bdemaria

Correct

Yes, there will be a full meal - provided your flight departs during the hours listed in the fine print:

FEBO has been officially discontinued. Starting at 30 days prior to departure, you can reserve your meal choice so this should alleviate some of your concerns.

I don't find a discernible difference. I avoid the bulkhead b/c I don't like having to stow my laptop bag in the overhead compartment - which is mandatory for takeoff/landing in the bulkhead row.

Kilian Zoll

How early do AA release their award seats on domestic US routes? I am looking to travel between SFO and LAX in late May on as part of an USDM itinerary, but I can only find 3-4 departures (all in the morning) with available award seats, and I need to travel later in the evening.

Meanwhile, if I do a search in late January, there seems to be seats on nearly every departure, e.g. AA209 and AA219 (my desired departures).

Is the grayed out space in May due to all award seats being taken, or is AA blocking it until later?

bdemaria

They release award seats 330 days out - so seats for May '15 have been already booked. Its possible they may release more as flight time approaches - esp. a week to 10 days before departure - but I wouldn't count on it.

CherylD

If I book AA flights using BA Avios - will I still be able to change the day/time of the flight easily? I will add my AAdvantage number to the reservation after it is made. Thank you!

Kilian Zoll

Thanks.

Follow-up question. I can't find a single award seat in any cabin between SFO and LAX on the 22nd May. Is this normal?

I need to get between SFO and LAX either on the evening of the 21st May or at any time on the 22nd May. Do you have any suggestions on alternative routings that don't involve too much of a detour/hassle?

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

No: BAEC does not permit free day/time changes on award flights. You can either pay a change fee, or pay a cancellation fee and re-book. The latter will probably be the cheaper option if you have only booked a domestic (U.S.) flight on AA.

CherylD

Thank you! I thought there was an issue with this.

brewdog11

So AA (or technically JL operated flight on AA codeshare) cancelled my flight in Jakarta-CGK to NRT, impacting my NRT-DFW-PHL flights. A scramble ensued (understatement), resulting in me booking a combination of revenue and award tickets back to my home. I have a separate itinerary from PHL-home that I will not be flying because of the cancellation, since I've made my own arrangements. Any chance that AA will refund (or at least issue a voucher) for this itinerary?

bdemaria

Yes

You can try routing out of SJC, or you can buy a ticket on the flight you want out of SFO, one way fares SFO-LAX are about $100

bdemaria

Its definitely worth pursuing.

lw7878

I have a similar situation. I redeemed AA miles for a free ticket to fly to Hawaii and I will be on AA and Hawaiian Air. I used Citi AA platinum biz MC, which offers a free bag, to pay for the fee.

- Is the 1st checked bag on the AA segment free when it is an award ticket?
- Do I have to pay for the checked bag fee for Hawaiian Air?
- Do I just show my card when checking in at the airport ticket counter? If not, what do I need to do?
- What if I used other airline's card to pay for the fee? By simply holding the AA Platinum and AA Exec cards, is that enough to get my bag checked for free?

Thanks much!

angeloedades

Thanks for the reply bdemaria! How did miss the small print .

Thankfully my BOS-ORD-BOS are booked within meal times.

I will probably stick to 3A on the thirty minute hops and pick 4A on the other two as I will need to work on my laptop.

Thanks again.

/AE

AtlanticX

A pretty newbie question:

I made GLD on my very last flight of 2014, and this gives me a tingly feeling. It's my first time ever having status.

Having booked a flight for March, I did wonder how the following benefit worked.

* Upgrades for Flights under 500 mile, According to AA:
for GLD, PLT and EXP.

However, when I scroll down manage my booking, where one segment is AUS-DFW, I see "request upgrade" N/A. I picked a good preferred seat for free, just to be sure, but how does the upgrade process go. Will I just get a note that my upgrade went through at T-24? Will I be able to pick a seat then, or just get a random First seat assigned?

What if, for example, there's no window seat available in First, can I still pick an economy seat?

Another, unrelated question. Booking through the AA-site, I was offered a routing LHR-DFW. However, on ITA, I could find a routing LHR-MIA, that was 20 euro cheaper, and would give me more miles to boot. Now, the money and miles were not worth the extra flight duration this time around, but I can imagine a desire to optimize miles in the future.

My assumption would be that in order to get that routing, I should have booked by phone and insisted on booking the flights as given by ITA? Or is there a trick to force routings online? Would I have to pay a phone booking fee, or would that have been waived since I couldn't book that routing on-line?

Thanks in advance, and apologies for asking these somewhat basic questions.

MADPhil

If you made the reservation before you achieved status then you need to call in to get the reservation relinked, however the fact that it says N/A for "request upgrade" suggests that your status is already on the reservation. Unless there is no FC of course! If upgraded you will get a random seat assignment but you may catch it in time to move to a seat of your choice. You should be able to decline the upgrade but you will probably have lost your original seat.

You should be able to force a route by using the multi-city option and still get the correct through fare.

Apieinthesky

Really? I haven't been able to try it out yet since I don't have a <500 mi flight anytime soon, but I would imagine that it would say "Requested" if it was requested. In addition, that will be a benefit of the combined programs, which goes into effect in Q2 2015, so I'm not sure whether this unlimited auto requested upgrades for flights <500 miles has really come into effect yet.

But to the OP, you will be assigned a random seat (although the system might try to adhere to your preference of window/aisle as selected in your AA.com profile; to me it seems like it does that since it always gives me an aisle when there are aisles open) when you get upgraded but you may certainly go and change your seat selection from that time up until you board, although if you get upgraded at the gate, there probably won't be any other choices available. Keep in mind that GLDs have lower upgrade priority than PLTs and EXPs, so you may not be upgraded at all. But AA will clear you as soon as it thinks it can starting from T-24. You typically get an email notifying you, although sometimes I did not receive one.