Edit: Delete. I missed the note that the old QMAX system is not related to expanded EXP availability.

A bit OT but - where do you expect to see/typically see AA document their changes in award availability?

The trend continues and it affects more cities than just LHR. Mentioned above, but yesterday when checking the earliest date that AA metal sAAver economy is available for many cities was Oct. 15, today that has shifted to Oct. 16. Same with JFK/ORD-LHR at 7 days, yesterday it was Oct. 8 and today that's shifted to Oct. 9.

I checked a bunch of combos this morning and did find 3 routes where the sAAver Y space was still available close in, JFK-MAD, MIA-MAD, and JFK-MXP.

Other than that it looks like AA metal sAAver economy space has been removed within 14 or 7 days on a huge chunk of the TATL schedule.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...25360ef591.jpg

I guess you can think of this as an advance purchase requirement, close-in they want you to book AAnytime awards (assuming this is intentional).
Maybe they think there were too many business travelers booking last-minute, one-way fares (which normally requires full Y or B).
OTOH, DL's reward "chart" does actually have A/P requirements built in, but they scale up the closer you get (along with the cash fares). They also can have separate pricing for O/W and R/T. Let's hope that AA isn't heading down that route...

FWIW, this is roughly how inventory management has worked on the DCA-LGA-BOS shuttles for quite a while. There's generally tons of SAAver availability up until a couple of weeks out (although it looks like now they've changed it to 21 days), and any closer in than that there's never anything. This roughly matches the revenue management strategy on those routes, with fairly discounted advanced purchase fares and extremely high close-in fares targeting business travelers.

I’ve never seen a code used for expanded EP SAAver inventory, nor have I inquired when asking if there was availability.

Because some of us have made use of this feature, more than once. It does seema bit scarcer in recent times.

Well, now you’ve seen one. :)

Worked twice for me last year... LAX-HKG RT.

Thanks for this. I was unaware. I wonder if you have to call to see it or whether it is shown online if you are logged in as EXP.

Indeed it's quite rare (think unicorn or consistent customer service probabilities) but it is still lurking out there. I have personally seen this in action in the last 24 months very surprisingly it was even for a premium cabin seat (and nothing to do with married segment magic). Since J requests can't be queued into Q-Max as of quite some time and it was instant, I'm pretty confident that this wasn't any kind of manual RM request.

I think you have to call in. It's been a few years since I was EXP, so perhaps that's changed.

Correct, calling is the only way that it would even appear. As someone earlier noted, the population of the EXP's advantage number is part of that process. No EXP number and the friendly EXP agents (typically) only see what you see on the AA.com engine.

The expanded EXP award availability perk (or lack thereof) already has a lengthy thread, and has nothing to do with this new issue of AA eliminating most sAAver economy seats to/from Europe within 14 days, so I might kindly suggest that the side discussion be taken over there :)

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...merged-14.html

I have noticed this for many destinations. Most recently to SKB...Seats available as Saver always two weeks out, but the within 14 days, Saver disappears without the seat map changing at all (many flights were quite empty).

If this is what AA is doing, they should tell us about the change. This is a devaluation of the program without the usual notice.

I'm not sure what everyone is expecting AA to tell us. To my knowledge, AA has never released any guidance about when and if sAAver level awards are released, how many seats are expected to be released, etc.