nrr

On 7/2/20 I'll be ending an Alaska cruise in SFO at 8:00 am (ship arrival time) and was planning on returning to JFK on a mid afternoon flt, I'm allowing about 7 hours, but delays could occur. The next AA/AS n/s depart around 10:00 PM. Would buying an ANYTIME* (instead of saver) bc award get me "guaranteed" space (assuming seats are available) on the AA 10:00 pm flt in bc (or even Y), if needed. How would this play out with AS.
*a form of self "insurance"

seigex

tbh, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. If you book an award flight, it will be a confirmed seat. That said, anytime for that day is 50k miles, but there's a direct saaver J seat at 3:10pm on AS 326 for 25k miles.

But I think what you're asking is if you miss it, having a backup to hop on. If you do miss your flight, they will put you on standby for the next flight using the "flat tire rule". If you do book one as a just in case and have to cancel it because you didn't miss your already scheduled flight, you'll be paying the award redeposit fees of $150 to get your miles back since you're not EXP.

nrr

Yes, but if I book a SAVER bc and can't make my flt (ship arrives off schedule) where do I stand re the 10:00 pms? I was under the impression that an ANYTIME award is = full fare ticket in the class booked. But I don't think I can use ANYTIME awards with AS???

JJeffrey

Correct, AAnytime awards are only valid on AA metal, so you can't book an AAnytime award on AS.

If you book a sAAver award and miss your flight, you would be able to go standby on a later flight, as mentioned above. This assumes you call AA and/or can use the flat tire rule, and is really no different whether you book sAAver, AAnytime, or a normal paid ticket.

The big difference in booking an AAnytime is that there should be award space available on later flights to switch to (assuming the later flights are not sold out), which would give you a confirmed seat on a later flight, rather than standby. This is different from the above in that you would be calling to change your award, not to tell them you're going to miss the flight and need to go standby on a later option. You could still do this with a sAAver award, however you could only change to whatever flights had sAAver space available later that day, if any.

nrr

With an ANYTIME bc award shouldn't I be able to change to the later flight (if needed) if there were any bc seats available--not just award openings?

JDiver

If you miss your flight, AA will generally give you the benefit of a doubt (“flat tire” “rule”) and out you on the next flight with an available seat. If you have a SAAver award seat, they’ll generally waive the need for an award seat to be available. In my opinion, there’s no more measurable risk booking a SAAver award than an AAnytime award, because the results will essentially be the same. The biggest issues are:

1) Will the agent you deal with apply the “flat tire” “rule” if you miss your flight by more than a couple of hours?

2) Will there be seats available on your desired next flight? (It’d be less likely on a Friday or Sunday evening.)

Generally, a mid-afternoon flight should be no problem anyway.

With possibly ~100 cruises, I’ve had one scotch my mid-afternoon flight plans. Due to loss of all non-emergency power (thank goodness in Buzzards Bay), our ship missed its scheduled 0700 arrival in NYC and instead disembarked us at 2200 / 10 pm. (We overnighted and took the now defunct LimoLiner from our hotel to Boston instead of air. We had originally booked afternoon F on the JFK-BOS A321T.)

JJeffrey

Well yes, we are saying the same thing just different ways. AAnytime awards should be available as long as there is at least a single seat for sale.

However, keep in mind that AA can vary the AAnytime pricing depending on the day of the week, time, season, etc. There is AAnytime availability on tonight's SFO-JFK, for example, but it is currently 82.5k miles one-way. So if your award was originally 50k and you had to change to that last minute, you'd be out an additional 32.5k.

Personally I would just book the 25k sAAver on AS at 3pm or whatever and be done with it. As mentioned the odds heavily favor you arriving on time and having no issues.

guv1976

+1.

While just about anything is possible in this world, I think it highly unlikely that a ship with a scheduled arrival time in SFO of 8:00 am would not allow someone to make a 3:00 pm departure from SFO Airport.

And if the ship has a mechanical breakdown at sea, or ends up being quarantined, the OP probably wouldn't make an 11:00 pm flight either, so I really don't see the point of booking the later flight.

YoungSoloTraveler

I'm a big fan of the book on southwest as a backup option for these type of situations.

donotblink

WN doesn't fly into JFK and would have a connection going to EWR or LGA.

ijgordon

Good luck getting to EWR on WN!

jordyn

I don't think it works like that. AAnytime prices are "dynamic" in that they do vary by day, but as far as I can tell they don't vary based on real-time demand and it's definitely not per-flight (i.e., all flights on the same day are the same price). In other words, once the tier for a particular date in the future is set, it doesn't seem to change.

JJeffrey

You're right in that AA doesn't (yet) price AAnytime awards dynamically that I know of, however they have for some time now varied the pricing on the same day, especially on the premium transcons.

For example, looking at SFO-JFK AAnytime business for tomorrow, all of the day flights are 82.5k while the redeye is 52.5k.

jordyn

Huh. I've never seen this before--thanks for the clarification. It does make it rather confusing what an "AAnytime" award actually means, but I guess follows the general trend of US airlines being opposed to any sort of pricing transparency so I guess not surprising.

writerguyfl

This is the answer. For a cruise ship to be late enough for a passenger to miss that 3pm flight, something really catastrophic would have to happen on the ship.

While I can't speak to what happens in San Francisco, every cruise ship arrives before dawn at Port Everglades (down the road a couple of miles from where I live in Fort Lauderdale). As an example, here are the estimated arrival times for the 5 ships returning to port on Saturday:

• Carnival Sunrise: 4:45am
• Sky Princess: 5:00am
• Nieuw Amsterdam: 5:30am
• Celebrity Equinox: 6:00am
• Independence of the Seas: 6:15am

Source (Port Everglades Ship Schedule): https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/

I totally understand wanting to have an easy trip home from a vacation. But, the likelihood that any travel problem will be the result of a delayed ship is very small.