Originally Posted by
sktn77a
In March, I flew across country. 50,000 first class round trip. Plenty of options in terms of available flights. Today I tried to book the same flights. Plenty of options in terms of available flight but the price went up to 100,000 miles. .... Time to dump the American and its DIS-AAdvantage program after over 40 years!
A 3 million mile program member.
You are surprised that you found low mileage fares on the tails of some of the worst months of the pandemic and can't replicate that now that the whole country wants to travel? Besides the supply and demand aspects, you also need to be vigilant and continue to check for options. I'm flying ORD-LAS on a 787 in first class this week. It had been $750 or 75k miles in first. No way I was paying either of those rates. 10 days out they released C and U space. I cancelled my Southwest flight and booked using BA points at 22k one way (AA was 25k).
I'm not saying AA is not above charging egregious rates for some/many flights. But compared to UA and DL, they have by far the best dynamic FC rates domestically. You just have to be somewhat flexible and vigilant in your search. Hope the OP finds something at a reasonable rate!