HLCinCOU

I'll take highly informative posts from JonNYC that link to previous highly-informative things he said over your utterly useless "garbage airline" comments every day and twice on Sunday.

platbrownguy

You show up with "I want to scam AA"

You post arrogant quips in myriad threads that contribute nothing of substance

You attack one of this forum's most valued longstanding contributors

Have you considered spending your time doing something else?

bostontraveler

AA's logic of "let's restrict awards so that passengers will pay instead of redeem" is a bit warped. Why would I want to buy a ticket on AA when I can never use the miles I am accumulating? I'll just travel on another airline.

Oh, wait... that's what's happening!

Dave Noble

The whole purpose of married segment availability in that an airline can offer availability based on origin to destination. AA's use of it is no different to any other airline that I have come actoss

As far as the OP's initial issue - just went to aa.com and did a search for award availability for STL-CAE and the flights listed have shown up as available at 12,500 miles

Given the reference in post 22 about partner airlines, I suspect that this is not a case of trying to book just STL-CAE, but this is in combination with other flight or flights with a partner carrier -I suspect that this is due to the governing carrier's fares not allowing that routing or not having a fare to CAE

bostontraveler

Right! But you aren't buying on AA, there's my point!

bostontraveler

Of course, it's not always the case. Some people live in captive markets. Other people don't care.

But these days if it's on my dime, I don't fly American in the US because for my purposes, they are the worst.

guv1976

If the OP holds a qualifying AA credit card and can wait until June to book, he might find that STL-CAE will be available in September for just 8,750 miles one way. CAE does show up on the list of reduced-mileage-award destinations for credit-card holders from time to time. It's available for three of the four months on the current list:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...age-awards.jsp

shimps1

Cool it with your worthless posts and utter lack of contribution to the conversation.

BillBurn

Given that the new award booking engine can take into account elite status when doing searches (the searcher's elite level is passed as one of the parameters of the search), I wonder if AA will put some additional substance into its "enhanced award availability" for those elite levels by eliminating these "Through Award Fare" restrictions or at least reducing them for top tier elites.

bruinfan90

This is not accurate.

I used the flights from STL-CLT-CAE (#858 and #5602 ) on September 6th as a random example. Each of those two flights continue to remain available for MileSAAver awards on standalone/nonstop basis, but remain unavailable to book as a combined MileSAAver ticket (at the standard 12,500 domestic mileage cost). Sure, there are other flights presently being offered by revenue management (from STL-CAE) on that same day -- but that's not the point. The point is that something we all used to be able to do for decades (piece together two available nonstop award segments into a single award ticket) is no longer available unless revenue mgmt specifically opens up both segments as an eligible award combination via their new tool: Publishing a Through Award Fare for both segments combined.

It's actually pretty easy to spot this "Through Award Fare" restriction in effect all over the schedule. I've found it to be predominately in use through a hub from or to smaller airports (where cash fare costs to distant destinations are common). One only needs to look at nonstop award availability to the hub (points A-B) and then look at nonstop award availability from the hub onward to the desired destination (points B-C). Then, look at the actual/bookable options when searching for award availability from points A-to-C. In lots of cases, the preferable connection times/routes found in the A-B and B-C searches are eliminated once A-C is searched. That's Through Award Fare restrictions at work.

Dave Noble

Not true - I went on to aa.com and did a search for awards for STL-CAE and that flight pairing was one that was offered at 12,500 miles

Regardless - as far as piecing together individual flights - if there is married segment availability issues, then that is not the way to search ; they need to be available in conjunction with each other

That is simply married segment availability issues - if A-C via B is not available in T/U class , then it cannot be booked; no different to any other booking.

bruinfan90

If the route it is available for Dave Noble, then that means that American has also started employing improved availability for select members (like United). I've re-checked this several times in the past few minutes (different browsers and logins) and the flights are still showing up as unavailable as a combined MileSAAver award routing.

Maybe Dave Noble can try logging out and using an incognito browser to check STL-CAE availability on 9/6/19 as an anonymous customer.

Dave Noble

I was logged out

PGHflyer

FWIW I show (not logged in) STL - CAE returns flights 858 and 5602 on 09/06/2019 as 20K award price for the combined single booked itinerary

Searching one at a time, 858 (STL-CLT) shows 12.5K award price individually and 5602 (CLT-CAE) shows 7.5K award price individually

So, for me as an anonymous user, it showed 20K regardless of the method used...............however, I see the point, which is that MileSAAver one-way domestic should be 12.5K per the award chart....so yeah, shenanigans, I am not sure what subterfuge it is exactly as they are pricing the combined like an AAnytime Level 1 reward even though the flights are individually clearly priced as MileSAAver. I think this is the old married segments/ through award bunk.

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp

Actually are you using the NEW booking tool (I was)
https://www.aa.com/booking/find-flights/award

If you use the front page, it doesn't show that combined itinerary as MileSAAver, while the new booking tool does show it since it just combines all coach into "Main Cabin" awards, regardless of award classification

I noticed in my recent award booking that there is a weird limbo space where stuff that doesn't show in the strict buckets of the old booking tool do appear in the more liberal buckets of the new search tool. Seems to me they are heading to flexible award pricing on the new search tool.

Dave Noble

My searches were from the front page on aa.com using the old booking engine and 12,500 for a milesaver award on those 2 flights