GUWonder

Any bets on how soon until we hear about a version of "throwaway" ticketing on such an award?

Austinrunner

Are those rules published somewhere so that they are available to the public? Has AA publicly committed itself to abide by those rules? If not, then the rules are changable at will, even retrospectively. No member of the public would have a contractual right to rely on any particular version of the rules.

Did you obtain a copy of the rules before or after you said in this thread that you were "puzzled" by MCI777's itinerary?

JonNYC

Boy is that a good point.

CharlesMD

Some quick points about this itinerary:

• Could AA kick out anyone who did this from AAdvantage and either confiscate their miles or charge them the miles for the path based difference (i.e. 330K vs 100K)?
• I like the idea of flying around the world just for the heck of it, just once in your lifetime
• How would doing this be any different than all those people who took advatage of the $120 tickets to HNL in V class? I am sure AA lost a bundle of money on that as well!
• It seems a lot of people are against this saying it costs AA a lot of money, but come on I bet you all are thinking of doing this!
• I called up the EXP desk and hypothetically asked about a similar routing and they said that people have done this in the past and that today the said agent had gotten a few calls.
• If you misconnected the re-routing would be a nightmare!
• Thanks MCI flyer-- this is one of the best threads on this board!

GUWonder

There's a time and a place for a lot of things.

JonNYC

That's a little to cryptic for me , but your original point was certainly well taken, for those that can understand it.

Do we want AA to switch to CX's version of the OW award (based on actual flown miles)? Just keep it up....

johnep1

As nice as CX and BA F class are, why would anyone want to do this? Sure, a CX F award is great if you plan on stopping for a few days in Hong Kong or cannot get to your destination any other way (like CMB), but to fly it when you could be somewhere other than a plane just to fly (not even getting miles) doesn't make sense to me.

I can see this being appealing to those who have never flown CX or BA F as you could fly both for relatively few miles. So, spend 100k AA miles, try out the amazing products and the lounges (taking pictures all the way), and then get to your real destination.

I see that the OP is stopping for a few hours in a few cities. That makes it a little more appealing, but I'd still rather just fly to LHR and return from MAD and not play with all the extra segments (just waiting for one misconnect).

Oh well, to each his own. I've done stupid flying things, but at least they were in the name of miles.

JonNYC

I think you severely underestimate the airline-geek mentality.

alamedaguy

It seems like it would be a little silly of them to allow you to do this and then kick you out of the program, or to charge you the miles after they had agreed to an award.

I agree, flying around the world once in F would be pretty cool.

I am against this becoming common for the reasons given; I am just about ready to book a 220K business award, and I want the rules to remain as they are! I am quite satisfied with what I would be getting without any irregular routes, or stretching the rules.

Not that I fault the OP. I just don't want this to go overboard.

johnep1

I know. I'm the one who just abandoned [air]ship midway through a DTW-PIT-ART-PIT-LAS-PIT-ART-PIT-SFO-EUG-SFO-ORD-PIT-ART-PIT-DEN-EUG-DEN-PIT-ART-PIT-DTW $1.86 fare MR. When I went through ORD, I bought a ticket back to DTW. So I'm notnearly as hardcore as some here.

However, as nice as CX and BA F are, I'd rather be at my destination than on a plane. If you need to get somewhere, there's no better way to fly, but I still want off the plane ASAP. Now, I've been lucky enough to fly both CX and BA in F. If this was not the case, and I had heard stories of the service, the lounges, and the other things most of us aren't used to when flying, then I would be very tempted to do one of these 100k miles trips just to experience those airlines' products.

So I can see why someone would do this, but I think lots of people here would never get on a plane if it didn't go where they wanted to go and they didn't earn miles.

Oh well, I hope that the OP enjoys the trip. At least the service will be fantastic.

fallinasleep

This type of RTW transit routing really socks it to AA, and I have to believe that they will adjust the rules somehow to limit their exposure.

I personally think the OW award is one of the most flexible and generous out there, even with the recent change limiting to "only" 16 segments, but I don't look forward to seeing new changes.

Anyone want to wager when the rules will change again?

In the meantime, would anyone like to join me on my next OW80F award on a tour of some of my favorite airports:

LAX-MIA-SCL-MAD-JNB-LHR-NRT-SYD-AKL-MEL-BKK-SIN-HKG-SFO

C'mon, the clock is ticking! It's only 13 segments so there is some flexibility in the routing in case you want to squeeze in more than 51000 miles of F travel or wanted to do a quick side trip to LAS

GUWonder

One has to be a fan of plane & airport bathrooms to do that.

paul4471

If they get more of these, they will make changes to prevent it-- it's far too costly to leave alone.

We've learned from history here how AA reacts to these things.[/QUOTE]

To wade into the debate - I'm against this sort of thing because it may affect us all detrimentally (no hard feelings to the OP - if not him then someone else would have tried it). That said I think the simple rule solution would be to use the other great circle distance (as previously mentioned). Sure you can fly DFW-LAX via NYC LHR and HKG provided that you are happy to accept the point to point distance as taken the long way around the world. Seems like a fair solution, anoyne see why this wouldn't work?

On the paper vs E-ticket - AY at least (and maybe others EI?, IB?) are still on paper for these awards.

WhoME

There was some talk recently (too lazy to find the thread) about how difficult it is to make a OW award booking from NA to SA as you need to bounce from GRU to EZE on BA to meet the two non-AA carriers rule. Following this discussion, why not simply fly -SCL-xMAD- using LA and IB or -SCL-xGRU/EZE-xLHR- using LA and BA? I'm sure there are lots and lots of other clever (and expensive for AA) routings which you could use for more logical purposes than a joyride around the world...

Michael

PresRDC

I just wanted to retierate that the OP really has not anything wrong here and I, at least, do not think his intent was to pull one over on AA. That said, I really hope no one else tries to do a similar thing. We all seem to agree that the consequences would be a major devaluation in the utlity of these awards.

As for flying around the world in F. I've done it twice (on paid AONE5 fares) and it is great, but, IMHO, you are missing out big time if you don't take the time to stop and look around. For all its problems, we share a pretty amazing planet.