View Poll Results: Embargo vs limited saaver awards
Has AAdvantage instituted an embargo for saaver awards
26
34.67%
Has AAdvantage limited saaver awards more than past years
49
65.33%
Voters: 75. You may not vote on this poll
AA Holiday milesAAver Award Travel Inventory - limits, releases
#76
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,927
You can certainly make a plausible argument that int'l demand is different from domestic demand, but I can think of no plausible business justification for "giving away" a long haul domestic saver seat during a busy travel period to a connecting int'l traveller (at off peak rates no less!), but being unwilling to make such a seat available for a domestic traveller.
So to the international flying public at this time, making one seat available is "good availability", while to the domestic flying public, making only one seat available (which is immediately snatched up by someone else) is still "bad availability".
(Availability at anytime amounts is always there, as long as there is a seat available on the flight, so it's misleading -- for purposes of anyalysis, anyway -- to say that "the number of miles needed is different".)
What's going on in this case is that there is saver availability for international flyer, while there is no saver availablity for the domestic flyer. The anytime avialabilty is there in both cases, just not necessarily needed in the international case.
#77
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,927
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!).
[...]
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 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.
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
But, meanwhile, if you do manage to do this, and do this every year (because you face the same situation every year), do you think AA won't notice?
I would think that the very least that AA would do if they noticed you doing this is retroactively pull the extra miles it would have cost if you had only booked the flight you actually flew. (The worst, of course, would be to shut down your account and wipe it clean.)
#78
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2001
Location: LAX; AA EXP, MM; HH Gold
Posts: 31,789
The month of November 2012 is now loaded in the schedule and you can see the exact same pattern. It's easy to spot if you pull up a "boring" high-frequency, short-haul market like AUS-DFW or STL-ORD that normally has award availability on almost any day. Thanksgiving this year is November 22 and, it appears to me, that there are no coach saver seats being offered from November 14 through November 26 -- meaning you aren't going to be getting to grandma's house for turkey on a saver ticket.
And, of course, plentiful saver F award seats for every day of the month except for 11/14, 11/15, 11/21 and 11/25.
Is it possible that with over 60 million AAdvantage members, and just 3400 combined mainline and Eagle flights daily, that the prime holiday saver coach seats were snapped up by someone else the moment they became available? Or is that not a possibility?
For example, if each flight did have one or two saver coach seats the moment the flights were loaded, is it not possible that of the tens of millions of AAdvantage members, someone requested and received the scarce seats? Or do we have confirmation of the speculative thread title?
#79
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,378
My hero and data point is a family friend who manages to book her entire 8-member extended family to Hawaii every, single, year for the last 20, and always on the days she wants. Small gentle blond woman who would normally drive across town in the middle of the night in the rain to tell you about Jesus rather than fight over anything. Except she knows the scriptural day and the hour and the minute holiday flight availability will be poured out on the public. That night she is logged on with her flights typed in at midnight, or whenever it is, gives it about 30 seconds in case her watch is fast, and hits enter.
Please explain to me how you add an international segment onto DFW-CLT or DFW-LGA, when there are no international flights on AA from CLT or LGA?
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
But, meanwhile, if you do manage to do this, and do this every year (because you face the same situation every year), do you think AA won't notice?
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
But, meanwhile, if you do manage to do this, and do this every year (because you face the same situation every year), do you think AA won't notice?
I don't think AA is likely to spend its resources tracking down people who don't show up for their free tickets. That said, I don't know anyone who actually uses this trick to do that. Instead, if they live in NYC, they book a Hawaii-London ticket with an NYC stopover. They fly Hawaii-NYC and later take another "free" trip to London (you have until ticket expiration to do this (but search the "married segments" threads about a potential wrinkle in doing this). Obviously, this is far more lucrative than throwing away an int'l ticket. And completely "kosher" with AA's rules.
And yet, in one minute, I found saver coach availability LAX-DFW on Nov 14, contrary to your OP. And as you later clarified, on Thanksgiving day itself as well.
And, of course, plentiful saver F award seats for every day of the month except for 11/14, 11/15, 11/21 and 11/25.
Is it possible that with over 60 million AAdvantage members, and just 3400 combined mainline and Eagle flights daily, that the prime holiday saver coach seats were snapped up by someone else the moment they became available? Or is that not a possibility?
And, of course, plentiful saver F award seats for every day of the month except for 11/14, 11/15, 11/21 and 11/25.
Is it possible that with over 60 million AAdvantage members, and just 3400 combined mainline and Eagle flights daily, that the prime holiday saver coach seats were snapped up by someone else the moment they became available? Or is that not a possibility?
And, as you know yourself, the availability of F seats is a red herring, as there has never been a first class holiday saver embargo. No reason for one, as there is little business-generated demand for first class travel during the Holidays. Of course, if your choice is paying 25K for coach or paying 25K for first class, it's a nobrainer to redeem for FC.
Finally, I'm no statistician, but I would definitely say there is absolutely zero possibility that all the seats on on the embargo days in all these domestic markets have been immediately snapped up.
#80
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
Because there's only zero to a few international travelers looking for such tickets (at those times), while there are zillions of domestic travelers looking for the domestic portion (at those times).
So to the international flying public at this time, making one seat available is "good availability", while to the domestic flying public, making only one seat available (which is immediately snatched up by someone else) is still "bad availability".
(Availability at anytime amounts is always there, as long as there is a seat available on the flight, so it's misleading -- for purposes of anyalysis, anyway -- to say that "the number of miles needed is different".)
What's going on in this case is that there is saver availability for international flyer, while there is no saver availablity for the domestic flyer. The anytime avialabilty is there in both cases, just not necessarily needed in the international case.
So to the international flying public at this time, making one seat available is "good availability", while to the domestic flying public, making only one seat available (which is immediately snatched up by someone else) is still "bad availability".
(Availability at anytime amounts is always there, as long as there is a seat available on the flight, so it's misleading -- for purposes of anyalysis, anyway -- to say that "the number of miles needed is different".)
What's going on in this case is that there is saver availability for international flyer, while there is no saver availablity for the domestic flyer. The anytime avialabilty is there in both cases, just not necessarily needed in the international case.
#81
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
It only seems to only piss off certain type of customers who apparently holds the perception of the above, because of their unrealistic expectations are not met.
#82
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: LAX
Programs: HH Diamond, SPG Gold, Marriott Elite Gold
Posts: 1,032
Does holiday travel extend to all summer? My family flies LAX-YUL every summer. We begin looking 330 days out. While it was tough last year, it is impossible this year. No flights have been released except for random days that have two stops. There is clearly a huge change. My miles feel very similar to SkyMiles. I am checking the latter half of June all way through August. NOTHING!
#83
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2001
Location: MSY; 2-time FT Fantasy Football Champ, now in recovery.
Programs: AA lifetime GLD; UA Silver; Marriott LTTE; IHG Plat,
Posts: 14,509
Please explain to me how you add an international segment onto DFW-CLT or DFW-LGA, when there are no international flights on AA from CLT or LGA?
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
In other words, this "trick" of adding an international segment seems to me can only work if you are trying to go to a city out of which AA flies international flights. And there's fairly few of those.
#84
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,927
Does holiday travel extend to all summer? My family flies LAX-YUL every summer. We begin looking 330 days out. While it was tough last year, it is impossible this year. No flights have been released except for random days that have two stops. There is clearly a huge change. My miles feel very similar to SkyMiles. I am checking the latter half of June all way through August. NOTHING!
And, yes, it used to work the way you described, but it's no longer anywhere near that simple.
Either that, or people faster than you are booking it all up very quickly. Someone in this thread mentioned being up at midnight when the inventory opened up, booking an award ticket successfully then, seeing half of the award inventory gone by 3 am, and all of it gone by 6 am. Read back in this thread to figure out what route(s) exactly they were talking about (plus to figure out which timezone the midnight/3/6 were referenced to!).
#85
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,927
The other issue: During the years that I'm EXP (only due to double EQM promos), I have to pay for all my international trips to have use of the SWUs I get. I don't want to use award miles for anything beyond the US, even as a trick, because I won't have time to fly overseas for additional trips. So even though my home airport is an AA int'l gateway, and so I could theoretically do this on the return at least, I don't have need or desire to spend the time to do an extra trip overseas each year just to use up the miles for this "trick". (I already have trouble sometimes finding enough vacation time to just take the trips that I'll use the SWUs for!)
#86
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,378
No, that's not the same as this holiday travel issue. But as reported in other threads (and re-reported in this thread), in a general sense, AA no longer always releases inventory at 330ish days out. It depends on the route and the cabin whether they do, and then it depends on who knows what when they do if they don't do it right away (when the flight goes on sale).
And, yes, it used to work the way you described, but it's no longer anywhere near that simple.
Either that, or people faster than you are booking it all up very quickly. Someone in this thread mentioned being up at midnight when the inventory opened up, booking an award ticket successfully then, seeing half of the award inventory gone by 3 am, and all of it gone by 6 am. Read back in this thread to figure out what route(s) exactly they were talking about (plus to figure out which timezone the midnight/3/6 were referenced to!).
And, yes, it used to work the way you described, but it's no longer anywhere near that simple.
Either that, or people faster than you are booking it all up very quickly. Someone in this thread mentioned being up at midnight when the inventory opened up, booking an award ticket successfully then, seeing half of the award inventory gone by 3 am, and all of it gone by 6 am. Read back in this thread to figure out what route(s) exactly they were talking about (plus to figure out which timezone the midnight/3/6 were referenced to!).
As far as staying up past midnight to grab the first 330-day seats, I would say that practice exists, but is limited. I've played that game to Hawaii for peak times on DL and it does work -- and I could tell other people were playing the game too as seats would quickly disappear. But for most markets -- and YUL would certainly be one of them -- it's completely unnecessary. There aren't enough anal people out there to worry about.
In general, if you really want to force an award seat when the airlines don't want to give you one, you have to be creative. Strip your trip down segment by segment and see where the "problem" is. Consider the option of partners, and non-standard connections (you have 24 hours in a city to make a legal AA award connection). Consider nearby airports and cities. And then once you have a strategy, call instead of relying on the websites. In most cases, you can make something work. I don't think I've ever abandoned an award trip that I wanted because I couldn't find anything. I have, however, switched frequent flyer programs where one program was making the trip particularly difficult to book (usually Skymiles).
#87
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
Yeah, this stuff probably belongs in the general "Award Availability" thread, but I would submit that the 330 day load is still a useful booking strategy on AA for plan-ahead travellers. I'm no expert on this (I haven't studied it), but it seems to me that more award seats get loaded at 330 days than at any other time in the calendar. And compared to some other airlines I've looked at, like CO, AA still follows the 330-day pattern.
As far as staying up past midnight to grab the first 330-day seats, I would say that practice exists, but is limited. I've played that game to Hawaii for peak times on DL and it does work -- and I could tell other people were playing the game too as seats would quickly disappear. But for most markets -- and YUL would certainly be one of them -- it's completely unnecessary. There aren't enough anal people out there to worry about.
In general, if you really want to force an award seat when the airlines don't want to give you one, you have to be creative. Strip your trip down segment by segment and see where the "problem" is. Consider the option of partners, and non-standard connections (you have 24 hours in a city to make a legal AA award connection). Consider nearby airports and cities. And then once you have a strategy, call instead of relying on the websites. In most cases, you can make something work. I don't think I've ever abandoned an award trip that I wanted because I couldn't find anything. I have, however, switched frequent flyer programs where one program was making the trip particularly difficult to book (usually Skymiles).
As far as staying up past midnight to grab the first 330-day seats, I would say that practice exists, but is limited. I've played that game to Hawaii for peak times on DL and it does work -- and I could tell other people were playing the game too as seats would quickly disappear. But for most markets -- and YUL would certainly be one of them -- it's completely unnecessary. There aren't enough anal people out there to worry about.
In general, if you really want to force an award seat when the airlines don't want to give you one, you have to be creative. Strip your trip down segment by segment and see where the "problem" is. Consider the option of partners, and non-standard connections (you have 24 hours in a city to make a legal AA award connection). Consider nearby airports and cities. And then once you have a strategy, call instead of relying on the websites. In most cases, you can make something work. I don't think I've ever abandoned an award trip that I wanted because I couldn't find anything. I have, however, switched frequent flyer programs where one program was making the trip particularly difficult to book (usually Skymiles).
The only option you have outside the 4 hours, is the Last flight in First flight out connection if it is a domestic award.
Only Int'l award that involves NA has that 24 hours connection luxury. Pure Int'l awards seem not to have that as being reported a few times that the system priced it as 2 awards.
#88
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Bay Area
Programs: WN A-List, AA good-riddance, Safeway Club Card Extraordinaire
Posts: 3,851
Just looking at a few LAX-YUL options in the summer, it appears that the real bottleneck is LAX-(DFW/ORD), as one might expect for hub-hub flights. Sure, there aren't that many anal people who need to travel from LAX to YUL, but taking into account all the LAX customers who want to go somewhere this summer (or all the other customers who want to visit LAX), it's not surprising that awards on such "trunk" routes get snapped up pretty quickly.
#89
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Posts: 1,319
#90
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: NYC
Programs: AA EXP / LT PLT / 3MM, Marriott LT Gold
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