked several times a day for 4-5 days straight. Prices fluctuated from 210,000 to 280,000 Skymiles roundtrip).
AA was "consistent" at the AAnytime First rewards for 1/2 the amount of miles.
Won't even touch the 400k+ skymiles for a roundtrip from JFK to Europe (or more if I remember someone posting a Delta dynamic pricing of almost 1 million skymiles in Delta One).
Although long layovers on AA aren't new. Last year they would do the same for the lowest price awards, IMO.
I won't defend DL's program, but they do not randomly vary pricing every time you search. That's not how their "dynamic" pricing works. The main issue is that the cheapest levels for D1 international (currently 80K each way TATL) have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. These are disclosed in the "fare rules" link when you price out awards. It's not terribly hard to divine the different award levels on a route if you are spend some time searching for different advance periods (and also checking for roundtrips as there are several award levels that require a roundtrip purchase) and reading the fare rules. They actually encode a fair amount of information in their fare basis codes (including the "level" of the award which comes from the coach class letters). Domestically, award levels pretty much vary from route-to-route. Internationally, the levels tend to vary by regions rather than by route to route.
There are certain destinations where it is almost impossible to find low-level award in First or Business. Chief among these are Hawaii, JNB, and SYD.