I have not tried AA's new system, so I don't know how good it is now.

For NW, if you choose "flexible", they will give you a grid of up to +-3 days and the minimum miles for each. This is just on NW. If instead you choose a specific day, it will give you options on NW and all its partners. If you get really restrictive(ie saver only) and just pick a specific day it will give you choices if it has it --- if not, it will give you a month grid color coded to show availability in saver coach, 1st class, biz class, etc. Then you can click on any specific day of the month. I believe this is how you get to these screens (from trial and error and poking around alot). One thing that is very irritating is that often the best outbound and return flights that are available are not paired together as a choice they offer! I don't know how to fix that except call NW.

BTW, NW does have a great feature that I've used. You can book an award flight, but can cancel it within a day with no penalty or fee (though you do have to call them to cancel it). NW is among the few (if not only) airline that allows you to do this. I've made many a reservation for my parents and have cancelled, rebooked, cancelled, rebooked all without any penalty or fee.

Also, it seems like if you book an award tix online, then call within 24hrs to ask the agent to change something (like get that available return that didn't get paired with your outbound, or get some better flight that never even showed online that the agent can get), you *will not* incur any tele or change fee because the ticket was originally "booked online" and you made the changes within the 24hr refundable/cancelable window. At least that's what happened to me. I must have asked 5 times to 5 different agents if I would be assessed a "telephone fee" before I did it, and all 5 said no. After I had the CSR make the change, it was as they said and I didn't get charged any fees.

If you *are* subject to fees, don't be surprised if they don't ask for a credit card number or anything --- they already have one onfile associated with your original method of payment and will charge that card. That also happened to me. I guess if you used FF miles, they may ask for a credit card.