"Economy Web Special" Award (dynamic price, fewer miles, more restrictions Oct 2018)
#16
Join Date: Jan 2006
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#17
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Join Date: Feb 2001
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FYI this is the procedure with any award ticket, you must call to have the miles redeposited, it's not unique to these web special awards.
#20
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#21
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: New York City + Vail, CO
Programs: American Airlines Executive Platinum, Marriott Bonvoy Ambassador Elite
Posts: 3,215
Economy Web Special Miles Price Goes Up While on Hold
Not sure if anyone else experienced this, but I put an economy web special flight on hold for 5,000 miles, I just went in to ticket my reservation and it now says 10,000 miles. I did a double take. Went back and checked my hold confirmation e-mail and it did say 5,000 miles. Anyone else experience this?
#23
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2004
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#24
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: PHL
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Posts: 1,075
Yes, you are entitled to the price you put on hold, not the price today. Call AA. HUCA if the first agent doesn't/can't fix it.
#25
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 550
Probably too late to help the OP, but in case it comes up in a search:
This appears to be an AA IT bug. It seems to happen when the award is held into the next day (and perhaps only if there is no longer any award seats for sale at the same rate).
If you click through the first landing screen and go to pay for the flight, it then pulls up the correct mileage amount for the reservation and not the higher amount shown on the landing screen. That's what I have found anyway. I've never had to call in when this happens.
This appears to be an AA IT bug. It seems to happen when the award is held into the next day (and perhaps only if there is no longer any award seats for sale at the same rate).
If you click through the first landing screen and go to pay for the flight, it then pulls up the correct mileage amount for the reservation and not the higher amount shown on the landing screen. That's what I have found anyway. I've never had to call in when this happens.
#26
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: NYC
Programs: BA
Posts: 953
Are Economy Web Specials ("EWS") just a front for AA to experiment with variable award pricing and less permissive changes? AA currently has the most permissive change policy on awards and the least variable award pricing between the big 3 U.S. airlines. The EWS frequently cost more, sometimes much more, than SAAver space, and the prices fluctuate wildly. Not sure what is so "Special" about 68K-115K one-way in economy between GIG and JFK with no changes allowed.
#28
Join Date: Jun 2015
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#29
Join Date: Oct 2005
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I had a Web Special schedule change whereby the arrival time was > 30 minutes than originally booked. Per schedule change policy, I was able to change my affected flight slightly while keeping the same routing.
#30
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: NYC
Programs: AA EXP, UA 1K, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 223
Economy Web Special: dynamic award pricing?
AA hasn't "officially" announced a move toward dynamic award pricing, but a quick search I did for a NYC-YYZ award makes it seem like this has already happened. The "economy Web specials" were originally marketed as a way to get cheap redemptions ("as low as 5k") but looks like we are seeing this shift to the inevitable... The "milesAAver" awards seem to be all but gone, only available on two dates (12.5k) in the below screenshot...
Have others seen this happen across more routes? Pretty disappointing if this is the direction this are headed.