American terminated the two tier award pricing and which was Low award miles and AAnytime award miles. Example: A low business class ticket from USA to Europe with First on the domestic leg and then Biz over the water was often no more than 25,000 miles and a AAnytime award was 50,000 miles ANYTIME each way and no higher. The American first devaluation came when AA made it difficult to get First Class to your USA domestic location to hop over the Ocean and you had to travel in economy or have a very very long lay over if you wanted to be in First on the domestic leg.

Now American has dynamic pricing or think of Uber Surge pricing. A one way in business from USA to CDG or LHR is now often 400,000 miles. That is over 8 times the price of the recent past few years.

As others have pointed out American is aware of the demand for travel and there is something called REVENGE TRAVEL where people are getting there revenge on the Covid Pandemic. People are going anywhere no matter what now that they have been locked up at home from the Pandemic. This plus the pilot shortage means American does not really want to give away any awards now. American wants you to pay cash so American can pay for pilots. Some over the water pilots are making over $700,000 a year right now.