susiesan

I had the same problem with 2 J awards from EZE-SCL-MIA-DFW-MCI. I got award seats as far as DFW then could not get even an econ seat on the last leg. I called and asked for help. A very nice CSR said she's see what she could do, put me on hold for 10 minutes, and told me she was able to get AA to open up saver award seats for the last leg of an international award. Try calling and asking nicely. It worked for me, and I don;t have any stars other than lifetime gold.

FlyingEgghead

So, just curious, AlreadyThere -- did you find an option from what I suggested? It's understandable if AS wouldn't come to mind as a realistic option, but as of tomorrow AS takes over the DAL-LGA route from VX. So it is bookable in an AAdvantage award -- and has good availability, as reflected in the search I described. I hope it works out for you!

The complaint about limited AA-metal saver availability may still be valid, of course, but it seems like AS complements nicely here.

AlreadyThere

When I couldn't find anything at first online, I called AA, and the EP agent said she could find nothing either. After reading your post, I went back and looked specifically for AS (I guess it didn't show at first since I originally specified DFW, and AS leaves from DAL), I found an AS seat for the next day! So I called AA back and had them add the AS leg to my reservation. Thanks!

I do find it odd that the AA res agent couldn't see the AS flight as an available connection when I first called. And I don't think AA's full reliance on partners to fulfill awards is sustainable. But my immediate problem seems solved (at the cost of an overnight in Dallas, but that's no big deal).

dgcpaphd

Good question.

There has been a lot written about this subject in business and travel publications. You can Google the subject and find numerous articles.

Essentially, AA sponsor banks (Citi and Barclay) are not happy with AA's "frugal" behavior in not releasing a decent amount of saver awards while letting countless flights depart with empty business class seats.

Due to the reduction of available saver awards, AA bank sponsored credit card use and new credit card customers have declined. The decline is noted in AA's last annual financial statement.

It does not take a genius to realize that while AA wants 200,000 (or more) miles for a business class award, credit card holders need to spend nearly $200,000.00 to earn those miles.

Even with a sign up credit card bonus, the cardholder still needs to spend more than $150,000.00 for the flight.

To put it mildly, it is an insult to AA customers for AA to have changed its business model to expect customers to blindly go along with the general lack of saver awards and accept the fact that they either pay the outlandish "anytime" award or move on to another airline.

rjw242

How is this out of line with other credit card rewards programs? Seems like a fairly standard reward-to-spend ratio.

anabolism

I often am in the situation of finding partner premium award space to JFK, but then unable to find anything on AA to continue westward. I agree that AS has decent availability, which helps. However, it's typically out of EWR, which has something like a 6 hour MCT from JFK (EF says 3.5 hours, but AA told me it was 6 and wouldn't book anything shorter). Since there's typically at most one AS westward flight with award space, that forces an overnight in NYC, and I've run into cases where AS has nothing the following day, and AA wouldn't book the same day due to MCT. This is all aside from the expense and hassle of getting from JFK-EWR.

DFW-DAL, as in what you found, similarly forces a ground transfer at one's own expense.

The recent imposition of maximum segments on award itineraries (three for domestic, four for international) has eliminated what used to be my workaround, which was to spend hours hunting every possible connection, piecing together outlandish itineraries with 5-7 segments on an international itinerary, just to work around the scarcity of SAAver space. What makes it so insulting is that I have zero desire to fly all those extra domestic segments, and counted on schedule changes or award space opening up close-in to switch to a desirable routing.

JDiver

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355F1

Sat next to nice older lady OGG-PHX yesterday who brought up the fact that she has almost 400,000 AA Miles and can't "use them anymore" as there are no Saaver Awards on flights she wants to fly.

Just figured I'd throw that here as she obviously isn't a FT'er but is also feeling the punch as of late.

diver858

So let me get this straight: person is sitting on 400k miles, waiting for Saaver awards? Let me guess - they were "earned" primarily through credit card enrollment bonuses, credit card spend? What is the alternative - stay home, allow the miles to devalue further?

diver858

http://www.flyertalk.com/articles/un...back-card.html

As airline mileage programs continue to be devalued, will other carriers follow this approach? Is there an AA Executive “Cash Back” Card - $400 AF with Admirals Club access - on the way?

With many airfares at historic lows (adjusted for inflation), this makes alot of sense, eliminates all of the award program headaches - along with the loyalty of an award program.

JIMCHI

It doesn't matter how she earned them. American and its credit card affiliates badly wanted her to earn those miles. But now that she's earned them she can only take half of the trips she thought she could take when she signed up for the card, paid the annual fees, and charged many dollars to them. She could have (should have ?) signed up for a cash back card instead. American makes a LOT of money from the credit cards but they are going to see a whole lot less now that the program has been devalued by 50% by essentially requiring AAnytime awards to be used. A whole lot of people are going to be cancelling those cards in the future as they discover they can't use the 25,000 miles or so that they earned. We cancelled my wife's CitiAAdvantage card and I will probably cancel mine.

diver858

My point was to demonstrate the no-win situation airlines have created by giving out miles like candy, then devaluing them. As AA received cash from Citi and Barclays when the miles were "earned", it is to their financial advantage for customers to sit on them, eventually allow at least some to expire. Question is how it will affect loyalty long-term.

rrgg

Hoarding 400k really isn't that crazy if you're waiting for a pair of international J awards for example.

andyr

The problem I have with it is when the FAs (and airport kiosks) push the credit cards with statements like "60K mile bonus, enough for up to three round trips in economy to destinations such as US, Caribbean, Hawaii, London and Tokyo", which is blatantly misleading and presumably off a vetted approved script. I heard this verbatim on a flight this week.

And BTW AAnytime isn't just 2x, it can be a lot higher, not just for 5 days around Christmas. LAX/AKL was in the 250-375 range through mid February last time I looked (one way in J).

Edit: just checked, LAX/AKL one way J between 250K and 375K from 11/18 to 2/4, then it goes down to 190K. MileSAAver is 80K. 2x is the old devaluation. Try 4-5x these days on desirable routes.

chrisremo

Yeah, no kidding. The only genuinely great AA redemption I've ever scored was JL F SFO-HND round trip for two. At the time that was 250k. If I ever want to shoot for that again, it's 320k. (Obviously AAnytime on AA is a whole different story.)