Originally Posted by
NickRivas
I looked that up, if that were the only thing I'd be fine...but sadly AA messes with the miles thing. All the other itineraries mentioned with miles are 62.5k....but the MEX-DFW-FRA is 81.5k-85.5k depending on the day. I guess because both flights are with AA, they can mess and charge more for the miles instead of the set award chart amount. So being charged around 20k more miles for a J ticket to FRA then having to check my luggage and back in for the separate OS flight doesn't seem worth it...however, this option might be the "best fo the worst" if all goes wrong and they try to reroute me with crazy overnight layovers in LHR or MAD. In that case I'll just take this since it'll be more worth the 20k extra miles and separate flight versus a crazy 30-40 hour itinerary.
It should be noted, with partner flights AA only offers the AA flights that would be available at the lower "Saver" miles rate
With AA only flights there are 2 different award categories, that discounted Saver rate and the regular mileage rate. So, while it costs more, there is more availability,
In any case, as noted by someone else, if your partner award is canceled, AA will try to get you where or near where you want to go, even if it has to ignore the its own award availability and book you even if there are no award seats. As noted, it can only control its own availability.