For the flight award questions you should call the Meeting Services/Reservations line. I just called with a few general questions and the agent told me that she would be able to answer any routing/open jaw questions if I had the exact routing I was thinking of. It sounded like open jaws are generally permitted on international itineraries within the same "region/zones" (as the agent told me.)

I was also told that the change fee for plan ahead awards is $150, but it is waived for EXP. That could be new, since the consolidated thread reports the fee is charged to everyone.

No fees for EXP...I changed two plan ahead tickets yesterday with ease.

I have expiring BusXtra points as well and was thinking of redeeming for the same BX6B award. As I read the rules, it sounds like if I redeem today, I am issued some kind of code that I have 1 year to use. Once used, the ticket must be within 1 year of the date of issue of the ticket. So am I right that I can redeem for the BX6B today, but I conceivably have up to 2 years before I actually fly on the award ticket?

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From what I understand of the rules, you are correct that you can redeem the certificate today, then have until December 31, 2015 to exchange it for an actual flight ticket. That flight ticket will then have a 1 year validity, during which time you can make changes, if desired, as long as the final flight occurs within the 1 year from date of flight ticket issuance. If I am wrong, somebody will hopefully correct me.

Buyer beware... You may have a difficult time finding PlanAAhead awards in business class to Europe on AA or US, especially with a schedule that has both outbound and return flights that suit your needs. Keep in mind these awards can only be used on AA or US operated and marketed flights (no BA, AB, IB, etc.), are round trip and PlanAAhead seats must be available on all flights in both directions. You are, of course, welcome to use the award for one way travel only, if you are ok with "paying" for round trip and only getting one way out of it. If you have the points available, I would recommend getting an AAnytime award. The Business Extra AAnytime awards have actually become a better value now that the mileage based AAnytime awards have been changed to a 3 tier pricing system. A single Business Extra AAnytime award will get you last seat availability on any AA or US flight, regardless of what the mileage award rate is, even if the flight you want is priced at the highest, most ridiculous level 3 mileage price.

If you read this thread, you probably have points in the program.

Reminder: points may be expiring tonight! Redeem what you need to before you lose out!

Yes you can open jaw on Biz Extra awards. Im doing Dfw-hkg; pek-dfw

answering my own questions for anyone who might be interested
 

i called in to the business extraa # today. they were able to answer some of my questions & transferred me to meeting services to answer the rest.

admirals club membership: you can only buy one year ahead with business extraa points

roundtrip europe-->usa-->europe IS allowed--you don't have to start in usa

open jaw is allowed

one stopover IS allowed but only if it could technically be a published fair routing without the stopover:
eg lhr-->jfk (with multi-day stopover at jfk) --> sfo -->lhr is allowed because a trip from london to sfo would naturally change planes at jfk. stopover can also be taken on the way back with the same proviso.

none of these rules (& many other detailed business extraa award rules) are actually published anywhere on line--so the way aa has it set up at the moment is unnecessarily straining their phone resources!

Must be new as of this year. I had to cancel a BE award last year and at that time was told even as an ExecPlat, I'd have to pay the $150 change fee plus any additional fees over what I paid for my original ticket. Today when I booked my new itinerary on that ticket the agent said I'd just have to pay $5 more for additional fees and that as an ExecPlat the change fee was being waived. Didn't ask if this was new policy, too shocked and pleased to enquire.

Of course, all segments on these awards must be on AA or US, no AS or other codeshares.

Question: If on the day of flight, seats are open on a nonstop to the same destination as booked with a connection on a BE award, can one change to the nonstop? (Not familiar enough with AA awards to know if this is even possible on an AAdvantage award.)

Can you use a BXP1 to upgrade the domestic segment of an international itinerary?
Can you use a BXP1 to upgrade J->F on a three class transcon?

Had someone call trying to use a BXP1 to upgrade J->F on the domestic leg of an international flight, was denied by the agent. Seemed fishy to me.

I have now:

- Booked and flown a three class transcon using a BXP1 cert J->F without incident.
- Booked two further flights on the same basis in the future

Each were connecting to international flights (with BA or AA) but none have the same flight number as the international segment.

One trick I learned this week - although you may all know it - is that where a ticket is re-issued you need to have your number re-added.
I did this in an email exchange with AA BusinessExtraa desk who did it within 24 hours. But worth remembering as upgrades and schedule changes seem to need re-issues on AA.

One of the frustrating limitations at AA.com is that we can't the BE number ourselves. That would make it so much more convenient.

sohony, did the agent say if the stopover has to be in North America? As you may remember the old AAdvantage award rules permitted a stopover, but it had to be at the North American gateway. Could you fly (say) JFK-LHR (stop), LHR-AUH?