Originally Posted by
MountMike
JJeffrey: Thanks for your updated info. I think someone told me that info a year ago on the Rick Steves travel forums. I should have said I'm looking to book business class. Do you think there's any better deals booking for open jaw flights versus one-way flights or should it not make any difference? Or does it simply depend on their dynamic pricing on any given day? In other words you pretty much have to check prices and points required every day, right?
There are no better deals booking open jaw vs one-way, I would just book it as separate one-way's. That gives you the most flexibility, especially if these are AA-only awards that can no longer be changed, only cancelled.
In terms of pricing sometimes booking a roundtrip will price out slightly cheaper than 2 one-way's, but it's completely hit or miss, no pattern. You really just have to search and price out all the options to get a feel.
The best deal right now using AA miles to/from Europe in business class is if you can find AA flights to LHR connecting to a BA flight to your final destination (like GVA). Since this is a partner award it will still always price at 57.5k miles + $25-50 in taxes and fees. The dynamic pricing stuff is only for all-AA awards at the moment.
The catch is that you need a cheaply priced AA segment to LHR (basically the old sAAver) in order for it to price at 57.5k. These are very hard to find, basically impossible to find if you're looking 11 mos out, but AA has been releasing more space as the flight gets closer, especially in off peak times.
For example if you wanted to go tomorrow there's SFO-JFK-LHR-GVA in business for 57.5k + $27. And decent availability throughout the fall and winter.