Originally Posted by
rgkessinger
Is there any non-painful method at all to find SWU availability on long-hauls with flexible travel windows?
Even using expertflyer I'm looking at like, +/- 3 days on individual long-haul routing options...
I've got lots of PTO to use in March. I'd ideally make it from US East Coast to Asia or Africa...
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Routes showing Upgrade availability on ExpertFlyer are also not showing availability when I actually go look on AA...
You can use the AA "award redemption" calendar.
I will explain with an example, say NCE-PHL, we know that AA has a direct flight.
Step 1:
Search for a flight redemption using miles, then select "non stop" and "business". Scroll by month, when you see a really low number of miles for a flight, it should equal to a SWU available.
54k PHL-NCE on AA direct business
Step 2:
Go back to Book Flight, this time uncheck "Miles" and select the Aug 5th date:
SWU on a cheap coach ticket