Back in 2016, this exact same situation played out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-for-24-hours/

They still offered it on some routes sometimes. Then sometime in 2018 or so, it came back to pretty much all routes. Not totally sure why, but if history is any guidance, we will see some situations get offers to hold and some without.

Disappointing, for sure. But a far more valuable feature is being able to put an award reservation on hold, particularly to figure out how to top off the mileage balance. I totally hate this with DL where I find what I want, but I can't buy it because I'm short miles, and I can't put it on hold either while I transfer MR points, and now I have to risk losing the space while I wait.

Companies do tests on subsets of customers all the time.

Sadly I can’t see this test failing. I’m sure they will measure the number of bookings completed by the web vs. requiring an agent to ticket. Plus I’m sure the proportion of tickets sold and subsequently cancelled will be lower than bookings put on hold and expired = revenue enhancement.

Not so sure about the revenue enhancement argument. First, I'd suggest that the costs associated with dealing with and refunding tickets that have been sold are significantly higher than the costs of holding and expiring a reservation on hold, even if you are right and the number of the former is significantly lower. Second, with load factors at historic highs, there are not a lot of empty seats to be filled. It would appear that this runs the risk of increasing costs, not revenue.

Sadly, I bet AA has set up a hypothesis for this experiment that will be self fulfilled.

It's interesting timing, with many flight credits expiring Sept 30th.

Had this exact problem yesterday. Went to book a flight online with a flight credit. The system couldn’t apply the flight credit and told me to contact reservations. When I contacted reservations in the web chat, the person told me to place the reservation on hold then contact them with the PNR to apply the credit… problem was there was no hold button. So had to have the agent do everything from start to finish. Not efficient at all for this one.

I still have the option for a 24 hr hold...

Wonder if they track the % of bookings when people do a search for flights. Like I said earlier, when I am pretty sure I need to or want to book a trip I put one on hold after my initial search and look at hotels and reach out to coworkers to coordinate travel later. Now, I don't put that flight on hold. I would have put one on hold two days ago and booked it yesterday, but still haven't booked it yet because waiting on confirming how many days to be there. I will still likely end up booking the trip with AA, so probably not a loss for them in my case. But still I would definitely have my flight booked by now if I could have put it on hold two days ago.

When making new reservations, I still see the option to put the trip on hold without paying.

not me. It’s gone.

Me neither.

Still seeing it for a couple of trips.

It would be disappointing if they eliminated it for paid travel (which seems to be the focus).

AA also lets you hold longer for different fees, depending on the hold times

so why are some people seeing it and some aren't? AA reading Flyertalk?