Yuengling

I have a related inquiry - are there any guidelines or past practice about when additional T tickets become available? For example, does AA typically show additional T availability at 1 week window, or 72 hour window? I have a group on two different flights and am trying to decide whether to switch to less favorable option A or hold out to get everyone on option B (same day and same cities between the two).

redtop43

The phone agent was emphatic that the time cutoff is based on Central time. That doesn't mean she's right.

I'm sure there is good availability NOW for July 22-28, but what I've been looking at are next-day tickets. What's available now for July 25 might not be available on July 24.

It's possible that I will send my bridge partner home sooner that I leave, depending on flights and hotel prices - I might stay an extra day or two, but he has a girlfriend and I don't. Bridge players with non-playing spouses generally to stay on their good side and not take extra time away from home to play bridge.

So right now my plan is something like this. If we win on (say) Tuesday, then Tuesday night I will book a flight for Thursday, assuming that on Tuesday there is something worth booking on Thursday. Then Wednesday night, if we win, I will cancel the Thursday reservation and book a flight for Friday. And so on.

It's not only about price in miles, it's about routing too. A noon nonstop (which does exist) is a damn sight better than a red-eye through Miami.

wetrat0

These are all good ideas. I'll add one more: do you have any credit card miles that you can use for an airline that's not AA as a backup plan? For example, Chase Ultimate Rewards that transfer to United. I see 12.5K saver awards on nonstop LAS-EWR even on same day weekday bookings. EWR is a short train ride from PHL, and I'd rather burn 12.5K UR for a nonstop than 50K AA for a connection.

redtop43

I have plenty of United miles also, but the still-extant close-in booking fee (times two tickets) is a deterrent, plus having to take a train to Philly and then another train from Center City to the airport.

And as mentioned, in doing comparisons I am not looking at "July 25" (for example). I am looking each day at the "next day." If I knew what day we'd be leaving it would be trivial. If I were EXP I'd just book several tickets and then each day if we advance, I'd cancel them.

IME I've usually found good availability even at the last minute (although not necessarily on this route). Just not this time. I'm a tiny bit surprised that many people want to go to Vegas in late July, when it's 115 in the shade.

tbone14

You can test this out now. Just hold a flight, and see what time it cancels. In addition, you can also test to see if you can hold multiple award flights on multiple days. They will cancel automatically at midnight departure city time after 5 days...

wetrat0

When I looked this morning there was availability on United on today's 11 AM departure, which suggests that you might have reasonable luck with United. Of course there is the close-in fee, but in my mind the close in fee is a better deal than 4x the number of miles. My experience lately is that AA does not release same-day or next-day saver inventory as often as United.

guv1976

Do you have credit-card points that can be converted to a Star Alliance FFP that does not have a close-in award-booking fee?

krakendown

I just booked a trip in January 2020. LAS - JFK for 5k miles. 20k total for two people. This is n economy but at those prices, you can't beat it. Look for the web specials.

redtop43

Thanks to all for their help.

I've continued to see awful prices and routings for next-day or even day after flights. However, I've found that I can book Tuesday at 12:01 AM for Thursday, and hold until 11:59PM local time Wednesdsay. Thus I can effectively book three days ahead. It's Thursday evening now and we won today, so I cancelled my Friday flight, I have one on hold for Saturday, and after midnight I'll book for Sunday. The tournament ends Sunday so I only have at most two more iterations of this, but it's not that taxing.

Yuengling

Answering my own question - in my case, one week out there was no additional availability in T. I was on a cruise and so didn't check, but when I checked again 24 hours out, there were multiple flights with availability and I was able to move everyone to the same flight at no cost.