I concur: United gets props for its last-minute award rules. Sometimes there is no availability, but you can always spend 40,000 miles to get where you need to go - even if you have to leave today - and not have to pay any extra.

In general, I tend to praise most things about AA and be critical of most things about UA. This is a big exception.

The most offensive part about AA's fee is that they call them "expedite" fees. THEY AREN'T EXPEDITING ANYTHING!! I fully understand if I have to cough up 40,000 miles to get the last seat in the back of the bus, but spare me the bogus fee!

I sort of see the point about AA using the fees to avoid giving you a free seat. But it seems to me that they are already doing that with capacity controls. You want a seat on a full flight? It'll cost you 40K instead of 25K. And - I'll give AA credit here - they are fairly reasonable with availability and award ticket rules elsewhere in their program (i.e., they let me upgrade almost any paid fare, they actually have reasonable Europe/Hawaii availability, etc.). So they WILL let you use your miles. I guess they really just don't want you using them at the last minute.

To echo an earlier poster: why do they want an empty seat on an off-peak flight if they can fill the seat and wipe 40,000 miles off their books? Perhaps an airline economist can enlighten me...