Originally Posted by FWAAA
Uhh . . . some might read this from the OP and realize that an AAnytime Award isn't gonna happen:
If the OP had the miles for an AAnytime Award (I read the above to indicate he does not), I would advise against it, since there is plenty of Business Class availability, and MilesAAver Business requires fewer miles than the AAnytime Coach award.
Your comment rests on the wrong assumption that MilesAAver Awards have the SAME quantity of seats AND they are offered in the SAME frequency as the AAnytime Awards. They are not.
Have encountered many situations on the EXACT SAME request crieteria, where NO availability under MilesAAver but their IS availability under AAnytime Awards.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Different award levels have different availability for the EXACT SAME requested crieteria.
WHY DOES AA DO THIS?
Same seat can be sold for a higher price (More Miles Required). Hold off on offering MilesAAver awards, when you can get people to pay up with MORE miles on AAnytime awards.
Any way you look at this, it is inflation.
Given AA's Yield Management IT capabilities, this was easy to implement.