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ARCHIVE: 2017 HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

Old Jan 6, 2019, 2:14 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: JDiver
ARCHIVE: 2017 HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion

The current thread can be read here.


Some of you might have found your thread merged into this "consolidated" thread. If your desire is to become thoroughly familiar with the knowledge that has been accumulated about the process for acquiring MileSAAver awards feel free to read this entire thread. If you only want the assistance from those who have the knowledge your request has been merged at the end. Feel free to wait for a forthcoming answer.

If you have reached this thread by using the search process you have the same choices as above. Read the thread and become knowledgeable or post at the end and wait for a forthcoming answer.

thanks
~magic111


NOTE: for more detailed fare rules, see AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)

Awards can generally be held for five days; five day extensions require continued availability of your flights and generating a new award booking and five day hold.

Though AA can start releasing awards 331 days from the desired flight date (even though some other airlines might make award seats available to their members 355 days out), its very likely award seats may be released a few days after that. If seats arent sold and Revenue Management algorithms signify slow sales, more seats might be released going forward.


Airlines that can be booked for award travel on aa.com

oneworld alliance airline partners
  • AA - American Airlines
  • BA - British Airways (awards incur significant YQ surcharge)
  • AY - Finnair
  • IB - Iberia
  • QF - Qantas
  • QR - Qatar Airways
  • RJ - Royal Jordanian Airlines
  • S7 - S7 Airlines
  • UL - Sri Lankan Airlines
other airline partners
  • 9K - Cape Air (but only certain cities)
  • TN - Air Tahiti Nui
  • AS - Alaska Airlines
  • EY - Etihad
  • HA - Hawaiian Airlines


All others must be requested by telephone; see Note below.

NOTE: To search for partner awards, go to advanced search from the awards search or home page and select all airlines.


Full list of oneworld airline partners (and their affiliates)
  • AA - American Airlines
  • BA - British Airways (Cityflyer, Comair, OpenSkies, Sun-Air of Scandinavia)
  • CX - Cathay Pacific (Dragonair)
  • AY -Finnair (Flybe)
  • IB - Iberia (Air Nostrum, Iberia Express)
  • JL - Japan Airlines (JAL Express, J-Air, Japan Transocean Air)
  • LA- LAN Airlines (LAN Argentina, LAN Ecuador, LAN Express, LAN Colombia, LAN Peru only, merging with JJ to LATAM)
  • MH - Malaysia Airlines
  • QF - Qantas Airways (QantasLink, Jetconnect)
  • QR - Qatar Airways
  • RJ - Royal Jordanian Airlines
  • S7 - S7 Airlines (Globus) (excludes Siberia / far eastern Russia awards)
  • UL - SriLankan Airlines
  • JJ - TAM Airlines (merging with LA to LATAM)

When you do call, you might want to search for award space on the flights you want and tell the agent about those flights; sometimes AA agents won't find award seats unless they search by segment.

When using other airline web sites or tools to search for award availability, its best to do so by segment rather than by trip. E. g. BA May show availability SAN-LHR and LHR-AMS, but not SAN-AMS. And in some instances (EY, FJ, etc.) AA US may not see availability that AA Australia or New Zealand might see.

Full list of additional airline partners offering award redemptions
  • TN - Air Tahiti Nui
  • AS - Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air
  • 9K - Cape Air
  • EY - Etihad Airways
  • FJ - Fiji Airways
  • GF - Gulf Air
  • HA - Hawaiian Airlines


NOTE: Ticketing charge


Code:
oneworld Partners Award Fare Codes First-Business-Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AA - American Airlines Z U T
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AY  Finnair U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 BA  British Airways Z U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 CX  Cathay Pacific Z U T
 KA - DragonAir
 --------------------------------------------------------
 IB  Iberia U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 JL  Japan Airlines (Intl) Z U T
 JL  Japan Airlines (Dom) Z D S
 --------------------------------------------------------
 LATAM Group
 JJ - TAM Airlines O I X
 LA  LAN Chile Z U T
 XL - LAN Ecuador
 LP - LAN Peru
 4M - LAN Argentina
 --------------------------------------------------------
 MH - Malaysia Airlines P U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 QF - QANTAS Airways P U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 QR - Qatar Airways Z U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 RJ  Royal Jordanian U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 S7  S7 Airlines U E
 --------------------------------------------------------
 UL - SriLankan Airlines
 --------------------------------------------------------
 
 Other Partners First Business Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 FJ  Fiji Airways U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 TN  Air Tahiti Nui F for Business U for Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AS  Alaska Airlines A W
 --------------------------------------------------------
 LY  El Al Israel P X E
 --------------------------------------------------------
 EY - Etihad O I N
 --------------------------------------------------------
 HA  Hawaiian Airlines D T
 --------------------------------------------------------
Effective February 16, 2015, a Reservations Ticketing Service Charge of $30.00 for domestic itineraries and $40.00 for international itineraries will be applied by AA Reservations when ticketing award reservations that can be booked on aa.com. The charge is waived for award reservations that cannot be booked on aa.com including reduced mileage awards, and for Executive Platinums. N.B. Executive Platinums booking award for non-EP will pay the service charges.
NOTE: Rather than release SAAver Awards at 330 days out, AA generally delays 48 hours after the 330 day time period has begun, at or about midnight Central time.

Other rules that may affect your awards:

Award Rules

American Airlines Awards are valid for travel on flights that are marketed and operated by AA (no codeshares). These awards can be booked online at AA.com.

oneworld and Other Airline awards are valid for travel on AA and any of its partner airlines, and can include travel on multiple partners. Many of these awards must be booked over the phone, and will not incur a Ticketing Service Charge (waived for EXPs in any case) if they cannot be booked online.
Up to four one-way awards can be booked on a single PNR. Codeshares are not bookable as Awards.

MPM or Maximum Permitted Miles: A Fare or award may not exceed the most direct routing by more than 25% (unless the fare routing includes a ticketed point deduction (essentially a miles allowance that extends MPM). See MPM / Maximum Permitted Mileage & Ticketed Point Deductions (merged threads).

Stopovers and Connections

Stopovers are no longer allowed on AA awards. Stopovers will require multiple awards.

Connections are limited to two connections / three flight segments for domestic awards, and three connections / four flight segments for international awards as of Aug 2017. Link

Domestic Connections must be under 4 hours for domestic flights, with some exceptions: "LIFO" (Last In - First Out connections are generally allowed.

Hawaii itinerary: Effective on 14 Jul 2014 on an all-AA-metal award itinerary, you now have up to 18 hours to connect when traveling to/from Hawaii. NOTE: Hawaii interisland connections must be separate awards and can not be included as part of a mainland-island award.

International Connections must generally not exceed 23:59 hours. Some leeway has occasionally been granted when connecting flights are not daily. If the itinerary includes an international flight, the rules for international connections apply. Link to these courtesy of JonNYC.

If there is a non-stop flight that departs after the 4h / 23h59m windows and arrives at the destination earlier than a connecting flight within the 4h / 23h59m window, the passenger may be booked on the non-stop flight. It may be difficult getting some agents to book this.

"Most Significant Carrier" rule: To price as a single award, AAdvantage requires the most significant carrier to publish a cash fare (non-constructed) between the origin and destination. Airline MSC (e.g. DFW-SFO-HKG-BKK, CX SFO-HKG is the prevailing or most significant carrier) would have to have a published fare from XXX to YYY that allows travel on all included airlines, and routing that you want. If the MSC only offers constructed fares between your desired origin and destination, AA will price this as two awards.

Constructed fares: Another rule disallows awards where the fare must be constructed (also referred to as "YY"): Using a partner, the trip will require two awards if the governing carrier (e,g. airline operating on the major route, such as transpacific carrier) doesn't publish a through fare that includes the award's proposed origin and destination that allows the carriers proposed.

See this thread about examples using TN.

Married Segment Logic - a prospective trip may be available when searching segment by segment, yet not be bookable through from origin to destination. When selling seats for through flights and the desired inventory is not available, you cannot opt to sell the flight point-to-point. If sold point-to-point, the error response MULTIPLE SEGMENTS FOR SAME FLIGHT - SELL AS ONE SEGMENT will be received, indicating this booking is not allowed. Overriding the error check by ending the PNR twice is not acceptable.

See Award with available segments not bookable? (Married Segment issues)
Resources

NOTE: New award charts are posted on AA.com from time to time. See the American Airlines charts here and the oneworld and partner award charts here.
Some airlines or areas have different, extra or special characteristics for securing awards. See

aa.com Basic (front page) vs Advanced Award Search Results (abbreviated results for front page search vs. Advanced award search)

AAdvantage awards to / from Australia, New Zealand link

AAdvantage awards to the Galpagos Islands, Ecuador link

AAdvantage awards on Air Tahiti Nui link

AAdvantage awards using British Airways incurring (avoiding) high fees link

AAdvantage award on Cathay Pacific (and Cathay Dragon) link

AAdvantage awards using Etihad Airways link

AAdvantage awards using Fiji Airways link

AAdvantage awards using Japan Airlines link

AAdvantage awards using Qantas Airways link

AAdvantage awards on S7 (Siberian) Airlines link
Awards assistance tools: Use at your own risk; may not be up to date. These are not recommendations.
  • Check this oneworld interactive map and timetable by Innosked to see potential routes.

  • British Airways Executive Club: You can sign up for British Airways Executive Club, Japan Airlines JAL Mileage Bank or Qantas Frequent Flyer to use their sites to find awards (look for the lowest level awards) you can't see on aa.com. BA in particular is prone to show "phantom" availability.

  • Award booking services - list and reviews (FT thread)

  • Award Nexus: It's easy to do your experiments for some free browsing (click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up with your FlyerTalk login info). You might want to run each segment rather than origin to destination.


    Originally Posted by sdsearch
    ...Award Nexus is free (up to a point) for FlyerTalk users. Click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up for free as a FlyerTalk member.


    What I like about Award Nexus is it has a much nicer user interface than BA and lets you choose whether to search through BA and/or QF, and as you can see each of those may give somewhat different results.


    The "cost" to do all these searches once was a total of 12 points, and you get 200 points free when you signup, and then every 90 days you can reload 100 more points for free (once you're below 10 points). So that gives an idea of how many searches could do free...


  • AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds

  • AwardHacker: "a tool we build to tell you how to travel with the least miles"

  • Award Nexus: which can search availability but can't determine cost, with FT member free limited use

  • Economical Excursionist's Tools: compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions

  • ExpertFlyer is a common tool used on FT. There is a $99.99 annual fee, monthly fee and five day trial

  • Great Circle Mapper is useful for calculating distance and MPM (Maximum Permitted Mileage)

  • You can try PEX+ (currently in beta), which will even tell you how many miles you'll need, though it draws data from aa.com and S7 so it can't reveal awards that can not be seen on those sites.

  • Travel Codex Award Maximiser commercial blog


Also see:

aa.com Basic (front page) vs Advanced Award Search Results

Phantom / false AA award availability with AA partners (consolidated)

oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on

Help with British Airways / BA surcharge / YQ (AA award on BA, consolidated) (Awards using BA incur significant "YQ" surcharges.)

UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures[/quote] (Flights originating in the UK other than INV or BFS - or connections 24:00 or over - incur UK Air Passenger Duty excise taxes.)

MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity >= Aug 2011 onward (consolidated)

Older posts from 2017 have been archived to: this archive thread

Older posts from 2016 have been archived to: this archive thread

Older posts through 2015 have been archived to: this archive thread
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ARCHIVE: 2017 HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

Old Sep 25, 2017, 8:23 pm
  #946  
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: PDX|AKL|AMS|GVA|AGP|CPT - or somewhere in between
Programs: DL DM; 2MM
Posts: 2,416
Originally Posted by guv1976
What alternative routings/carriers from GVA to SFO have you found using AA miles?
Nothing from GVA, (or anywhere close in Europe) - not even in Biz Saver - but on 12/25 some AA flights in Saver Award from LHR-ORD-PDX - arriving late 12/25.
Another option would be from Madrid on Iberia on December 23rd.
The AB flights were our little secret pot-of-gold for a long time out of GVA - but no longer unfortunately !

Last edited by Travelomania; Sep 25, 2017 at 8:43 pm
Travelomania is offline  
Old Sep 25, 2017, 8:23 pm
  #947  
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: PDX|AKL|AMS|GVA|AGP|CPT - or somewhere in between
Programs: DL DM; 2MM
Posts: 2,416
Originally Posted by guv1976
What alternative routings/carriers from GVA to SFO have you found using AA miles?
Nothing from GVA, (or anywhere close in Europe) - not even in Biz Saver - but on 12/25 some AA flights in Saver Award from LHR-ORD-PDX - arriving late 12/25.
Another option would be from Madrid on Iberia on December 23rd.
The AB flights were our little secret pot-of-gold for a long time out of GVA - but no longer unfortunately !
Travelomania is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:00 am
  #948  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: DFW
Programs: AA ExPlat, 4mm
Posts: 102
I know that I have read about this situation before on FT, but I cannot find the thread.

I was able to hold a LAX-HNL MilesAAver award in first. Later that day, a DFW-LAX MilesAAver award was available in coach, which I also put on hold.

So now I have two different PNRs on hold. I believe I can call the EXP line and have an agent combine the two held PNRs into one booking and pay only the 40K mile price for of the MilesAAver first award.

Does my argument hold water? Thanks in advance for any help provided.
Grail is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:00 am
  #949  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: DFW
Programs: AA ExPlat, 4mm
Posts: 102
I know that I have read about this situation before on FT, but I cannot find the thread.

I was able to hold a LAX-HNL MilesAAver award in first. Later that day, a DFW-LAX MilesAAver award was available in coach, which I also put on hold.

So now I have two different PNRs on hold. I believe I can call the EXP line and have an agent combine the two held PNRs into one booking and pay only the 40K mile price for of the MilesAAver first award.

Does my argument hold water? Thanks in advance for any help provided.
Grail is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:09 am
  #950  
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 125
I was told by an agent that they could not do this. however, when i called back the second agent did combine my PNRs - so persistence pays off.
eddieras is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:09 am
  #951  
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 125
I was told by an agent that they could not do this. however, when i called back the second agent did combine my PNRs - so persistence pays off.
eddieras is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:13 am
  #952  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: DFW
Programs: AA ExPlat, 4mm
Posts: 102
Thanks eddieras. I now know to HUACA if the first agent says no. Much obliged.

Last edited by Grail; Sep 29, 2017 at 7:14 am Reason: typo
Grail is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:13 am
  #953  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: DFW
Programs: AA ExPlat, 4mm
Posts: 102
Thanks eddieras. I now know to HUACA if the first agent says no. Much obliged.
Grail is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:19 am
  #954  
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: WAS
Posts: 1,623
Originally Posted by Grail
I know that I have read about this situation before on FT, but I cannot find the thread.

I was able to hold a LAX-HNL MilesAAver award in first. Later that day, a DFW-LAX MilesAAver award was available in coach, which I also put on hold.

So now I have two different PNRs on hold. I believe I can call the EXP line and have an agent combine the two held PNRs into one booking and pay only the 40K mile price for of the MilesAAver first award.

Does my argument hold water? Thanks in advance for any help provided.
IME agents have not been unable (or at least unwilling) to do this, although that doesn't mean you can't find an agent who can/will.
Ross0 is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:19 am
  #955  
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: WAS
Posts: 1,623
Originally Posted by Grail
I know that I have read about this situation before on FT, but I cannot find the thread.

I was able to hold a LAX-HNL MilesAAver award in first. Later that day, a DFW-LAX MilesAAver award was available in coach, which I also put on hold.

So now I have two different PNRs on hold. I believe I can call the EXP line and have an agent combine the two held PNRs into one booking and pay only the 40K mile price for of the MilesAAver first award.

Does my argument hold water? Thanks in advance for any help provided.
IME agents have not been unable (or at least unwilling) to do this, although that doesn't mean you can't find an agent who can/will.
Ross0 is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:38 am
  #956  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 7,887
Originally Posted by Ross0
IME agents have not been unable (or at least unwilling) to do this, although that doesn't mean you can't find an agent who can/will.
I've done it, and I'm only PLT. However it did seem like there was some work involved, so maybe it's not trivial.
rrgg is online now  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 7:38 am
  #957  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 7,887
Originally Posted by Ross0
IME agents have not been unable (or at least unwilling) to do this, although that doesn't mean you can't find an agent who can/will.
I've done it, and I'm only PLT. However it did seem like there was some work involved, so maybe it's not trivial.
rrgg is online now  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 1:24 pm
  #958  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
SCL or EZE back to US

Has anyone had knowledge / experiences on the close in availability of South America to US routes? Whether t is AA or LA, before or after Christmas?

I understand the Mid Dec to Mid Jan is the peak season for the US-South America traffic. Though still would like to hear any DP if anyone has redeemed close in flights.
Happy is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2017, 1:24 pm
  #959  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
SCL or EZE back to US

Has anyone had knowledge / experiences on the close in availability of South America to US routes? Whether t is AA or LA, before or after Christmas?

I understand the Mid Dec to Mid Jan is the peak season for the US-South America traffic. Though still would like to hear any DP if anyone has redeemed close in flights.
Happy is offline  
Old Sep 30, 2017, 12:06 pm
  #960  
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: BOS-DCA
Programs: AA ExePlat
Posts: 217
BOS-SPU July 2018

Trying to find 2 business class tickets not forced through LHR which not only has the high fees but only shows an additional overnight each way in London. I see IB and FInnair flying to SPU bit cannot find if their is availability for business.
jsieds is offline  

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