Antarius

I mean sure. There are Saver awards out there from SOME airports on SOME days.

Flexible on dates is one thing.. but airports? Really? To me that means there is no award availability, or barely any. If I have to schlepp TO LAX retrieve my bag, re-check it in and then fly on an award... sAAver award availability is limited.

SFO777

If you are not willing to be flexible, that leaves sAAver seats for others.
BTW, some of us never check bags and only travel with carry-ons.

Antarius

That's like saying if AAnytime awards are good enough. If you don't have enough miles, others can fly instead.

I'm not arguing that sAAver awards should be available at peak periods. But they used to be available, now not so much. The flight is half empty in J and you can't find a sAAver J award from your city. Moving dates is a reasonable expectation for flexibility. Having to fly on a separate PNR and ticket to a totally different city - not so.

Calling this reasonable is Stockholm Syndrome.

akr1970akr

I'm kind of amazed after several years of basically ignoring the Aadvantage program since we could never find decent redemptions that in the last few months we've had some decent redemptions

* gotten 4 pack of sAAver levels, with the Citi reduced mileage benefit too, for r/t Sacramento to Vail during ski spring break. 4 - 6c / mile depending on how one values those fares
* just booked a 4 pack of sAAvers for r/t Sacramento into Aspen for New Years school holiday week. Those were ~ 2c / mile redemption value, but I think the cash tix prices were too low if anything.

Normally cash ticket prices for those are pretty high and I wouldn't even consider flying into those airports, but it seems like the new 'logic' that releases capacity for connecting flights is working ok for us.
We're a city that doesn't have many directs to places we'd consider destinations, so have a different calculus than hub city flyers.

This might make me reconsider accumulating AA miles, as we've been mostly in burn mode for the last 3-4 years.

jediwho

Flying from LAX and looking at going to either Spain, Iceland, Munich, Norway, VIE, or LIS (mostly anywhere in Western Europe) from Sept. 1st and return on the 8th. I am keeping my eyes open for the LAX-AKL flight and see if any business class seats open up. Also, I am a bit flexible on flying out of most cities Alaska flies to from LAX -- so SFO, SEA, PDX, ORD, DFW, BOS, PHL, BWI and IAD. So buy paid ticket to one of this airports and then use miles from those airports. I have spent past couple of days going through various combo, including flying on AA miles and retun on Star Alliance or Skyteam, but looks like there is not much business class or first available on those dates. Has anyone come across availability in early September? Thanks!

kpfleming

Without even trying hard I recently got a Business MilesAAver award round-trip between JFK and EDI, and I only had to change one of the desired dates by one day (no big deal at all). This was booked six months in advance.

guv1976

Have you called AA and asked about award-seat availability on TN's LAX-CDG nonstop? Depending on TN's published through-fares, you might be able to tag on a PAR-MAD segment on IB for no additional miles.

FlightNurse

They were in April, I could get there on AA but coming back would have been on CX or SN. I can never seem to find RT on AA

FlightNurse

Flexibility is the main issue, most people who come to this thread whine and complain they can not find sAAver awards on the dates they want to fly on and out of their home airport. So being flexible is the major issue. Now, when I booked our tickets to the UK for Thanksgiving, I couldn't find seats out of PHX to LAX. When I placed my LAX-LHR-DUB seat on hold, I called in, told the agent I wanted to add the PHX-LAX to the flights, and WHAM she found them, but the online system had us going through DFW. She was also able to see F sAAver on the LAX-LHR and LHR-LAX, so we snagged them, and our return LAX-PHX is in F.

Your issue with luggage if you are in J or F and you are flying out of a gateway city you will have access to Flagship check-in, which means you should be airside in about 10 minutes, not much of a hassle.

jediwho

Thanks! I called them immediately after your suggestion. They only had seats available on the return flight. I could have gone ahead and booked it in hopes of either getting flight to KEF, OSL, etc. and then fly out of CDG, but given that I still did not have any clarity to where I will be flying to, I thought it's a bit risky.

guv1976

Don't forget that you can get a free, five-day hold on AAdvantage awards for travel on most AAdvantage partners.

rbw5t

Glad to come across this thread -- I'm hoping you experts can help me!

I got lucky and found first class availability on Qantas from LAX-MEL next spring, so I jumped on it. The small hiccup is that I have to get from DC to LAX. There was no Saver availability in First, Business or Coach for a direct flight, so I paid 20k extra miles for an Anytime coach award from DCA to LAX. I've been playing around with options, and there is a Saver award from DCA to LAX with a stopover that I could manage. If I call back to switch to the Saver domestic DCA-LAX legs, would they credit back the 20k miles I spent on the Anytime version of that leg? The itinerary as a whole would still be DCA-LAX-MEL, same date, etc, so I'm hoping no change fees.

Similarly, if at some point a Business or First saver becomes available, would I be able to grab that without it being a "change", since I've already paid the 110k first class amount for US-AUS?

Thanks for your help!

DoTheBartMan

1. Did you add the DCA-LAX AAnytime award to the LAX-MEL award (i.e. book it as one DCA-LAX-MEL award with a combined cost of the DCA-LAX + LAX-MEL awards), or did you book it as a separate award? If you booked it as two separate awards, adding DCA-LAX to the first award would be a change of the departure city, and a change fee would be due.
2. "there is a Saver award from DCA to LAX with a stopover that I could manage." - Is it a stopover (connection > 4 hrs for domestic itinerary) or a domestic 2-segment connection where there connection time is less than 4 hours at the intermediate airport?

rbw5t

1. Yes, it's 1 award, total cost 130k miles (110 + 20), on a single record locator.

2. Sorry, layover rather than stopover is the better term I guess. I just meant a nondirect flight from DCA-LAX. 90 minute layover.

Thanks for your help!

JJeffrey

This is a tricky one, because although your O&D isn't changing, you're changing award types on the PNR from an Int'l F + AAnytime domestic to just the Int'l F. You should be able to add the DCA-LAX sAAver legs onto your existing LAX-MEL for the 110k. However, I suspect AA will try to charge you the $150 fee for redeposit of the 20k AAnytime award. It's certainly not cut and dry and worth a few HUCAs to see if you can make the switch without paying the fee.

And yes, if sAAver J seats open up on DCA-LAX, you can switch for no fee (assuming you make the change above, to everything on a singe sAAver F award DCA-MEL with voluntary downgrade to Y on the domestic flights).