PHXflier

DL was this way a few years ago, and now they have excellent redemption opportunities (18,000 miles R/T across the country, 11,000 miles R/T for shorter hops, etc.). I guess that someone in ATL figured out that cutting the number of miles you earn and asking a zillion miles for a free flight is not going to endear any customers. So, maybe the tide will turn for AA as well when they see that the US-inherited strategy really does not work. One can only hope .

TProphet

Yeah, it's really weird - I help people book award tickets (a lot--DM me if I can help you). The worst, hardest to use points a couple of years ago were Delta. These days, I probably use SkyMiles for about half of award bookings and the second worst points are AAdvantage (the worst are Virgin Atlantic). I always dread when someone only has them. Unless they want to take an international trip from a major hub, there is almost no chance of finding availability.

johnash

I don't believe it! 330 days out and these bandits are asking for 90K miles for an Aanytime award. I've tried as many departure cities and arrival cities that I could use and they're all coming out at 90K. So angry. I messaged AA and go the usual cr*p back.

rjw242

Why are you searching for flights nearly a year from departure? Airlines rarely offer good deals this far out (nor should they, if they're operating with any degree of rationality).

johnash

I always have in the past and got what I needed! The rest of our travel plans depend on what award flights we can get. I've always found the earlier I get in, the more likely I am to get what we need.

Paulchili

You are correct. This is the only and best thing you can do to show your displeasure with the new AAdvantage program - talk and walk with your wallet.
They are bound to listen sooner or later as money is the only language they speak - I don't know how much they actually care about Facebook or Twitter.
I have done so. Why should I support a company that doesn't care about me when I DO have choices how and where I spend my money.

richarddd

The problem with that attitude is AAdvantage is a significant source of revenue and profit. If people view miles as having little to no value, then it becomes difficult to sell miles to credit card companies, etc.

How do the profits from AAdvantage compare to the profits from selling tickets?

goldmarch

Far from being an expert on awards travel, I have noticed two things. First, everyone seems to agree that premium cabin awards and upgrades are getting harder to get. Second, paid business class tickets seem to be more affordable in general and more likely to be put on sale from time to time. I have recently purchased ORD-FCO-ORD, ORD-ATH-ORD and a few other routes in business for $3K and under, with fairly direct routing on major airlines. I don't remember prices like this being available in the past. Perhaps the airlines decided it was better to sell most of their business class product at a reasonable price and give away only a few seats for points than to sell just a few tickets at astronomical prices and give away the rest. As baby boomers retire and the stock market sits around all time highs, I can imagine how a strategy like this might work for them.

AlreadyThere

Not true anymore. For an anniversary trip for my parents to NYC for next March, I waited until the exact morning that day was supposed to become available for awards, 11 months out. I was met with an all-gray award calendar for that week and the week prior. I called and the EP desk suggested that the day simply hadn't had award seats "loaded in the system" yet, but that didn't explain no seats for the previous several weeks.

My idea was to bring them to NY in saver first, and if not available then economy if necessary, but of course nothing was available in either anytime in March (not exactly high season). No, the whole thing seems to have been killed.

susiesan

You have to monitor the pattern of releasing award seats for a given city pair. When trying to redeem for MCI-MIA to hook up with MIA-SCL I noticed the domestic leg being released 2 days later than 330 days. I put the int'l leg on hold (flying on LAN) and then called back to get the domestic connections within the 5 day hold. it is a lot of work and requires you to constantly be looking at the award chart but it can OCCASIONALLY be done.

anc-ord772

I can't believe I'm seriously considering spending 50k on JFK-LAX in J. I just haven't found a good AA redemption in almost two years.

AlreadyThere

Until this recent development, it was possible to get a redemption if you were flexible about dates and times. Which IMO was reasonable; the airline is allowed to be stingy at times when they can reasonably expect to sell most seats.

But this blackout is not reasonable. Really, not one seat in March via DFW, ORD, CLT, ORD, PHL? I have gritted my teeth through several chart devaluations, but those were quantitative degradations, while this is a qualitative one. I have some seats already booked and paid on AA in the next month, and I will feel as if I am earning unusable miles while I'm on those flights. I have already earned EP for 2018, but unless they reverse course on this, that will probably be the last year I will qualify.

hurnik

I think it varies, especially with DL. 180k miles each way on DL for first/business from ALB to HNL. (and that's starting if you don't want lie-flat seats). AA had lie flats for 67.5k each way.

But it depends on where/when you want to go. That's why I don't think it makes sense to pile all your miles in one basket. I do like that AA doesn't vary their miles based upon load like Delta does ("Oh, look, lots of people are interested in this flight, all of a sudden it'll cost you 300k miles on Delta now).

I'd say based upon my latest experience trying to get "cheap" flights to Hawaii in first, either you have to be very, very, flexible (like last minute, 2 days out type of thing), or fly coach. Especially from the East Coast. Apparently if you can fly out of LAX/SEA/SAN, you can usually find the cheaper awards (even first/business) maybe 1-3 weeks out. But of course, by then, you'll pay through the nose for hotels/etc.

dgcpaphd

On a recent international flight, I noticed that there were more than twenty empty business class seats when the aircraft departed.

During the flight, I commented to one of the flight attendants about the number of empty seats in business. The flight attendant said "it has happened a lot lately over the past few months."

I have another international flight tonight. Looking at aa.com, I noticed that there are still 15 empty seats in business on my flight.

Out of curiosity, I looked at AA's site (aa.com) that shows award space availability. AA's chart for tonight shows zero saver awards. It also shows anytime redemptions for this flight (one-way) to be at 150,000 miles.

Why are there no business saver awards for this flight when there are so many empty business class seats? Why is the mileage requirement almost three times more than the saver award requirement, considering that there are so many empty seats?

Out of further curiosity, I checked the same flight number for tomorrow. The aa.com site shows 23 empty seats in business. The site also shows zero saver awards available.

With the AA site, it is possible to click a few more buttons and see availability for this itinerary for the remainder of the year. Doing so, shows zero saver awards for the entire remainder of the year. The mileage requirement for "anytime" awards range from 110,000 to 195,000 (one-way).

Why has AA devalued its loyalty program to a point that allows its aircraft to depart with large quantities of empty business class seats that could be filled if saver awards were not blocked?

Treating loyal passengers this way is counter to the function of a loyalty program.


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rjw242

Already being discussed here:
MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity discussion