nycpolostud

I currently have an award ticket booked from LAX to SYD on Qantas using AA miles. However, I am starting my trip in NYC. In the past, I have been able to add a positioning flight to the trip (i.e. the NYC to LAX leg) without incurring additional miles. Am I still able to do this with AA’s less transparent award system? How might I know which awards would be available (i.e. do I have to search on a partner site, or would some of the other awards displayed on AA also be available?)? Thanks in advance!

JJeffrey

You could try to add the NYC-LAX however I have no idea if that will be possible under the new system since sAAver awards have gone bye bye.

You could possibly search the BA site, if BA happens to show award space on NYC-LAX booked via avios then in theory that is akin to the old sAAver space, give AA a call and see if they can add it.

aj411

In theory, under the new system, you can no longer change an award reservation. Only cancel and rebook.
I defer to someone who has tried this in practice now but I am skeptical on flexibility going forward. Looks like award reservations lost a lot of the perks they used to have for change unless there is a major schedule change.
Don't see that status makes a difference

VegasGambler

sAAver awards are gone but T/U/Z space remain. You can search for it on EF (not sure why you would use the BA site).

Nothing has changed about partner awards. You can still add domestic AA segments if there is T/U/Z space. The only thing that's changed is that you can no longer book a sAAver award using that space.

This is not true. Nothing has changed about partner awards. AA awards are all web savers and therefore can't be changed. That does not affect partner awards. This is a partner award.

JJeffrey

You would search the BA site as a starting point if you didn't have EF to see what "sAAver" space might be out there.

aj411

But is the Austin/NY flight partner? I found one writeup that said these were treated as part of the partner award but one source said not. I think it might come down to what an agent will do.
I'd love to see that positioning flights can still be added

VegasGambler

[QUOTE=aj411;35177627]But is the Austin/NY flight partner?[QUOTE]

What? It's a partner award. You don't break it down into individual flights; the point is that it prices as a single award (assuming that there is the correct space on the domestic flight). There's nothing new here.

Again, partner awards have not changed. This is not a web saver; it does not have the no-change rules. There are no web saver partner awards.

I think people are conflating sAAver awards (which don't exist any more) with the T/U/Z space which was required to book those sAAver awards, and is also used to append AA domestic segments to international partner awards. The fact that the sAAver awards are gone does not mean that the space is gone, and it doesn't change the rules of adding domestic segments to partner awards.

VoiD

I tried adding a positioning flight to an existing partner award and was told it needs to be canceled and rebooked. Did not want to risk something going wrong and losing the seat on an already full flight so i booked separately.

lrdpenn

Like others on here, I was under the assumption that oneworld & other partner awards had not changed at all - so still allowed changes without cancelling / redepositing / rebooking.
Now I am not sure - there has been a change to the text on AA.com. This could be a substantial downgrade in the flexibility of oneworld/partner awards - which permitted changes like dropping (and sometimes adding) segments or changing routing without having to start over.

Current: https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ard-travel.jsp
"While you may not make changes to a trip that includes a flight award, you can cancel it and reinstate your miles at no charge."

Previous (Feb 1 2023 example): https://web.archive.org/web/20230201...ard-travel.jsp
"If your travel plans change, you can contact Reservations to change your flight award. There is no fee to make a change. Keep in mind, you still need to redeem miles for any award price difference when making a change."
"While you may not make changes to a trip that includes a Web Special award, you can cancel it and reinstate your miles at no charge."

guv1976

That language only appears under the heading, "Awards on American." It does not appear under the heading, "Awards on other airlines."

lrdpenn

The language and comparison are from another section “Manage your award travel”. It also separately appears under Awards on American.

VegasGambler

I actually just saw that when it was brought up here. It is kind of concerning, though I'm still not really convinced. I did this recently but I'm not sure if it was after the rule changes went in (it was close).

guv1976

That's a good catch!

If, in fact, AA is no longer permitting changes on any AAdvantage flight award, then shame on them for not also displaying the "no change" language directly under the "Awards on other airlines" heading.

lrdpenn

It's hard to tell because award rules have been a mess for years...
* Agents who don't uniformly know the rules leading to a lot of HUCAs (previous claims of no changes on oneworld/partner awards, who knows what the actual rule is now)
* Rules only known through internal policy documents shared only on FT (like dropping the first/last segment of an award without reinstatement & for free IF it is a domestic leg)

Yet I would take this mess (at least we were getting things that were MORE customer friendly) over a blanket no changes rule!

A big implication to a no-change-on-any-award rule is that it gives NO guardrails to partner devaluations. I believe previously you could change a partner award even if the award chart devalued without it costing more miles, because the award was already redeemed. If everything is cancel and rebook that is no longer possible

ruzzer

I was also told the same thing recently.