Ragnarok

I had a very recent experience on this, it might no longer be relevant after this change so take it with a grain of salt.
I was traveling on a AAdvantage partner award last month. The inbound trip only terminated at JFK as there were no U or T availability back to my local airport.
2 days before departure, the WebSpecial rate for the LGA - Home Airport drops down to 23.5K. No sAAver award on AA.com still.
Out of curiosity, I ran a search on BA.com, it shows availability for Business. (i.e. U).

I contacted AA and ask to add the LGA - (Home airport) segment on booking class U. The agent added it for me, and it did ticket.
Afterwards I refreshed BA.com for the search and the available seat for Business award did reduce by 1.

Could be a fluke. Could also be how it will be treated going forward (i.e. if there are T/U/Z availability for the flight, it won't be used for AA award on its own, but is available to price with a partner award T/U/Z - for now, until they devalue partner awards too).

pinniped

I had already resigned myself to the fact that AA is simply a short-haul cash-replacement award scheme for me. 2-3 cpm, MCI-PHX awards and the like. Boring but it fills a need.

The aspirational awards using AA miles seem to be pretty much gone entirely. I save my UA stash for those (for now).

michael1023

i saw the new AA credit card has a sign up bonus of 75,000 AA miles. if approved, i think i can only use them on AA operated flights correct?

JJeffrey

It's not a new credit card, only a higher sign up bonus, so the smoke and mirrors begins.

The SUB is AA miles, no different from any other AA miles, you can use them for anything you can use AA miles for, certainly not just AA operated flights.

jtav559

But if there is a notable schedule change to your itinerary, you can still parlay that into getting on to a different flight (or routing) that is at least legal, if not being one that works better for you?

I don't think they would say, "Oh sorry your connection went from a comfy 2.5 hours down to ball-busting 35 minutes. You either have to stick it out and hope for the best, or cancel and re-book something else at a more than likely higher rate. Thanks for being a great customer! "

But then again its AA, so give it a few years and that will likely be the case

michael1023

ah yes. i guess its worth it to get the bonus, try it out for a year, and if warranted continue to use it/keep it open, only a $99 dollar annual fee.

first year fee is waived

aztimm

Occasionally, and with a little work, you might be able to find the partner award that comes through for you. Back in 2018, I was able to redeem AA miles on QF for SFO-MEL in biz, then SYD-DFW in F. It actually wasn't that difficult, once I got the hang of using EF and setting up alerts. Plus we were flexible on timing, and started looking about 10 months out.

I'd imagine that domestic partner awards on AS or B6 could be handy for some.

GUWonder

I will still be using AA miles to fly QR long-haul � until AA gets around to gutting those for some journeys. An AA card SUB or two could get me 3-4 long-haul QR trips if able to beat the next devaluations.

aj411

did some searches last night to south pacific area. Still fairly good availability at T330 and award miles about the same. Partner airline JAL used depedning on US departing airport which is pretty par for the course. so far so good on that front

pazza2000

So dynamic pricing is for AA only, and partner awards are still priced as previously?

moondog

It appears that they have bumped up partner redemption levels in many cases, as well, but the pricing remains static. If so, we should be able to piece together an updated partner award chart even if AA doesn't publish one.

​​​​

AirborneLocksmith

What's really annoying is how the dynamic pricing for AA flights removes the possibility to book AA + partner awards for a reasonable number of miles.

For example, If I want to book BOS-LHR-FRA in business class, the only option shown is BA for 57.5k miles and ~$800.
BOS-LHR on AA is available for 60k miles and a couple of dollars, but it can't be combined with a BA flight.
It would be nice if BOS-LHR-FRA (AA + BA flights) was also available for 60k miles, but no...
That small difference in miles (57.5k vs. 60k) apparently makes it impossible to combine reasonable AA flight cost/rates with partner flights even if there's saver level availability on partner flights.

(As a side note, I'm seeing a lot of examples of PHL-BOS-LHR being available for 60k while BOS-LHR on the same flight is 120k miles).

GUWonder

At least with regard to other routes for US-originating TATL travel, that kind of mileage ticket pricing dynamic isn’t new for AA award ticket pricing. And even for domestic award travel, I sometimes get DCA-ORD-[MN and WI airports] for fewer AA miles than it would be for DCA-ORD on the very same flight but on its own. [I don’t hesitate to no-show for onward travel beyond ORD on such tickets when traveling as carry-on-only.]

Smiley90

Its likely the same would be the case for cash pricing - and as always, "dynamic pricing that matches cash price" means that AA is not a rewards program per se anymore, but just another form of straight up Cashback. And they're likely far behind in value behind actual Cashback cards. Do you want 3% cashback or AA miles you can redeem for a flight reward at a 1 cpm value?

sxpsxpsxp

This isn't funny, but I have to laugh because otherwise I might cry....

81.5k for one-way F DCA-BOS on an E75!

Who would actually pay that? I mean, seriously.....