sensei

After a quick look at the loads for US-LHR flights, it does seem strange that there isn't more award availability. Maybe everyone at IM is off for the holidays??

GUWonder

It's AA saying "BAh, humbug!".

It's been like this for quite some time this year, and it has nothing to do with IM being off for the holidays. AA has become greedy in this regard, well before this week and the prior couple; and customers recognizing such has nothing to do with any sort of grumpiness. AA's just not as generous as before with customers, and AA is a lot more greedy than usual for this time of year.

AA as the US airline "loyalty" program industry Scrooge when it comes to US-Europe travel.

AA_EXP09

Have you tried LAX MIA LHR?
Or LAX DFW LHR?
Or above via ORD?

sohony

fwiw re greedy grinch mrs soho and i were upgraded with evips lax--lhr RT this xmas, a few days before our trip from supersaver coach tix.

gregillinois

I posted same issue for Caribbean destinations last week. Every place like Belize, Jamica, Grand Caymans is at least 35,000 miles every day one way next Nov. after mid month. Obviously they can not be sold out already. So our dream trip of 50,000 miles both ways now jumps to 140,000 miles if taken after Nov 15. Not seen any helpful options except buy a ticket or travel in summer!.

susiesan

They are also being very stingy in releasing more than one business seat per flight to other European destinations, like Madrid. I was able to get one seat only for outbound AA36 and return AA 37 DFW-MAD-DFW for Oct.-Nov. I checked very single day next year for 2 bus seats at the saaver level of 50K each way. There isn't a single day in all of 2012 that there are 2 business seats available on the AA flights to/from Madrid. So I ticketed my husband and I one bus and one coach seat so we'd be on the same flights. IB hasn't released any business seats either for their flight ORD-MAD.

Happy

I would chalk it up as AA now are far more "dynamic" when it comes to releasing award seats - instead of a set amount of seats at set time, now they release the seats more closely related to actual demand. For period several months out, let along 10 - 11 months out, when there is no discernable revenue sales pattern yet, they simply dont release award seats.

I have a MIA-LIM that I really want to change the date to May or June from the January date. The best I could do now is to move it to April which has only 3 days in the whole month have Saaver seats - after I took the 2 on one day, now there are only 2 days left. The whole May has 0, the whole June has one date which is outside the offpeak period.

So, it has nothing to do with holiday as April, May and June certainly dont fall into any kind of holidays, not even school holidays but there are no Saaver coach offpeak seats MIA-LIM, not even on the redeye.

I would just check periodically, especially when one to two months out from departure.

Meanwhile on another award, there is no J award seat out from 8 daily MIA-LAX direct flights 3 weeks from now - but there are enough connection flights via DFW or other airports so I can get a MIA-DFW-LAX-HKG in J booked, and even able to extend it once. (It has to have award seats in the next 5 days before the agent can extend it for 5 more days.) I can see at least half of the MIA-LAX direct flights the F section is pretty full - like only 1/4 or less space left - so naturally AA would not release the award seats until very close to departure if it ever does it.

With the reduction in capacity, this is going to be the norm that we all have to deal with it.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"The whole May has 0, the whole June has one date which is outside the offpeak period."

Happy, is this a stand-alone MIA-LIM award, or is it the tail end of something like Hawaii-MIA-LIM? If the latter, you do not have to worry about whether the MIA-LIM segment falls within the peak or off-peak period. It is only the date of the first segment on the award itinerary that has to fall within the off-peak period.

clacko

if i were aa, i'd rather have have 1 paid seat than a few decreases in the mi's outstanding...

Robt760

When folks post here about the difficulty of getting SAAver awards, please state your status level if it is not shown in your profile.

I have been satisfied with getting award availabilty for the past 6 years or so that I have held different levels of elite status (mostly EXP). Over the past few months (now PLT) I've noticed less available, and less agents willing to offer to help out. If would be nice to know if this is the direction AA is taking (not EXPECTING anything) so we can gauge how to work it all out.

I caved in and used miles for an AAnytime award for my flight ORD-LAX this week. Understandably it is the holiday season, but it still seems they are not even releasing seats during the last 24hrs, even if seats are open.

Austinrunner

Or wait until more award seats are released.... You seem to be under the erroneous impression that all award seats are released at 330 days out.

GUWonder

That seems to be the approach AA is taking on some routes, even when the seats are available for deep discount economy class regular paid ticket bookings but not for the traditionally standard mileage ticket price level.

It is customer-unfriendly changes like this (including on same day or next day bookings) and the AA fuel surcharges on mileage tickets that reconfirm my decision to diversify away from AA's program more than would be the case prior to last year.

kentleytx

I have been trying to schedule four seats using AA Milesaavers for any dates Nov. 16 through Nov. 19 from DFW to Kona, Hawaii. The onsale date should have been Dec. 21.

I've checked morning, noon, night, and late night everyday since Dec. 21 with no luck. I've also checked HNL and OGG. There are also no Milesaavers from DFW to LAX, SFO, ORD, NYC. Can I assume they have not released Milesaavers yet? Anyone have some insight into this?

I am AA Gold and and will be using BA miles for the AA tickets to Hawaii.

clacko

they may have released some & they are gone....others may be released from time to time....have you looked for 1 award?.....there may not be 4, but maybe 1,2, or 3 could be done now....

kentleytx

Clacko, I wondered about them being gone as well but thought it odd there seem to be no milesaaver flights to anywhere during that time. I checked for 1 as well with no luck. Thought it could be because of Thanksgiving but was wondering if someone else knew something more. Thanks.