jordyn

Who says that's the usual price? I suspect not the vast majority of AAdvantage members. Nor for that matter, does most of their advertising. For example, when the Citi AAdvantage cards are advertised, a 30K bonus is advertised as "more than enough for a domestic roundtrip" or a 50K bonus is advertised as enough for two roundtrips, not one at the usual price or two if you're lucky. I've *never* seen American or any of its partners use AAnytime award levels in any of their advertising.

Huh? Didn't you just spend the preceding several paragraphs explaining why this policy was self-serving?

EsquireFlyer

Nice find.

swag

In 2010, I flew on a saver ticket DFW-CLT on the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday).
In 2011, I flew on a saver ticket DFW-LGA on the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday).

Both were booked weeks (not months) in advance.

EsquireFlyer

IMO, if award availability becomes available closer in, it's not a blackout/embargo. On airlines with true blackout dates/embargoes, you can't travel on an award ticket on the blackout dates, period, even if the plane turns out to be totally empty of revenue passengers that day.

What the OP is describing (if true) is "capacity controls," which all other US airlines do for their saver-airline awards, especially around peak travel periods like the holidays. It sounds like AA was more generous than most until this year but has now adopted other airlines' capacity control practices.

JDiver

I never said they did not practice what I consider bait and switch, I said AAnytime awards are the norm, in terms of being countable and usable at - any time. The MileSAAver is the discounted product, not always available.

It's kind of like all the adverts out there that claim a price is "...from $49.95" - you can undoubtedly find that price, but it may not always be available, particularly if purchased close by the date of departure, and may be riven with unfavorable restrictions, terms and conditions. A Y or B ticket for the same flight might be many times the advertised $49.95, which itself might be before taxes, YQ, etc.

All business is inherently self-serving, but airlines seem to have been more duplicitous in their business practices - for many years. Read the Warsaw Convention (and replaced by Montreal Convention - Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air) documents - and you will see a classic example of policies the airlines wrote for themselves and had rubber stamped by the authorities (in this case ICAO) and hardly unique in allowing "the experts" to write their own governing policies, submit them to government bodies and secure approval.

I suspect the average flyer will look at aa.com or call and not give it much thought as to what they are paying for the product. FTers will use tools, know award seat release is not a one-time event, and will often be sufficiently skilled to get by the airlines' practices. But RM is not likely to have some kind of uber-program imposed on it that actually imposes an embargo - it doesn't need it, as RM is dynamic and using predictive analytics to predict when and where demand will be high based on factors incljuding historic use, and the reason for higher fares and even holiday surcharges.

janetdoe

I refer you to the link in my earlier post, where AA specifically states that MilesSAAver awards are subject to capacity controls and possibly embargo dates.

If AA publishes specific "embargo" dates, it would not allow them the flexibility to open up cheap awards later on routes where they realize they have excess capacity. What do you want AA to say to you? Something like this:
I think the reason this keeps coming up is that people are unable to wrap their heads around the fact that "AAnytime" is a normal reward, and MilesSAAver is a discount. It's like buying a car. You never expect to pay the sticker price, but for certain high-demand vehicles, dealers will not negotiate and if you want the car, you will pay sticker price.

jordyn

Umm, so you're saying that American is one of its partners? Because the discussion here is about what American does for its own inventory, and the language about embargos/blackouts applies only to partners in the text that you've quoted.

jordyn

I still strongly dispute the notion that AAnytime awards are the "norm". They are a premium product and, as you say, can be used at any time as a result. In addition to American's advertising, I submit to you the best proof the SAAver awards are the "normal" awards is that on partner airlines SAAver awards are the only possibility. There's no way that the "normal" award is the one that is both not included in any of American's promotional materials and not available on any partner.

I don't feel super strongly about the embargo here, but I do agree with OP that if American routinely restricts inventory during certain date ranges they should be up-front about it. If it's standard industry practice, there's no disadvantage to doing so.

Ready2Go

+1. The AAnytime award is an extraordinary tool that allows a member to claim any seat in the system, even if it is selling for thousands of dollars. It's not supposed to be the norm for redemption, although AA is subtly but steadily trying to push us in the direction of thinking that way.

Science Goy

It can also be read as "special limitations on seating availability" on AA, and "travel embargo dates" on some partners.

For what it's worth, that page also states that MileSAAver awards are an "economical alternative" if you are flexible with your travel plans. Nowhere does it guarantee MileSAAver availability on heavy travel dates, and the word "alternative" suggests to me that these awards are not the norm. That said, I've never had a problem getting MileSAAver awards with a little flexibility in my schedule.

janetdoe

Nope, I'm saying that AA clearly discloses the fact that MilesSAAver rewards are not available for all routes on all dates, and that AAnytime awards are available for all routes on all dates.

The issue you have described as an 'embargo' is not an embargo. AA is implementing capacity controls on MilesSAAver awards around the holidays. If and when AA decides they will have excess capacity on those dates, they will open up MilesSAAver awards.

Just because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it is unethical or deceptive. Just because they have tightened up their capacity controls doesn't mean they need to issue a 'special announcement' to all AAdvantage members explaining their algorithms. Further, such an announcement would limit their ability to change the availability later.

Absolutely. As far as I know, this is the only way it can be read, given the sentence structure. MilesSAAvers are subject "to special limitations on seating availability" and "to travel embargo dates on certain partner airlines".

leonidas

I sure hope they limit the free seats and try to fill them up with paying pax during busy seasons. AA has to turn around and do good business. Limited seats are better than no seats (read no airline) at all.

law53

It is a bit odd - but just may be the way the chips fall. We could not find any mileage saver awards for PHX-DFW in November 2011 for Xmas eve. However on 12/10 we found 12.5 awards. I'm sure they were tickets turned in and we hit it lucky that day.

eamus

Quite right, there is nothing to see here. Ol' iahphx is seeing conspiracies that aren't there.

This not squirrelly, surprising or unusual. For any airline, in terms of inventory availability and pricing, LHR-LAX via ORD is one market and ORD-LAX is an entirely separate market. Just because a seat is available for one market (in your case LHR-ORD-LAX) does not mean it should be available in the other market (in your case ORD-LAX), or if it is available, that it be available at a price that bears any relationship to the other market's pricing. Look at this link or google "married segment logic" to get a sense of how segment logic works.

There is plenty of vigorous discussion about how much of this logic is (and even more discussion on how much should be) applied to reward flights versus cash paid flights, but I don't see the example you gave as proving there is an embargo. LOTS of people - including myself - have used the knowledge they gain on sites like FT to use segment logic to their advantage.

iahphx

Right, that's the weird way the embargo works. Int'l travellers just have to contend with normal availability issues, but domestic coach saver travellers are given no availability during the Holiday embargo period. BTW, this makes the "AA needs the money" argument a little weak, and just makes AA look heavy-handed here.

Domestic travellers can try to beat the system by adding an int'l segment. Like if you want to fly HNL-JFK during the embargo period, add a European segment to the itinerary and saver inventory may come-up (for fewer miles than domestic, because it's Europe off-peak!). You can then toss away the European segment at the end of the trip. AA's computers probably won't let you schedule it as a "stopver" and fly it later (search "married segments" for more information about that issue), but you could call AA and see if a nice supervisor will allow you to utilize AA's published stopover rules. I have had success with this, but YMMV.

If you look now at Thanksgiving 2012 travel, you'll see that both DFW-CLT and DFW-LGA follow the embargo pattern: great normal availability, but completely blacked out between Nov. 13 and 27.

If, last year, you were able to book a "last minute" saver ticket to LGA the day before Thanksgiving, it confirms the discussion that AA eventually "revisits" the embargo on a city by city basis and "overrides" the blackout where it makes sense to do so. For example, DFW-LGA is a very strong business market, but not much of a leisure market. So there probably isn't much Thanksgiving demand there. The AA revenue management people saw this and allowed saver award seats.

Unfortunately, that experience is going to be the exception to the usual rule for Holiday travel. What a typical AAdvantage member will experience is the embargo blocking out the usual limited advance saver inventory, and then no hope of a closer-in saver booking due to the typically-high Holiday load factors discouraging the addition of more award seats.