Paulchili

I know that you are very experienced, knowledgeable and respected on these boards.
CX availability depends on where you are going.
In view of recent changes in CX policy I started accumulating Asia Miles.
I needed premium awards (J) from SFO/LAX to SYD. I followed availability on CX website for several weeks before I needed them. They were available in J only and not on all days. In view of that I grabbed 2 Js a day before I actually needed them as an insurance - this was at T-350. Good thing I did because the next day they only had awards with a much longer layover in HKG and that only for a few minutes. Nothing afterwards for either of those days. I am quite certain that there would be nothing on THAT route at T-330 when it would open for AA miles. I needed these awards for a certain date +/- a few days.
So, there may be CX awards available here and there for AA miles but not like before and it depends on where you're going.
I am glad I didn't depend on AA miles to get them

Happy

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...652&mi_hac=DTW

That is why you need to look for alternatives!

Origins & Destinations
Award fares starting at 50,000 miles round trip (plus taxes and fees) on select flights between the U.S. 48 to Europe.

Fares
Main Cabin starting at 50,000 miles round-trip (plus taxes and fees)

Delta One starting at 110,000 miles round-trip (plus taxes and fees)

Purchase By
March 15, 2017

Travel Period
Travel may begin on or after August 1, 2017 and all travel must be completed by October 31, 2017.

Happy

The HKG-OZ routes are tough to get, despite CX flies to 6 cities in Australia.

I just use the UA sweet spot on TG - 40K F 30K J availability every day on the SYD-BKK route and of course easy to go between BKK-HKG.

Use MULTIPLE programs for a single trip. Been doing this for 3 or 4 years. Much more flexibility this way, not to mention the chance to use sweet spots on each program.

As for the T-330 days, that never is our booking pattern and hopefully never need to be. Our preferred booking window used to be 2 to 3 months before travel but that had proven not feasible since 2013. We reluctantly moved up the booking window from 4 to 6, and now it is 6 to 8/9 on a longer trip. That is the furthest I am willing to book in advance. Absolutely HATE to commit trips so far ahead as it never fails when we have committed, there are ALWAYS some terrific deals come up - especially a cruise!

Going on a TATL in April, just booked that in 2nd week of Feb after I figured out how to come home after a land trip post cruise (will fly 9W the first time!). Now as I have had all the EU flights in place, here comes a great sale on a Scandinavia/Baltic cruise a few days after we disembark from the TATL cruise - of course now I could not take the 2nd cruise due to the committed land portion. I could, still book the same Nordic itinerary but for sailing in late May AFTER we finish the land portion - but that would make the trip close to 45 days long, and also forfeit a pay ticket YYZ-EWR-FLL on UA ($320). DH does not mind the forfeiture but balked on the extensive long time. So no go. Now you see why I dont like to book early!

Hoc

Just trying to figure out what has changed. My personal experience is that, ever since the US Air takeover of AA management, I no longer get any upgrades on any flights. I've flown about 20 times this year, and not a single upgrade. That is a very different experience from what I had three years ago.

Another issue is that, last November, I booked a Bus. Class Award this summer from SFO to Bilbao, and the flight was routed SFO-JFK-LHR-BIO. The JFK-LHR segment was booked into economy on AA. Since November, there has been the option to switch to Business class on BA, but with a surcharge of $980. There has been no Bus. Class availability on AA, nor any availability on IB into Madrid.

So, it looks to me like the new management has pretty much gotten rid of most upgrades and bus. class award availability. AA is beginning to look more and more like US Air (which I said I would never fly again). Is my experience unique, or has everyone else been experiencing this change, as well?

enviroian

Huh? EXP complimentary upgrades are AA's last remaining solid benefit. Unless everyone of your flights has been phx-jfk or -iad on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon there must be something wrong. I've flown every week since 1/1 and have only not been upgraded twice--the last of which was last week dtw-phx on the 5:50 PM flight (was #1 out of 25).

callmedtop

Please, for the love of god, no more of these threads.

3Cforme

The assertions that upgrade availability is poor, and that there's little long-haul Business availability, are not new. Check the dates and post counts on these threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ow-elites.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...iscussion.html

JonNYC

Amen.

iadisgreat

Agreed

wetrat0

Not this again. I get upgraded all the time, even after dropping to Gold last year. It's all about route and time. There are only so many seats in FC on popular routes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Long Train Runnin

I'm 8 for 8 on CPU eligible flights in 2017. A single data point isn't indicative of a trend.

sdsearch

Except how do you "protect" yourself with such a separate booking?

I was once on a flight DFW-LAX which got delayed 7 hours (at LUB) when one engine on the 757 went out. (I've been on plenty other domestic flights delayed multiple hours too, tho no others quite that many hours.) I was just going home, but there were tons of people "crying" that they were going to miss their cruise (the ones who had purchased the flight separately from cruise and had been flying in the day of the cruise).

If it's separately booked, what happens if that positioning flight is late and you miss your F/J flight? Or, do you mean that you pad lots of time, up to the typical recommendation of "fly there the day before" for people leaving on cruises? If so, for people who need to take time off from work, that's not so "easy and cheap" necessarily.

Happy

There is your answer - when you use separate tickets you give yourself enough wiggle room such have an extra day padding in before getting on your long haul flight...

Those who fly on the same day of their cruise almost deserved to be in such predicament - even if they buy their tickets with the so-called Cruise-Air - they will STILL miss their cruises, In case you are not aware, most Cruise-Air tickets are from Consolidator buckets and therefore NOT endorsable.

Even if you are "protected" when the flight is delayed especially drastically, you most likely would still miss a full day of your vacation, or worse more than one day for the airlines may put the award tickets to the bottom of the list when it comes to IRROP, FYI, CX is one of those - it will put "redemption tickets" at the lowest of the totem pole when it comes to IRROP or oversold. Yes, they would try to bump redemption tickets the first when the flight is oversold., even if you are in F or J.

eponymous_coward

So, for a week's vacation using AA miles, we're really talking about five days plus two days in both gateway cities (one day on each side)? Assuming you blow most of a travel day to Europe/Asia/South America on each side on TOP of that, you're really talking three days of vacation for a week's worth of travel?

I could see how one would find this to be a way of making your miles useless: "Sure, you can go on vacation using your miles, as long as you're willing to spend an extra day in Dallas before and in Los Angeles after your trip, after buying some coach tickets".

I mean, really, if you're going to have to buy airfare in order to use your miles for airfare anyways... you could probably just take your vacation where you buy plane tickets to in the first place.

sdsearch

Well, my one flight with CX so far, which was a roundtrip nonstop LAX-HKG several years ago, did go mechanical on my outbound. They rebooked me for the next flight (24 hours later), and bumped me from J to F in the process, on an AA award redemption. Presumably that worked out because they were not oversold or even close to it, just went mechanical. (I don't know whether there was an extra flight the next day if/when they fixed the plane; I was rebooked on the next scheduled flight and went home to sleep -- this was a midnightish departure -- so I don't know how they handled everyone else.)

Anyway, while I understand and concur in adding plenty of spare time for potential delays in positioning flights, that's why I don't understand why Explorer789 called them "cheap and easy". If one has to take extra time off from work, just because of such a separately-purchased positioning flight, that may not at all be cheap and/or easy. (Obviously, for someone who doesn't need to take time off from work for their trips, the calculation would be quite different.)