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ARCHIVE: HELP DESK: 2019 MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

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Old Mar 2, 2021, 10:17 am
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NOTE: This archive thread contains all posts made in 2019 from the original thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1511217-help-desk-milesaaver-saaver-award-questions-assistance.html
2020 Wikipost version (This archival wikipost is locked to all but Moderators).

HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Help, Assistance & Discussion
Some of you might have found your thread merged into this "consolidated" thread. If your desire is to become thoroughly familiar with the knowledge that has been accumulated about the process for acquiring MileSAAver awards feel free to read this entire thread. If you only want the assistance from those who have the knowledge your request has been merged at the end. Feel free to wait for a forthcoming answer.

If you have reached this thread by using the search process you have the same choices as above. Read the thread and become knowledgeable or post at the end and wait for a forthcoming answer.

thanks
~magic111


NOTE: for more detailed fare rules, see AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)

Two award search systems TWA884

There are two search systems, legacy and new. The new one shows award availability which does not appear when searching with the old system.

See:

New Award Booking / Search / Calendar on aa.com 2019 link (FT thread)

The Insider Trick to Getting More American Airlines Saver Award Availability

***

If you want to make sure that youre seeing results from both award searching systems, youll want to perform an award search starting on each of these:


NOTE: Married segment issues exist, wherein AA may make a IAH-DFW-XXX award available, but not DFW-XXX; or STL-PHL-LHR, but PHL-LHR May not be available in conjunction with ORD- and others. See

More award availability restricted by married segments / connections

Award hold period: Awards can generally be held for five days; five day extensions require continued availability of your flights and generating a new award booking and five day hold.

Though AA can start releasing awards 331 days from the desired flight date (even though some other airlines might make award seats available to their members 355 days out), its very likely award seats may be released a few days after that. If seats arent sold and Revenue Management algorithms signify slow sales, more seats might be released going forward.

Within 14 days the hold period changes from 5 days to 1 day. And AA has periodically played the game in the past whereby within certain timeframes, usually 7 or 14 days before, they eliminate all sAAver space. Completely route specific. JJeffrey


="3"%Airlines that can be booked for award travel on aa.com

oneworld alliance airline partners
  • AA - American Airlines
  • BA - British Airways (awards incur significant YQ surcharge
  • AY - Finnair
  • IB - Iberia
  • JL - Japan Airlines
  • QF - Qantas
  • QR - Qatar Airways
  • RJ - Royal Jordanian Airlines (joining 31 Mar 2020)
  • S7 - S7 Airlines
  • UL - Sri Lankan Airlines
="3"%other airline partners
  • AS - Alaska Airlines* (ended 29 Feb 2020, to be restored upon joining oneworld in 2021 )
  • 9K - Cape Air (but only certain cities)
  • TN - Air Tahiti Nui
  • EY - Etihad
  • HA - Hawaiian Airlines (only certain routes

* Mileage redemption on Alaska Airlines is ending effective February 29, 2020. All award travel must be booked and ticketed by February 29, 2020. Travel is valid for 1 year after ticketing date and must be flown no later than February 28, 2021. Ticket changes will not be allowed after February 29, 2020.
All others must be requested by telephone; see Note below.

NOTE: To search for partner awards, go to advanced search from the awards search or home page and select all airlines.


="3"%Full list of oneworld airline partners (and their affiliates)
  • AA - American Airlines
  • BA - British Airways (Cityflyer, Comair, OpenSkies, Sun-Air of Scandinavia)
  • CX - Cathay Pacific (Dragonair)
  • AY - Finnair (Flybe)
  • IB - Iberia (Air Nostrum, Iberia Express)
  • JL - Japan Airlines (JAL Express, J-Air, Japan Transocean Air)
  • LA- LAN Airlines (LAN Argentina, LAN Ecuador, LAN Express, LAN Colombia, LAN Peru only, ending 1 Oct 2020)
  • MH - Malaysia Airlines
  • QF - Qantas Airways (QantasLink, Jetconnect)
  • QR - Qatar Airways
  • AT - Royal Air Maroc (as of 31 Mar 2020)
  • RJ - Royal Jordanian Airlines
  • S7 - S7 Airlines (Globus) (excludes Siberia / far eastern Russia awards)
  • UL - SriLankan Airlines
  • JJ - TAM Airlines (LATAM Airlines will no longer operate using the airline code JJ for flights on or after October 27, 2019.)

When you do call, you might want to search for award space on the flights you want and tell the agent about those flights; sometimes AA agents won't find award seats unless they search by segment.

When using other airline web sites or tools to search for award availability, its best to do so by segment rather than by trip. E. g. BA may show availability SAN-LHR and LHR-AMS, but not SAN-AMS. And in some instances (EY, FJ, etc.) AA US may not see availability that AA Australia or New Zealand might see.

="3"%Full list of additional airline partners offering award redemptions
  • 9K - Cape Air
  • AS - Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air (end 29 Feb 2020, to begin upon joining oneworld in 2021)
  • CZ - China Southern Airlines
  • EY - Etihad Airways
  • FJ - Fiji Airways
  • HA - Hawaiian Airlines
  • TN - Air Tahiti Nui

="3"%NOTE: Ticketing charge


Code:
oneworld Partners Award Fare Codes First-Business-Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AA - American Airlines Z U T
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AY  Finnair U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 BA  British Airways Z U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 CX  Cathay Pacific Z U T
 KA - DragonAir
 --------------------------------------------------------
 IB  Iberia U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 JL  Japan Airlines (Intl) Z U T
 JL  Japan Airlines (Dom) Z D S
 --------------------------------------------------------
 LATAM Group
 JJ - TAM Airlines O I X
 LA  LAN Chile Z U T
 XL - LAN Ecuador
 LP - LAN Peru
 4M - LAN Argentina
 --------------------------------------------------------
 MH - Malaysia Airlines P U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 QF - QANTAS Airways P U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 QR - Qatar Airways Z U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 RJ  Royal Jordanian U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 S7  S7 Airlines U E
 --------------------------------------------------------
 UL - SriLankan Airlines
 --------------------------------------------------------
 
 Other Partners First Business Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 CZ China Southern Airways (unknown)
 --------------------------------------------------------
 FJ  Fiji Airways U X
 --------------------------------------------------------
 TN  Air Tahiti Nui F for Business U for Economy
 --------------------------------------------------------
 AS  Alaska Airlines A W
 --------------------------------------------------------
 LY  El Al Israel P X E
 --------------------------------------------------------
 EY - Etihad O I N
 --------------------------------------------------------
 HA  Hawaiian Airlines D T
 --------------------------------------------------------
Effective February 16, 2015, a Reservations Ticketing Service Charge of $30.00 for domestic itineraries and $40.00 for international itineraries will be applied by AA Reservations when ticketing award reservations that can be booked on aa.com. The charge is waived for award reservations that cannot be booked on aa.com including reduced mileage awards, and for Executive Platinums. N.B. Executive Platinums booking award for non-EP will pay the service charges.
NOTE: Rather than release SAAver Awards at 330 days out, AA generally delays 48 hours after the 330 day time period has begun, at or about midnight Central time.

="3"%Other rules that may affect your awards="3"%:

="3"%Award Rules

American Airlines Awards are valid for travel on flights that are marketed and operated by AA (no codeshares). These awards can be booked online at AA.com.

oneworld and Other Airline awards are valid for travel on AA and any of its partner airlines, and can include travel on multiple partners. Some of these awards must be booked over the phone, and will not incur a Ticketing Service Charge (waived for EXPs in any case) if they cannot be booked online.
Up to four one-way awards can be booked on a single PNR. Codeshares are not bookable as Awards.

MPM or Maximum Permitted Miles: A Fare or award may not exceed the most direct routing by more than 25% (unless the fare routing includes a ticketed point deduction (essentially a miles allowance that extends MPM). See MPM / Maximum Permitted Mileage & Ticketed Point Deductions (merged threads).

Stopovers and Connections

Stopovers are no longer allowed on AA awards. Stopovers will require multiple awards.

Connections are limited to two connections / three flight segments for domestic awards, and three connections / four flight segments for international awards as of Aug 2017. Link

Domestic Connections must be under 4 hours for domestic flights (except Hawaii), with some exceptions: "LIFO" (Last In - First Out connections are generally allowed.

Hawaii itinerary: Effective on 14 Jul 2014 on an all-AA-metal award itinerary, you now have up to 18 hours to connect when traveling to/from Hawaii. NOTE: Hawaii interisland connections must be separate awards and can not be included as part of a mainland-island award.

International Connections must generally not exceed 23:59 hours. Some leeway has occasionally been granted when connecting flights are not daily. If the itinerary includes an international flight, the rules for international connections apply. Link to these courtesy of JonNYC.

If there is a non-stop flight that departs after the 4h / 23h59m windows and arrives at the destination earlier than a connecting flight within the 4h / 23h59m window, the passenger may be booked on the non-stop flight. It may be difficult getting some agents to book this.

"Most Significant Carrier" rule: To price as a single award, AAdvantage requires the most significant carrier to publish a cash fare (non-constructed) between the origin and destination. Airline MSC (e.g. DFW-SFO-HKG-BKK, CX SFO-HKG is the prevailing or most significant carrier) would have to have a published fare from XXX to YYY that allows travel on all included airlines, and routing that you want. If the MSC only offers constructed fares between your desired origin and destination, AA will price this as two awards.

Constructed fares: Another rule disallows awards where the fare must be constructed (also referred to as "YY"): Using a partner, the trip will require two awards if the governing carrier (e,g. airline operating on the major route, such as transpacific carrier) doesn't publish a through fare that includes the award's proposed origin and destination that allows the carriers proposed.

See this thread about examples using TN.

Married Segment Logic - a prospective trip may be available when searching segment by segment, yet not be bookable through from origin to destination. When selling seats for through flights and the desired inventory is not available, you cannot opt to sell the flight point-to-point. If sold point-to-point, the error response MULTIPLE SEGMENTS FOR SAME FLIGHT - SELL AS ONE SEGMENT will be received, indicating this booking is not allowed. Overriding the error check by ending the PNR twice is not acceptable.

See Award with available segments not bookable? (Married Segment issues)
="3"%Resources

NOTE: New award charts are posted on AA.com from time to time. See the American Airlines charts here and the oneworld and partner award charts here.
Some airlines or areas have different, extra or special characteristics for securing awards. See

aa.com Basic (front page) vs Advanced Award Search Results (abbreviated results for front page search vs. Advanced award search)

AAdvantage awards to / from Australia, New Zealand link

AAdvantage awards to the Galpagos Islands, Ecuador link

AAdvantage awards on Air Tahiti Nui link

AAdvantage awards using British Airways incurring (avoiding) high fees link

AAdvantage award on Cathay Pacific (and Cathay Dragon) link

AAdvantage awards using Etihad Airways link

AAdvantage awards using Fiji Airways link

AAdvantage awards using Japan Airlines link

AAdvantage awards using Qantas Airways link

AAdvantage awards on S7 (Siberian) Airlines link
Awards assistance tools: Use at your own risk; may not be up to date. These are not recommendations.
  • Check this oneworld interactive map and timetable by Innosked to see potential routes.

  • British Airways Executive Club: You can sign up for British Airways Executive Club, Japan Airlines JAL Mileage Bank or Qantas Frequent Flyer to use their sites to find awards (look for the lowest level awards) you can't see on aa.com. BA in particular is prone to show "phantom" availability.

  • See this article by the Points Guy on BA and Qantas for award searching.

  • See this article to new online tool from Japan Airlines by Australian Frequent Flyer

  • Award booking services - list and reviews (FT thread)

  • Award Nexus: It's easy to do your experiments for some free browsing (click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up with your FlyerTalk login info). You might want to run each segment rather than origin to destination. Or use this link to use with your FT login: https://awardnexus.com/user/login?url=%2F.


    Originally Posted by sdsearch
    ...Award Nexus is free (up to a point) for FlyerTalk users. Click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up for free as a FlyerTalk member.


    What I like about Award Nexus is it has a much nicer user interface than BA and lets you choose whether to search through BA and/or QF, and as you can see each of those may give somewhat different results.


    The "cost" to do all these searches once was a total of 12 points, and you get 200 points free when you signup, and then every 90 days you can reload 100 more points for free (once you're below 10 points). So that gives an idea of how many searches could do free...


  • AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds

  • AwardHacker: "a tool we build to tell you how to travel with the least miles"

  • Award Nexus: which can search availability but can't determine cost, with FT member free limited use

  • Economical Excursionist's Tools: compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions

  • ExpertFlyer is a common tool used on FT. There is a $99.99 annual fee, monthly fee and five day trial

  • Great Circle Mapper is useful for calculating distance and MPM (Maximum Permitted Mileage)

  • You can try PEX+ (currently in beta), which will even tell you how many miles you'll need, though it draws data from aa.com and S7 so it can't reveal awards that can not be seen on those sites.

  • Travel Codex Award Maximiser commercial blog


Also see:

aa.com Basic (front page) vs Advanced Award Search Results

Phantom / false AA award availability with AA partners (consolidated)

oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on

Help with British Airways / BA surcharge / YQ (AA award on BA, consolidated) (Awards using BA incur significant "YQ" surcharges.)

UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures[/quote] (Flights originating in the UK other than INV or BFS - or connections 24:00 or over - incur UK Air Passenger Duty excise taxes.)

MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity >= Aug 2011 onward (consolidated)

Older posts from 2018 have been archived to this archive thread.

Older posts from 2017 have been archived to: this archive thread

Older posts from 2016 have been archived to: this archive thread

Older posts through 2015 have been archived to: this archive thread











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ARCHIVE: HELP DESK: 2019 MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

Old Nov 17, 2019, 11:21 am
  #331  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,369
Originally Posted by EkekoBWI
Just when I thought I knew the game well, I find myself stumped.

I have a friend's mother in GRU (Brazilian national who has rarely traveled internationally) who wants to visit SEA in late Jan or early Feb.
Routing can be GRU/SEA and return...or GRU/NYC with SEA/GRU
  1. I want to exclusively use AA award miles, but can be convinced to use UA
  2. If the value is better, will consider Business (for example, 57.5k for business seems like a better value than 30k for Economy.)
  3. She'll have heavy bags returning to GRU (lighter coming in)
  4. If transiting NYC, needs to be the same NYC airport (no EWR to JFK)
  5. No long layovers at a single airport--there's routings that have her sitting in the airport for 10+ hours, which she won't do
  6. She doesn't highly value lounge access
  7. She would like assistance navigating airports
  8. Since the trip happens in the dead of the US winter, I assume I'd want to minimize connections and transiting East Coast / ORD
  9. No preference on day of week for arrival / departure


Huge and complicated list, I know. Hoping for some help soon. TIA.
The best advice I can give -- without actually performing the award searches myself -- is to search for the outbound and return separately on aa.com. (All AAdvantage awards are offered as one-ways these days.)

If an aa.com award search yields nothing acceptable, call AA and ask about award itineraries that include one or more segments on LATAM.
guv1976 is offline  
Old Nov 17, 2019, 1:29 pm
  #332  
Moderator: American AAdvantage
 
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Matre-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
Originally Posted by ashley1245
Hello friends,
I'm planning ahead for Christmas 2020. I'm trying to fly my family of 4 to Europe for Christmas/New Years in 2020. I know that mileage awards are released about 331 days in advance. However, I also know that there are some periods of time when there is no award availability at all, at any level. Does anyone know if Christmas and New Years get any saver awards released right at 331 days out? We have some flexibility with dates of travel and destinations.
Thank you,
Ashley
Hi,

Please begin by reading the Wikipost at the top of the page.

Do think about splitting the party into two parties for enhanced chances of success.

Do let us know your destination plans, because those awards might be easier for certain ones and very challenging for others.
JDiver is offline  
Old Nov 17, 2019, 2:32 pm
  #333  
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Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: RDU <|> MMX
Programs: AA EXP 2MM, SK EBS
Posts: 12,361
Originally Posted by ashley1245
Hello friends,
I'm planning ahead for Christmas 2020. I'm trying to fly my family of 4 to Europe for Christmas/New Years in 2020. I know that mileage awards are released about 331 days in advance. However, I also know that there are some periods of time when there is no award availability at all, at any level. Does anyone know if Christmas and New Years get any saver awards released right at 331 days out? We have some flexibility with dates of travel and destinations.
Thank you,
Ashley
Xmas & New Years is not an inherently busy time to travel between the US and Europe as long as you can avoid the weekends. You should have no problem finding 4 sAAver seats as long as you can be flexible. And definitely not all seats are released right at 331 days, the opposite actually. You just need to keep checking, might be January, April, August, anyone's guess.

That said, you didn't mention if you're looking for coach or business? Finding 4 seats in business will be exponentially harder to impossible, but coach is completely do-able.
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Old Nov 18, 2019, 8:16 pm
  #334  
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Programs: Marriott Titanium, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 248
Originally Posted by JJeffrey
Xmas & New Years is not an inherently busy time to travel between the US and Europe as long as you can avoid the weekends. You should have no problem finding 4 sAAver seats as long as you can be flexible. And definitely not all seats are released right at 331 days, the opposite actually. You just need to keep checking, might be January, April, August, anyone's guess.

That said, you didn't mention if you're looking for coach or business? Finding 4 seats in business will be exponentially harder to impossible, but coach is completely do-able.
I'm looking to fly coach. We are somewhat open to destinations, but thinking about Italy or the Canary Islands as it won't be as cold. We have a 2 year old and a 4 year old who have traveled with us extensively. We've already been to London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Brussels, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Munich, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. Any locations we've overlooked? Thanks so much!
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 7:04 am
  #335  
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 8,135
Originally Posted by ashley1245
I'm looking to fly coach. We are somewhat open to destinations, but thinking about Italy or the Canary Islands as it won't be as cold. We have a 2 year old and a 4 year old who have traveled with us extensively. We've already been to London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Brussels, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Munich, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. Any locations we've overlooked? Thanks so much!
Are you looking for destinations you can reach via connecting to BA @LHR, or just those at/near cities served by AA metal?

Since you mention the Canary Islands, Im guessing the former, in which case the worlds your oyster & you might consider Sicily, Malta, Naples, or southern Spain. If youd rather avoid LHR at almost all costsmy personal preferenceChristmas isnt a great time to travel. AA service to lots of desirable destinations (for instance, Lisbon, which fits your criteria) is only seasonal.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 7:45 am
  #336  
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 3,969
There's also IB via MAD, although from what I see in that season from LAX you'd have an additional connection in the U.S.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 1:28 pm
  #337  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: LAS/DXB
Programs: LH HON
Posts: 1,193
So there isn't a single non BA saver fare from Europe to Westcoast US for the entire period of January to July 2020?! I have tried both the old and new award search engine, changing origin airports from FRA, AMS, BRU, MXP, FCO, DUB and destination airports to LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, SAN and could not find a single saver space.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 1:38 pm
  #338  
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Originally Posted by ckx2
So there isn't a single non BA saver fare from Europe to Westcoast US for the entire period of January to July 2020?! I have tried both the old and new award search engine, changing origin airports from FRA, AMS, BRU, MXP, FCO, DUB and destination airports to LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, SAN and could not find a single saver space.
On the first random date I checked, 3/18/20, I found Coach MileSAAver seats (30K miles) from CDG to LAX on all-AA metal; I also saw a BA/AA itinerary for the same mileage, and only about $15 more in taxes/fees.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 2:06 pm
  #339  
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Posts: 12,361
Originally Posted by ckx2
So there isn't a single non BA saver fare from Europe to Westcoast US for the entire period of January to July 2020?! I have tried both the old and new award search engine, changing origin airports from FRA, AMS, BRU, MXP, FCO, DUB and destination airports to LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, SAN and could not find a single saver space.
And on the first random date I checked (Feb. 27) I found sAAVer business ZRH-PHL-LAX.

Edit: Looking even further I see tons of dates on AA metal for FRA, AMS, etc. No idea what you were looking at. Below is using the old search, with carrier set to AA only, for AMS-LAX in Feb/Mar. sAAVer business and sAAver economy available on tons of dates...


Last edited by JJeffrey; Nov 19, 2019 at 2:16 pm
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 8:48 pm
  #340  
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Posts: 25,927
Originally Posted by ckx2
So there isn't a single non BA saver fare from Europe to Westcoast US for the entire period of January to July 2020?! I have tried both the old and new award search engine, changing origin airports from FRA, AMS, BRU, MXP, FCO, DUB and destination airports to LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, SAN and could not find a single saver space.
Were you perhaps only looking at certain days of the week? As you can see from the examples above, the first person found a Wednesday availability, the next person found a Thursday availability first, and the posted chart right above shows no business class availability on any Friday that month, and in general much worse availability some days of the week than others.

So you have to be flexible about the day of the week, not just the week of the year, in order to have a better chance at award seats, especially if not booking anywhere near 11 months out.
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Old Nov 20, 2019, 8:56 am
  #341  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: LAS/DXB
Programs: LH HON
Posts: 1,193
On the very same dates I have a total different view on the available awards. However, when I'm using VPN with my location set to the US, I can see the availability you've posted. I am currently in Germany.
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Old Nov 23, 2019, 2:37 pm
  #342  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: SEA
Programs: Bonvoy Gold
Posts: 1,938
Originally Posted by EkekoBWI
Just when I thought I knew the game well, I find myself stumped.

I have a friend's mother in GRU (Brazilian national who has rarely traveled internationally) who wants to visit SEA in late Jan or early Feb.
Routing can be GRU/SEA and return...or GRU/NYC with SEA/GRU
  1. I want to exclusively use AA award miles, but can be convinced to use UA
  2. If the value is better, will consider Business (for example, 57.5k for business seems like a better value than 30k for Economy.)
  3. She'll have heavy bags returning to GRU (lighter coming in)
  4. If transiting NYC, needs to be the same NYC airport (no EWR to JFK)
  5. No long layovers at a single airport--there's routings that have her sitting in the airport for 10+ hours, which she won't do
  6. She doesn't highly value lounge access
  7. She would like assistance navigating airports
  8. Since the trip happens in the dead of the US winter, I assume I'd want to minimize connections and transiting East Coast / ORD
  9. No preference on day of week for arrival / departure


Huge and complicated list, I know. Hoping for some help soon. TIA.
Just booked: 2x OW, all on Biz or First, for a total 115k miles (57.5k miles each direction) and a few dollars in tax. Lots of exSEA availability opened today, after I had been on the hunt for 2+ weeks.
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Old Nov 24, 2019, 7:55 pm
  #343  
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Manhattan Beach, California
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Posts: 6,350
I had posted as this worked out with a few other milesaver biz awards we initially booked with terrible connections and even overnight layovers. But in the new world of married segments, i think you have to just book these crappy routings and have faith youll be able to use the schedule changes to get to a better routing.

Im now up to about 25 tickets (im usually booking for 5 at a time) since the hammer that is married segments came down. I used to book DFW-LHR and LAX-LHR and then wait to add the SEA-DFW/LAX but with married segments we were always getting pushed through PHL. Now were not only getting rebooked to tighter connections w no overnights but routinely getting rebooked to avoid PHL and getting to enjoy the long sleeping flights from DFW or LAX. My latest Seattle to London itinerary for April was originally through Philadelphia and was just automatically rebooked through Dallas on the 77W (late flight in the 77W minicabin is my strong preference to London).

I wish as much as anybody else that married segments hadnt been implemented, but the silver lining is that with all of the schedule changes that American does, if you are booking 10 months or even 4-6 months in advance you were going to have several opportunities to completely rework the itinerary to you liking.
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Old Nov 26, 2019, 2:53 pm
  #344  
FMX
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 96
What's the current story with booking Qatar (QR) awards using AA? I read that most QR awards are not shown, but the master thread has that info crossed out. I see availability on the BA site that is not shown on the AA site, but AA does show me *some* QR awards. Should I call AA with what BA shows? Or is that BA availability phantom? (It seemed a bit too good to be true.)

Last edited by FMX; Nov 27, 2019 at 11:52 am
FMX is offline  
Old Nov 26, 2019, 4:33 pm
  #345  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: RDU <|> MMX
Programs: AA EXP 2MM, SK EBS
Posts: 12,361
Originally Posted by FMX
What's the current story with booking Qatar (QR) awards using AA? I read that most QR awards are not shown, but the master thread has that info crossed out. I see availability on BA site that is not shown on the AA site, but AA does show me *some* QR awards. Should I call AA with what BA shows? Or is that BA availability phantom? (It seemed a bit too good to be true.)
AFAIK most award space on QR (and EY) to/from the US is still not showing on aa.com due to the baggage allowance issue. If you see space on BA then absolutely call AA to try and book it.
JJeffrey is offline  

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