3Cforme

It's safe to say you haven't checked thoroughly and properly, at least from any U.S. city with moderate AA service.

If you have a destination not served by AA aircraft (BA and IB codeshares don't count), awards are not searchable on aa.com.

BrooksT

Is there a more "proper" way to check than the AA.com awards availability calendar? I'm flying from SEA, which has AA aircraft but is of course mostly AS.

But I'm heartened by your implication that saaver awards should be findable. Should I just call 'em and do it by phone?

Thanks!

clacko

you have to call aa for partnerand/or one world awards....mi's required are on aa.com....aug is a tough month for awards.....good luck..

bbkenney

Without even checking BA (YVR) or IB, AA has a fair number of days LHR-ORD, DFW-FRA, others. Call AA ask them to check all routings.

2TallSeaFlyer

Call.

You didn't mention how many tickets you need. I know I've had to go 10 months in advance for summer award tickets (3) from SEA to the east coast - and even then days were limited. I suspect that the SEA to DFW or ORD is going to be as limited as getting across the pond - but I have not checked.

You have options. Take the Quickbus or train up to Vancouver being the most obvious one.

Call - and don't do this on-line.

Good luck.

AUSMatt

I would agree that you likely have not conducted an exhaustive search. As someone that is (was) also new to the elusive game of searching for award tickets to Europe in the summer, perhaps I can share a couple of hints --

1. It may be worthwhile to invest in a paid search tool - I recommend KVS for AA award availability because you can search BA, IB, and AA
2. Search all partners when looking for awards -- BA, IB, and AA specifically to Europe (Finnair also has flights, but routing is painful).
3. Calling AA may or may not result in the agent looking at all options for a ticket (I have about 1 in 3 that will actually look at alternative routings)
4. Speaking of alternative routings, use KVS or even the BA website to search for ORD-ZRH, JFK-ZRH, etc. -- search point to point over the pond as that is your toughest leg for availability.
5. Once you find a good "over the pond" option, then either search for domestic/connection availability of call AA and let them put it together for you.

I breezed over the BA part, but essentially you can register for a free BA account and search all partners (but again, $15 for KVS Platinum membership for 4 months is probably quicker and easier; other choice is ExpertFlyer but they don't show BA awards). Remember you can't use AA miles to book US-UK on BA, but you can book US-Madrid on IB for example.

Finally, I did a quick search using the method above and KVS and found the following on August 15th --

[KVS Availability Tool 5.2.0/Platinum - Amadeus: Awards/OneWorld/AU-QFA-M]

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive A/C Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- ------------
IB 6250 JFK 18:00 MAD 07:10 +1 346 CS+ YS+
-> IB 3464 MAD 08:55 +1 ZRH 11:05 +1 320
BA 114 JFK 21:35 LHR 09:35 +1 744 CS+ YS-
-> BA 716 LHR 13:35 +1 ZRH 16:20 +1 319

So, you could go SEA-JFK-MAD-ZRH and get there. Now that may be too many connections for you, but this was just a quick example.

One final word, award seats are like prarie dogs -- they pop up occassionally but you have no idea when -- so check regularly. All it takes is one person to modify their flight and all the sudden an award seat pops up on your desired routing.

I hope that helps ... I wanted to give back from my extensive US-Europe flight search experience over the past 2 months.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

And since the OP is starting from SEA, bear in mind that an all-partner award permits travel on AS, as well as on AA and all of its partners, including the oneworld carriers and Air Tahiti Nui (which flies nonstop from LAX to CDG). If you cannot find award seats between SEA and a North American gateway on AA, a call to AAdvantage reservations may find space on AS between SEA and a gateway. And even on an all-partner award, a free stopover is permitted at the N.A. gateway.

miles_navigator

BrooksT, I don't know when in the summer you want to go and with how many people, but you can depart from YVR to GVA via LHR flying BA metal.

I see availability for 2 econ miles seats on:
July 6, 7, 13 and 19

You can fly AS puddle jumper from SEA to YVR to connect; I am sure you can get some award seats on that hop.

You can see IB and BA award availability on www.ba.com by creating a BA Executive Club frequent flyer account.

Don't forget to check:
- BA connections via YYZ, YYC, YUL and even MEX if necessary.
- Finn Air from JFK (will show up on ba.com)
- IB to MAD/BCN

Roopster

Hi,

I would like to book a one way reward seat in business on the 3/28 from MIA to LAX. There are no saver seats left, so it would be 50k miles. I only have around 63k miles and it seems a lot to use on 1 flight!

My question is, do AA ever release more saver reward seats nearer the flight date? Looking at the available seat maps, there are a lot free, but fares are really high to purchase (I thought about buying an economy seat and upgrading as I have a lot a segment upgrades that I will never use as I live in London.)Obviously once it gets to 21 days before and then 7 days before there are the booking fees, but I would rather pay 50 dollars and keep 25k miles (but would equally be annoyed using 50k miles AND paying 50 dollars... But I understand that's my risk!)
Thanks for your help.

GUWonder

.... that's a lot of miles for a domestic one-way trip when 20k miles is enough for MIA-LAX o LAX-LHR in coach with 50k enough for doing the same in business.

AA often does release more award space closer to flight time, but given that your date might cover Spring Break traffic -- a rather busy time -- it's a gamble if there'd be much available on a Sunday using miles at the standard "SAAver" price level.

Are you willing to connect? Combining that with calling up AA to redeem in conjunction with some AS flights might work.

Welcome to FT.

britenbsas

Hi Roopster. Welcome to FT! If you have no flexibility in terms of date of travel, your choices are fairly limited. Milesaaver awards may be released closer to flight time or may not. A few days either side of that Sunday fares are much lower. You can also find milesaaver awards for 12.5k in coach or 25k in business on March 30 for example.

Whether you buy a ticket or use miles really depends on what value you put on your miles and whether you are likely to use the 63k miles you have for something else. You may find this thread useful in deciding whether to buy the fare or use miles- it discusses the subjective value that people place on their AAdvantage miles. You don't mention if you have status with AA. This would affect the likelihood of you scoring a sticker upgrade if you bought a coach ticket. If you have no status, you can only use the 500-mile stickers to upgrade a Y or B (full-fare) economy ticket.

I used 40k miles for a return trip Buenos Aires-New York last year, a round trip of almost 11000 miles that would have cost me just shy of $1000. I also redeemed 50k miles for Mexico City-Dallas-Buenos Aires in business. So you really can make those miles work much harder for you. I would never use 50k for a "short" US-domestic flight but each person/situation is different.

UAL123

If you're okay with making two connections and arriving in SNA, then there is one option for 25k in First on the 28th.

March 28th
MIA-ATL 9:35-11:40am
ATL-DFW 12:30-2:05pm
DFW-SNA 2:50-4:05pm

UncleDude

There are First Class 25K seats available at 8am from Palm Beach via DFW to ONT and BUR

WestLA-FF

You two are great, researching alternatives for OP.

Roopster

I know, thank you!

The thing is, I don't know the different airport options for the cities so this has been very helpful. It's also the reason why I didn't know until now to look at this possible option;

If I take the Palm Beach to Burbank flight, and then come back to LHR from LAX on the 4/1, I can do the whole thing in saver 1st class for 62.5k miles.

However, I have already booked a BA reward flight in premium economy (for 30k miles, plus £60 fee +tax) on the 3/31. This can be cancelled for a £30 fee, plus I would lose the £60 fee I paid already.

So is it worth paying around $200 (the BA cancellation fees, plus another night in a hotel) and having a much longer journey from Miami to LA, in return for traveling in 1st on the transatlantic journey? (I've never travelled in AA 1st.) I'll spend another 12.5k AA miles compared to taking the direct MIA to LAX 50k reward, but I'll get back 30k BA miles.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!