Jan 25, 2014, 2:56 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
Be sure to check the lengthy http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...elections.html and oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on threads, as many members have posted questions - and useful answers - there. See the wiki posts for informative summaries.
Also be aware - AA have reduced capacity and apparently chosen to make MileSAAver flights significantly less available during predicted periods of high demand and high demand flights, undoubtedly keeping seats available for those willing to pay higher fares and use the new tiered AAnytime awards.
Older posts as of 1 Jan 2015 and later may be found in thd archived thread ARCHIVE: MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction discussion post 2015 AAdvantage merger
Older posts may dating from Aug 2011 through the AAdvantage program merger January 2015 be found in the archived thread here.
MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity discussion
Mar 16, 2017, 9:08 am
#691
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: USA
Programs: Chase Sapphire Reserve, WFBF
Posts: 1,573
J/F awards on short-haul
I recently noticed that AA has made available a lot of 15k Business milesAAver awards on short-haul. I have a couple of Fridays where I need to take a flight that is just under 500 miles. Cash tickets are pricing out between $230 and $300 one-way in coach, but award is available in Business for 15k. I find this to be a reasonable if extremely unexciting use of miles, especially if I place some value on the fact that I don't have to fight for the upgrade.
I know I'm certainly far from the first person to point this out, but perhaps the changes in overall award availability necessitate a strategic re-think about how to use miles. I currently find myself in the camp that thinks it's a better idea to burn them anywhere you can find value rather than save them for a dream trip that's increasingly hard to piece together.
I know I'm certainly far from the first person to point this out, but perhaps the changes in overall award availability necessitate a strategic re-think about how to use miles. I currently find myself in the camp that thinks it's a better idea to burn them anywhere you can find value rather than save them for a dream trip that's increasingly hard to piece together.
Mar 16, 2017, 9:50 am
#692
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,760
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.)
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.)
Try that if the flight is one per day and it is oversold.
We were repeatedly asked to be unloaded from the JNB-HKG flight in Sept. They first tried to put us on the following day, then they tried to get us to SAA. We stood firm and insisted we had confirmed seats. After 10 min back and forth the check in agent relented and issued us the BPs.
An FTer friend's EWR flight was canceled and he was rerouted from JFK which he did not like. Took lots of back and forth to get back on EWR with a day delay from the original schedule.
You should visit CX forum to learn more how the airline operates when it comes to the prioritizing who they would take care of first when there was serious IRROP / Oversold situation.
Mar 16, 2017, 10:04 am
#693
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,760
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.
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.
Of course the approach does not work for those who have tight vacation schedule. Those have to work much harder to put their trips together within the single award approach - that is life unfortunately.
For those who have enough time and means, positioning flights often are a much easier solution - actually using MULTIPLE programs work even better.
Here is a simple example - it is very tough to redeem the US-South Pacific on a single award. However if you can afford to break the trip into 2 awards with a stopover in Asia somewhere, immediately the options become a whole lot more. On top of that, you could take advantage of the UA sweet spot on the Asia-South Pacific that is 10K CHEAPER than AA and availability on TG is much much easier to find on CX. So we are going back to the same argument that you need to find alternatives.
Another example - do a US-EU-South-Pacific-Asia-US big RTW trip (because you actually loop down to South Pacific and up) - you will find the award seats on each segment are much easier to find than a basic US-South Pacific-US trip. Of course you would need to have the time and miles to do such a trip - that unfortunately is a luxury not everyone processes.
Everyone has his own way to cope with the current very poor situation of the AAdvantage program. How to cope all depending on individual's situation.
One thing is pretty clear is, AA would not give a damn on how bad it is. it is up to you the member to figure out how to use your miles instead of hoarding them.
Mar 16, 2017, 10:09 am
#694
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: NYC/PSP
Programs: AA EXP, A3 Gold
Posts: 4,106
Mar 16, 2017, 1:21 pm
#695
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,933
Or do you mean burn for "Standard" rewards (2x or more the miles of SAAver awards)?
Mar 16, 2017, 3:16 pm
#696
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: SFO
Programs: Hilton Diamond, Marriott Gold, IHG Plat
Posts: 756
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.)
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.)
Not necessary - it all depends on HOW your vacation would be. For those of us who often do RTWs in J/F, using miles obviously is much more economical than buying tickets.
Of course the approach does not work for those who have tight vacation schedule. Those have to work much harder to put their trips together within the single award approach - that is life unfortunately.
For those who have enough time and means, positioning flights often are a much easier solution - actually using MULTIPLE programs work even better.
Here is a simple example - it is very tough to redeem the US-South Pacific on a single award. However if you can afford to break the trip into 2 awards with a stopover in Asia somewhere, immediately the options become a whole lot more. On top of that, you could take advantage of the UA sweet spot on the Asia-South Pacific that is 10K CHEAPER than AA and availability on TG is much much easier to find on CX. So we are going back to the same argument that you need to find alternatives.
Another example - do a US-EU-South-Pacific-Asia-US big RTW trip (because you actually loop down to South Pacific and up) - you will find the award seats on each segment are much easier to find than a basic US-South Pacific-US trip. Of course you would need to have the time and miles to do such a trip - that unfortunately is a luxury not everyone processes.
Everyone has his own way to cope with the current very poor situation of the AAdvantage program. How to cope all depending on individual's situation.
One thing is pretty clear is, AA would not give a damn on how bad it is. it is up to you the member to figure out how to use your miles instead of hoarding them.
Of course the approach does not work for those who have tight vacation schedule. Those have to work much harder to put their trips together within the single award approach - that is life unfortunately.
For those who have enough time and means, positioning flights often are a much easier solution - actually using MULTIPLE programs work even better.
Here is a simple example - it is very tough to redeem the US-South Pacific on a single award. However if you can afford to break the trip into 2 awards with a stopover in Asia somewhere, immediately the options become a whole lot more. On top of that, you could take advantage of the UA sweet spot on the Asia-South Pacific that is 10K CHEAPER than AA and availability on TG is much much easier to find on CX. So we are going back to the same argument that you need to find alternatives.
Another example - do a US-EU-South-Pacific-Asia-US big RTW trip (because you actually loop down to South Pacific and up) - you will find the award seats on each segment are much easier to find than a basic US-South Pacific-US trip. Of course you would need to have the time and miles to do such a trip - that unfortunately is a luxury not everyone processes.
Everyone has his own way to cope with the current very poor situation of the AAdvantage program. How to cope all depending on individual's situation.
One thing is pretty clear is, AA would not give a damn on how bad it is. it is up to you the member to figure out how to use your miles instead of hoarding them.
Mar 16, 2017, 3:33 pm
#697
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: SFO
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 5,270
As several people have pointed out, there is availability, just not availability that works for everyone. And some of us have quite a bit of success using miles for travel to our preferred destinations on our preferred dates.
Mar 16, 2017, 4:43 pm
#698
Suspended
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 254
I've been burning using partner availability. I expect that my final AA Award flight will be flown on Alaska, and from last year on, most of my domestic flights are going to be done on Alaska/Virgin or Southwest. For sure I don't miss the "customer service" on AA.
Mar 16, 2017, 7:50 pm
#699
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,933
Happy's response highlights why I said it was "cheap and easy." A couple hundred dollar economy positioning flight is cheap relative to the multi-thousand dollar cost of the F/J redemption. For example, it costs only $80 each way to take a short hop from SEA to LAX. This is a small tradeoff in a little extra flight time to have much better award availability. A working individual who needs to take time off will actually have better chance of getting a desired award to a destination for the specific dates they are able to take vacation days since they are able to consider other airport hubs.
I don't know about you, but I start planning my trips by what I want to do when I get there, and that determines how long I want to be there, and then I have to add travel time to that to determine how long I have to take off from work. If I had to add more time for position trips and "safety buffers" in the schedule for them, then for me that grows the time I have to take off, because of that order of planning. (Or else it means I have to cut back on what I wanted to do at the destination.)
So what I meant by not agreeing with "cheap and easy" is the cost of an extra day or whatever taken off of work.
And the comparison should not be that AA would give you worse dates if you didn't use connecting trips. The comparison should be if UA or DL has the awards (straight from your home airport), but you only have AA miles, then it's because you only have AA miles that you're stuck with having to use separately-bought positioning flights and "pad" time because of that.
Mar 17, 2017, 1:33 pm
#700
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 1,535
I'm new to this, so here goes:
So far it seems that every Business/first milesaver award that I *can* find with AA and partners is on mixed cabin. Specifically looking from East coast to Hawaii, as usual, the longest part (LAX to HNL for example) is economy. Is this normal for AA?
So you have to like punish yourself and search through the calendar and then check every single flight (their search options don't seem to get it when you say "business class").
Granted, I'm looking at like Feb 2018, so maybe it's too far in advance.
So far it seems that every Business/first milesaver award that I *can* find with AA and partners is on mixed cabin. Specifically looking from East coast to Hawaii, as usual, the longest part (LAX to HNL for example) is economy. Is this normal for AA?
So you have to like punish yourself and search through the calendar and then check every single flight (their search options don't seem to get it when you say "business class").
Granted, I'm looking at like Feb 2018, so maybe it's too far in advance.
Mar 17, 2017, 2:10 pm
#701
Join Date: May 2000
Location: HH Gold, Marriott Gold, PC Plat, Emirates Silver
Posts: 2,679
If you get booked in Y on the domestic portion of a J international award, how do you get back to F on the domestic portion when confirmed in Y?
I have an EF alert for the seat but have little faith they will open one. It looks like there is no wait list and then the seats will most likely be taken by elite upgrades at their window. That leaves no seats left for day of travel bump to F.
Is there an opportunity to get to F when the elite upgrade window opens?
Note: in the past when talking to reservations in similar situations they say I cannot upgrade an award ticket. This is not an upgrade but something that has been "paid" for.
I have an EF alert for the seat but have little faith they will open one. It looks like there is no wait list and then the seats will most likely be taken by elite upgrades at their window. That leaves no seats left for day of travel bump to F.
Is there an opportunity to get to F when the elite upgrade window opens?
Note: in the past when talking to reservations in similar situations they say I cannot upgrade an award ticket. This is not an upgrade but something that has been "paid" for.
Mar 17, 2017, 2:33 pm
#702
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: DCA/IAD/WAS
Programs: MAR AMB, WOH Explorist, AA EXP, UA 2P
Posts: 2,138
If you get booked in Y on the domestic portion of a J international award, how do you get back to F on the domestic portion when confirmed in Y?
I have an EF alert for the seat but have little faith they will open one. It looks like there is no wait list and then the seats will most likely be taken by elite upgrades at their window. That leaves no seats left for day of travel bump to F.
Is there an opportunity to get to F when the elite upgrade window opens?
Note: in the past when talking to reservations in similar situations they say I cannot upgrade an award ticket. This is not an upgrade but something that has been "paid" for.
I have an EF alert for the seat but have little faith they will open one. It looks like there is no wait list and then the seats will most likely be taken by elite upgrades at their window. That leaves no seats left for day of travel bump to F.
Is there an opportunity to get to F when the elite upgrade window opens?
Note: in the past when talking to reservations in similar situations they say I cannot upgrade an award ticket. This is not an upgrade but something that has been "paid" for.
Mar 17, 2017, 2:41 pm
#704
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,584
I recently noticed that AA has made available a lot of 15k Business milesAAver awards on short-haul. I have a couple of Fridays where I need to take a flight that is just under 500 miles. Cash tickets are pricing out between $230 and $300 one-way in coach, but award is available in Business for 15k. I find this to be a reasonable if extremely unexciting use of miles, especially if I place some value on the fact that I don't have to fight for the upgrade.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...age-awards.jsp
Mar 17, 2017, 2:56 pm
#705
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,387
Not necessary - it all depends on HOW your vacation would be. For those of us who often do RTWs in J/F, using miles obviously is much more economical than buying tickets.
Of course the approach does not work for those who have tight vacation schedule. Those have to work much harder to put their trips together within the single award approach - that is life unfortunately.
Of course the approach does not work for those who have tight vacation schedule. Those have to work much harder to put their trips together within the single award approach - that is life unfortunately.
My workaround is I don't accrue much in AA (and when I can use it, I do, even if it's for domestic Y)
and use a combo of AS/*A (at the moment, AV), which gets me a certain amount of access in all three alliances + some wild cards. I have small amounts in BA and UA that get occasional flings of miles at them as well.So what I meant by not agreeing with "cheap and easy" is the cost of an extra day or whatever taken off of work.
And the comparison should not be that AA would give you worse dates if you didn't use connecting trips. The comparison should be if UA or DL has the awards (straight from your home airport), but you only have AA miles, then it's because you only have AA miles that you're stuck with having to use separately-bought positioning flights and "pad" time because of that.