Originally Posted by
Dr Jabadski
Thanks again. AA shows tons of availability. In fact, I booked award flights for next weekend (peak of Cherry Blossoms) on AA using AA miles (no re-deposit fee) a week ago, searched on Alaska today to see if I could do it for fewer miles and went back to AA today to confirm availability.
Availability on AA is not the same as availability to partners. You can book just about any AA flight using enough AA miles. But that doesn't mean that the award space is available to partners.
This is standard for just about any airline that has flexible mileage costs (which is most airlines now). Generally, only "saver" space is available to partners. It's difficult to tell what is and isn't saver space by searching on AA because they have flexible award pricing even within the "saver" bucket (I've seen it range from 8k to 12.5k on the exact same routing, all saver)
You really need to search for saver award space on EF to be sure. You can also search for award space using another partner (not AA, it has to be a partner)