I have ExtrAA points that will expire 12/31/2014. If I request the flight award cert on 12/1/2014, I'll have until 12/1/2015 to book, right? Do I have to complete that flight by 12/1/2015 too?

And the points on their chart is for round trip awards, right? TIA.

You will have 1 year from tkt date to complete flight. I just made a change to a BE tkt and agent said one year from outbound if you want to change return.

Round trips only, but you can pay change fee and return to diferent city.

What is ticket date? The date I redeem the award cert? Or the day I book the seat? In my sample dates above, I can request the cert on 12/1, and will I have a year from 12/1/2014 to book and fly out?

Business Extra Award Question
 

Quick question for folks. Looking to use a few Business Extraa awards to Asia for next year. Does anyone know if you can change the BusinessExtraa tickets once they are ticketed? I'm trying to get from PEK-ORD-DFW, but right now its trying to route me PEK-ORD-PIA-DFW, and the idea of 3 hours in PIA isnt much fun after 13 hours on a plane.

Can I grab those tickets and they change them to PEK-ORD-DFW once it opens, or do you know if I can CFC in ORD to the nonstop DFW flight ($75 per person is totally worth it).

Also, oddly in the Business Extraa awards, it says they arent eligible for MCE... anyone know if that just means its not included? We have an EXP and a PLT that will be traveling and sure dont want to not be in MCE.

Thanks in advance.

BE Awards are MUCH more restrictive than standard mileage awards, fees are required for changes - assuming the award inventory becomes available. Based on prior experience, I would only book a BE award with a preferred itinerary.

I'm in the same boat as you, with no updates for a while.

Any luck getting them to post?

Separately, what do people think is the best way to use these points?

Im redeeming 8800 points for 2 RTs to China... At worst case that's 140,000 miles or ~$2500.

I'm always a big fan of redeeming awards for biz/first class intl travel. But it's hard with these, since you need to select your region when you redeem the award, and as we all know availability is tough to snag with these kinds of awards. I'm starting to wonder whether using an intl upgrade award might be a better use, but I'm guessing it'll be a similar conundrum. Any experience w/intl upgrades using BE awards?

They book into the same inventory that SWUs or miles+copay do. I believe you can wait list, however.

I had to contact them twice (July, august) as there were some flights missing...it took them 3-4 weeks in each case to post them

In response to a retroactive points claim, sometimes I've seen BusinessExtraa post points -- but not send any email confirmation. In every instance BusinessExtraa posts retroactive points as a vague "adjustment" line without any itemization of which flights were posted, fare, calculation, etc. Really quite poor and far out of line compared to DL and BA, both of which provide flight (BA) or itinerary (DL) itemization -- much better for double-checking to make sure points are accurate.

Yes, this is once of the problems with them. In my case they post some missing points (adjustment) for a return segment from Melbourne to LAX but I don't think I got all the points deserved...and there is no way to confirm the fare in this case :td:

BXP1 redemption in PHX
 

My wife will be traveling east next week, ticket was booked on aa.com, mixed US-AA itinerary. Thanks to cross fleeting, she will be on AA metal out of PHX, was able to reserve a seat in first using a BXP1 certificate. Concern is that US gate agents here in SAN, PHX will have NO IDEA how to process the certificate, issue her a boarding pass. As she already has a seat assignment in first, I see little risk in losing it, but lots of drama getting on to the flight.

Any suggestions?

+1

Not only is their system far inferior to SkyBonus but the customer service side just widens the gap.

Finally able to use on US flights
 

A positive step indeed, I just received this email....

"
Your Business ExtraSM points will soon take you even farther. We are excited to announce that starting October 1st you can now redeem Business Extra points for flights across the entire American, American Eagle, US Airways, and US Airways Express network. With nearly 6,700 flights per day to 339 destinations in 54 countries, we're giving your company more choice and more value.