AAdvantage miles getting less and less valuable!
 

In March, I flew across country. 50,000 first class round trip. Plenty of options in terms of available flights. Today I tried to book the same flights. Plenty of options in terms of available flight but the price went up to 100,000 miles. .... Time to dump the American and its DIS-AAdvantage program after over 40 years!

A 3 million mile program member.

Boom roasted.

What do you expect? Its going to get worse not better.

Honestly? I expected better.

Shame on me!

Yesterday, tried to book my first business class mileage trip in two years on AA, r/t lax->jfk in May 2022, The web interface has changed completely, as "Milesaver" options are nowhere to be seen (agents had no idea how to "see" them and connected me to web tech support line two times, but they never picked up the phone). Maybe there just aren't any, although I did quite a bit of looking. Also, there used to be lots of better availability on Alaska Air, but I didn't see a single Alaska flight (confirmed later by an agent). Yes, there were lots of "Web Saver" fares if you like to travel in the middle of the night and are willing to chance a layover. Final result cost me 238000 miles (two people) for a decent non-stop outbound and two leg return to LAX.

If anyone has figured out the new system on how to get good non-stop (or at least daytime) r/t lax/jfk reservations I'd like to know.

Deliberately obsequious - that's how they get you to use 238,000 miles for a round trip.

Let's face it. Time to stop considering FF programs as a perk and more as a necessary evil.

I'm getting more value than ever but I also rarely travel during peak times; flights that I used to pay the full milesaaver rate for or now less than half that with Web Specials. You also have to bring book strategically - there will be several schedule changes between now and May 2022. Book the cheap four segment route now and then get rebooked on more convenient flights once AA does a significant schedule change.

In March travel was still depressed and one could book good mileage tickets on most airlines. Definitely AA and DL. You could book cheaper cash tickets too. Now airlines are selling out their flights to cash-paying passengers and the availability of cheap mileage tickets has decreased commensurately.

Not a surprise. Very few flights were going out full in March. That is not the case right now during the summer months. I would wait until after Labor Day to start looking again, as I expect travel demand to drop-off significantly. Maybe not to 2020 levels, but definitely not to what they are currently at right now. And I would also venture to guess that paid airfares were a lot cheaper back in March than what they are right now, as well.

No. U are just being unrealistic. Supply and demand. Ans id I am not mistaken, 100k was a regular mileage redemption during peak times before the pandemic.

This is certainly a big part of it. Expecting to find cheaper awards during the peak demand summer travel period is simply unrealistic. I checked in October, which is a considerably slower travel month, and see plenty of dates where FC awards on RDU-LAX non-stop is 25K or less each way. It would be helpful to know which dates and route OP is checking.

All mileage currency is being devalued. I still get far more value out of my AA miles, than I do with DL and UA. It all depends on personal preference. If looking for shorthaul domestic awards, AA might not be the best. If looking for longhaul premium cabins on good/great foreign carriers (JL, CX, QR), AA miles are still hard to beat.

-FlyerBeek

I find the best use of AA miles is actually not on AA....

Agreed. The best way to book AA flights (at least single segment, domestic ones) IMO is using BA Avios.

No doubt the miles are getting less and less valuable. This is of course a result of the idiot management team of AA. Of course, to be fair, every day currency gets less and less valuable, and I'm not speaking strictly about mileage currency...

This reservation was for late September.