NYCbustravelguy

Just got off the phone with AA, per the agent, a stop-over is any stay in a connecting city of more than 6-hours international, and you are expected to take the first flight. You cannot decide to take a flight the next day, even if it is within the 24-hour period, if there was an earlier flight you could have taken. I spoke to two agents and they both confirmed this. Have any other had luck getting around the 6-hourt next flight out rule???

RChavez

I would give it some time. I'm not sure how many agents have fully absorbed everything, but this is a confirmed change to the prior routing rules. I would also ask them to check with their support desk to confirm, but the rules state pretty explicitly that stopover treatment is moving in-line with revenue fares and away from the incredibly annoying 4hr/6hr rule.

Happy

Then dont bite. Nobody forces you to bite into the withered and stale carrot, right?

Besides, the definition of FREE obviously means different thing to you, as the seats remain free but the taxes and fees have not been free for time longer than I could remember.

Regarding the $20 phone fee, it is not a fair charge when it cannot be booked online anyway. But it is only $20 - in the big scheme of thing, how big a deal is the $20 per ticket in a trip that would probably cost 100 times more easily?

wrose99

So I guess in planning a stopover in London the key would be having the final destination be a city BA flies to only once a day, with a departure time earlier than your AA arrival. Not sure what cities currently fit that description. Anyone know what AA flight arrives latest in London? (In order to increase the odds of there being no more flights out that day to destination). The second flight from L.A.?

wrose99

I'm not sure who is right but post 226 seems to indicate this is incorrect--you do (still) have to take the next scheduled flight or it becomes a stopover requiring additional miles.

wrose99

Winners: United, and those holding United miles.

Unless it matches this "enhancement."

wrose99

I feel that something must have changed at AAdvantage for the program to "go Amtrak" on us in eliminating booking options with no notice.

I believe it's unprecedented for AA. Have they been hiring the talent away from Amtrak Guest Rewards?

Even with the change last year to One World awards booked with AA miles, plugging that loophole that allowed people to go all over the world on a shockingly small amount of miles by avoiding "stopovers," was made with months of advance notice.

Loyal flyers who found the best value of their miles in trips such as US to wherever with a stop in London in Tokyo were not abusing or gaming anyone. I hope this turns out to be an aberration and not a shift in AA's attitude toward those who hold AA miles as a result of flying the airline and completing transactions with AA's partners.

RChavez

I do admit that there is still conflicting information in the various reference files that contain information about the All Partner awards, but the post that I quoted from the other site is verbatim from the reference files that detail the information about the new "flex" awards.

I'm willing to bet that the agent that the poster above spoke with either didn't see the new language or is confused, as the new language seems to indicate that this is either intentional or a recognized limitation with Sabre, and is not a loophole or an oversight.

dentstu

At present, the last AA flights into LHR seem to be the morning departures from the U.S.:
AA142 --- 08:25 JFK --> 20:25 LHR
AA156 --- 09:00 BOS --> 20:45 LHR
AA90 --- 09:10 ORD --> 22:40 LHR

This information is available from the US-Europe timetable posted on the Belgian AA website:
http://www.americanairlines.be/conte...%20English.pdf

Paulchili

[QUOTE=wrose99;11733385]So I guess in planning a stopover in London the key would be having the final destination be a city BA flies to only once a day, with a departure time earlier than your AA arrival. Not sure what cities currently fit that description. QUOTE]

How about the BA flight to Belgrade? I leaves at 8:15 AM (only once daily) and is a lot more difficult to make than miss.

mvoight

I suspect the new one way awards benefit more people than the number of people who lose out due to the stopover change. It enables people to save miles by booking in an upgraded class in one direction. It permits one way flights at 1/2 the former miles, which also helps if one direction is too cheap to make it worth using miles. I know some cruise passengers will love it. Imagine sailing a transatlantic and only needing 1/2 the old mileage to fly back.

normcpa

My apologies if this was already asked. (I have read most of the posts above, but not all.) Do you expect any change in "restocking" fees? If you put back 200,000 miles from a RT award when you have a change of plans, it costs you $100 or so (+ 25 or so if miles for more than one ticket were taken from the same account). Now if two 100,000 (one-way) awards are "restocked," will the fees double? My guess is: Yes. Any thoughts?

LaFrequentFlyerViva

Now that Hawaii inter-island fares can only be booked as one-way segments - and, since they are on AA partner Hawaiian Airlines you HAVE to book by phone w/an AA agent, the value of this Award is now next to worthless.

Inter-island fares are more often than not affected by fare sales, usually around $39 each way [or less.] To book each one-way fare by phone costs $20, hence a r/t would cost $40 in phone fees for a $78 fare, plus sacrificing 10,000 miles total. Why would anyone do this to save $38?? Before, you'd pay $20 total to book the ticket by phone - still hefty for such a cheap ticket, but to up that to $40 off a $78 ticket??

THECLIPPERS

Today I called to make a reservation and was told that it would cost me 32,500 more miles today than if I would have booked it 4 days ago. If I knew that I would have booked 4 tickets for whatever dates and changed them as needed. I wish we would have been informed ahead of time so we could plan for this. I have around a million miles that I work very hard at getting and now I feel the miles have just lost 30% of their value.

I have been traveling to South East Asia every 3-4 months in first class using 135,000 miles per trip. Sometimes I would stop in Hong Kong or Tokyo for a few days because I wanted to but sometimes because I couldn't get a ticket on the same day due to availability. Now if there is a first class ticket available to Hong Kong on a certain day but the next first class ticket to Bangkok isn't available until 2 days later, I will have to use more miles even though I didn't want the stopover.

LaFrequentFlyerViva

OK, apparently, once can now travel between North America and India, with "stops" in Europe each way for at least 5,000 miles LESS than before - by buying w/miles [OFFpeak] 2 one-ways between N. Amer & Europe, and 2 one-ways between Europe & India. This IS great news.

However... for other long-haul flights, it is TERRIBLE news. To stop in Europe enroute to or from, say, Johannesburg, it will cost a whopping 12,500 more miles! To Stop in Fiji enroute to Australia [which is a typical routing anyway] it will cost an extra 20,000 miles! And to stop in Tokyo enroute to Hong Kong will cost an extra 20,000 miles as well.

Springing an extra 20,000 miles "tax" on AA customers [especially Plat/ExecPlat] w/no warning is, I re-assert, BAD BUSINESS, American Airlines.

(((grumble)))