3Cforme

If you use Alaska Airlines flights there will be a fee for going all AA. Also a fee if you book all AA and then want to add an Alaska segment.

IMHO, a five day hold won't be long enough for more Saver awards to be added but perhaps you'll have some luck.

wanderlust99

Thank you, 3C. Right now, I'm planning on going all AA but good to know about Alaska.

I'm probably being overly optimistic about getting 5 "good" Milesaver seats, even with holds, but I'll take 2 and pay for 3 if needed to get a better flight. A 5 hour layover with a cranky 4 year old who hasn't slept on an overnight flight sounds like torture to me.

worldwidetraveler

While looking for Business Saver awards LAX to MAD for June 2019, the award calendar shows many dates for 57.5K miles. But when I select one which offers LAX-SFO-MAD, details show the TATL flight (on Iberia) as in Economy! Is this an error? How can the awards calendar list the Business saver rate if 90% of the itinerary is in coach?

beltway

Because the AA award-search engine is <Scottish_accent>crrrrrap!</Scottish_accent>

At least they warn you by including a text tag on the minimized entry to the effect that "your requested class of service is not available on all segments," or words to that effect. So it's not completely hidden.

sdsearch

If you actually want results that tell you the % outright, use www.AwardNexus.com (free for FlyerTalk members up to a point; click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button); it shows results which are totally in your request cabin in bold, and then shows the rest not in bold and shows the percentage of the routing which is in your requested cabin. (It also has the added benefit of showing OW airlines that aa.com can't show yet.)

Otherwise, as @beltway explained, there's a warning that you apparently missed which says this might happen. But this warning doesn't distinguish between 10% economy and 90% economy.

ferric

Flying JFK-GRU in October, there's some sAAver award availability but not on the dates I want. Will there be more released between now and Oct or am I SOL?

sdsearch

There's no guarantee that saver awards will ever be released for a particular date. On some routes, certain days of the week are much more likely to have saver awards than other days of the week, just because of how paid bookings vary by day of the week on those routes (in a particular cabin).

Plus, whether you are going for a special event, or not caring about and unaware of a special event, for the same reason saver awards around special event dates can be trickier.

ferric

Thanks! I just set up expertflyer alerts and will hope for the best. Availability has been all over the place so far.

iahphx

Could somewhat summarize AA's current "last minute" domestic award seat strategy? Specifically, if a flight will go out with a sizeable number of empty coach seats (say 10+) do they ever dump those seats into the award bucket for saver booking? Or do they sometimes just decide to fly them empty? Is there any way to predict when or if such seats will become available? Are award seats often added to non-full flights in the last week before departure?

The reason I ask is that I have an Avios ticket booked on an AA flight for next week but I'd much prefer a different AA award flight. I don't have access to ExpertFlyer inventory, but the seat map suggests the flight I want is still at least 1/3rd empty. I've been watching it for about 2 weeks, but I've seen no change in award inventory. I'd happily pay Avios' very modest cancellation fee (just the $5 tax) to rebook the flight I'd prefer.

TWA884

In my experience, they put them on fire sale the day before. Several weeks ago, I flew to Chicago. One way tickets on the two flights with decent availability were $131; the rest of that day's flights started at $545.

iahphx

When they did that, did they also add the seats to award inventory, or just reduce the price? On "my" flight, they were selling seats for far less than the other flights that day, but pulled that cheaper fare 7-days out. And the flight is still quite empty. So now the flight is both expensive to buy and wide-open. Logic would suggest this is a perfect set-up for more award availability, but I don't know if logic works in this situation!

3Cforme

It's money well spent. Don't ask people to generalize - get an EF subscription and set award alerts.

TWA884

I didn't check.

Let me emphasize that the deep discounted fares became available only the day before the flight; they did not display when I was checking daily for several days beforehand.

gumercindo

If I'm based in the DC area, what's the best connecting city for me to fly out of in order to get to Spain (doesn't matter if it's BCN or MAD)? Looking at sAAver award in Y or J Would like to avoid LHR/BA, obvi..

Dad to Rei

I have seen pretty consistent availability for PHL --> MAD, can't comment on other cities.

Routine even for Y, J - if your flexible.