wco81

Have like 23k AA miles after redemption last year.

Just don't see the point in trying to earn more.

Would be interested in a CX award since awards on AA metal seem unlikely.

But even there, you're better off trying to earn AS miles (of which I have none) than AA.

Ugh I'll probably have to use these AA miles on magazines or something.

Biggie Fries

I have never tried to book a Reduced Mileage Award

Does there have to be some sort of award availability (and, if so, which sort) being shown under the on-line MileSAAver booking system in order to be able to get one of these Reduced Mileage Awards? (I know that one must call in to book them, but don't know whether it is pointless to call in for flights not showing as available under MileSAAVER.)

eduardogapeixoto

I am Plat Exec AAdvantage member.

I have flown American during the last 15 years and I know the AAdvantage rules.

As everybody knows they have changed deeply the program during the last months.

But There are some changes They did not announced.

In my case, flying between Brazil and USA.

There is not a single seat available from Rio de Janeiro to USA in Business Class using MileSAAver. Until 2016, you could do that.

But not anymore.

Ok, American can do whatever it wants, It can treats their AAdvantage members anyway it wants, but American could be at least honest when advertise the program:

"Dears Brazilians, you can not use MileSAAver to fly between Brazil and USA in business class. If you want to do so, please, fly United."

arollins

Eduardo, I know you came here to vent, but guess what, AA is not discriminating against Brazilian flyers. Believe or not, they are discriminating against the entire AAdvantage members, as in there not being a single milesaver Business/First class seat between any 2 points.

Welcome to Flyertalk, hopefully this will not be your one and only post. Stick around, you will learn some tricks that will come valuable latter on.

ajeleonard

Thanks for the rant

brizone

Gary Leff just had a post about this yesterday, but it's not just Brazil/USA, it's happening everywhere. Yeah, effectively [yet] another [stealth] devaluation.

Takes the question to a whole new level: Not just "why requalify" at this point, but why try to even earn FF miles from airlines at all when the credit card versions are so much more useful?

Loyalty is just about dead at this point.

bse118

Nice rant. RDMs are irrelevant to how I value the benefit I get out of the program. YMMV.

I definitely don't look for respect from the program. That's not part of the deal.

rjw242

That's news to me.

Explorer789

Spot on.

If you want saver awards, you will have much better luck with United. Otherwise AA is not a bad place to be if you want to redeem miles for OW partner awards. Sadly this has been the reality for quite some time.

Happy

It is from the same inventory and you just get charged less due to the card benefit. So yes, it is pointless to call if you cannot see Saaver on AA site.

jordyn

Given how much revenue the airlines get from their frequent flier programs, I wonder if they're in the process of killing the golden goose, because I agree entirely in the above statement. I used to channel all of my credit card spending through airline cards and just generally really try to look for opportunities to earn RDMs. Now I don't pay attention to them at all, and to the extent I use an airline credit card at all it's to fulfill some status-related requirement (this year I'm concerned about EQDs on AA as I've shifted most of my spend to DL).

People talk about loyalty being dead or emphasizing that all the airlines care about is revenue, but considering that the only value to me of having an airline credit card is to avoid spending money on that airline, you have to wonder if somewhere along the way it's the people running the show have lost track of the game.

JDiver

Bem-vindo a FlyerTalk.

This has been discussed at length in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...iscussion.html. We will merge this into that thread soon.

/Moderator

jmw

cx is still ok as long as you don't need an AA connecting flight. Combining cx scarcity and aa scarcity would be torture.

flowersrj

I just found out last night that I can't even upgrade to a business class seat to Hawaii next February using miles and cash. They want me to buy a regular ticket and they will notify me if an upgrade set becomes available. If not, I either flyer using that regular ticket or lose the money I paid for the ticket. The person said they are holding the tickets in case a person wants to buy a business/first class ticket.


-Rich

neo_781

I feel for you ... I (and many others) have encountered similar abysmal results searching for award seats on AA.

Sadly it has been going this direction for a while now. I checked for GRU the other day and there was 0 business saver of first saver also available from any US gateway until the end of the schedule. Not one date.

LATAM is also pretty bad with availability (at least to non-LATAM frequent fliers) but I did see a seat to REF on one random date.

From my searches what I seem to see is that AA has little to no J or F saver inventory on any of their international destinations and then all of a sudden for a few days they will open some inventory. But even this is not happening very frequently anymore.