corndog09

My last three trips I have tried using my AAdvantage points to book but each has been unsuccessful. For instance, I have a trip to Florida in ten months and I can't even secure a seat without being mile-gouged.

I have been using a Citi AAdvantage and was lured in with a high sign-on bonus. I live in NYC, so travel is primarily on Delta and lesser-so on United and American. For work I travel on a combination of all three and so I do not have an allegiance to an airline.

I'm only interested in miles rewards, not hotel rewards. Any suggestions which program might be best for me?

sparksals

I find Delta you need far more miles to claim rewards.

Adelphos

A lot of people may say United due to the strong route network out of Newark, but I dislike Newark a lot

The best strategy may be to churn as many different rewards cards as possible across different networks, then accumulate points via spending on network agnostic cards (Chase Sapphire, Amex).

I am searching for Florida flights too for May - flights are cheap out of LGA ($200-$300 on either Delta or AA). A benefit of living in NYC is robust competition and relatively cheap domestic flights for a lot of routes

mia

Thread transferred from Credit Card Programs to MilesBuzz! because the focus of the question is award availability, which is not controlled by the card issuer.

amolkold

One might say that if you are going to burned by "Anytime" availability anyway, Delta is a better program, since they have a 2nd middle tier that is lower than other airlines' 2nd tiers.

That being said, I only redeem at Saver level, so that isn't a reason as to why to have Skymiles.

Steve M

10 months out is far too early to be planning for award travel. The advice to plan far ahead, since award inventory is released 11 months out and is gone when it's gone, is outdated by at least a decade.

AlohaDaveKennedy

And layovertimes overseas that require a renewal of your VISA.

MilesGator

When do you think is the best time? I'm a decade behind

Relative newbie here and would love get others advice about when to book awards. PM definitely welcome.

lwildernorva

I think airline revenue management has made booking awards more difficult to predict. For a current example, I'm interested in doing an ORF-JFK trip 3/14-3/25 on AA. I've checked a number of times over the last ten days, and I can't make that booking although I can go a day or two earlier or later on both ends of the trip. Just to confirm a suspicion, I checked ORF-MIA and ORF-DFW, both also nonstop flights, and each one of them had the same blackout dates.

I suspect that these dates are predicted to be good dates systemwide for cash purchases so the revenue management software has locked the dates out for awards as they may be heavy travel days with spring breakers traveling and for the latter date, Easter approaching. If the prediction is correct, then those dates will never open; if the prediction is off, then some seats on each of those flights are likely to open sometime between now and 3/14--although too late for my purposes.

A second example: I was headed to Dublin in late November on BA and wanted to use Avios to upgrade my two WT+ seats to CW seats for the TATL portion of the flight. There was no upgrade availability when I booked the seats in late October. Thirty-six hours before the flight, boom, upgrades opened up and I got my CW seats.

Several years ago, I found AA had plenty of award availability. In the past year, not so much. Again, just a theory, but I'm sure the bankruptcy proceedings/merger talks that have been going on for about a year have had some effect on award availability. Will that change as AA comes out of bankruptcy, whether merged with US or as an independent entity? Who knows?

That's the gist of the problem. It doesn't matter what we think; revenue management software makes its own assumptions and provides award seat availability accordingly. My rule: check as early as possible for award seats--and then stay flexible and keep checking.

travelisfree

United and AA are the only real great loyalty programs, IMHO.

PainCorp

What about Chase Sapphire Preferred? You get decent "miles" on the card, and can then transfer them to UA, SW, BA, KE, plus some hotels. Gives you a little more flexibility with how you spend your miles. Plus you can always redeem them for any flight through their own system instead of transferring them.

miles_navigator

Try getting the Southwest credit card w/ 50K bonus points for travel from NYC area to Florida.

Otherwise, UA is probably better to bet on availability these days over AA.

Also if you can drive/train down to PHL sometimes they have availability out of PHL to MIA on AA that you can't get out of EWR/LGA/JFK. I don't know where you want to go in Florida but if it is MCO then check the JFK to TPA route as well.

ThereYaGo

Been doing this for 15 years and have booked from 11 months down to 1 month out. Just gotta keep looking if nothing shows the first try. On trips I consider "big" like our surprise anniv to Europe in Lufthansa 1st class, I did it midnight the first day allowed, just because I was anal about it. But I have also booked 3 savers to the Caymans for my family 3 months out, and 3 savers to the coast 1 month out.

As to the thread topic,personally, I love UA much more than AA.

megalab

I have a lot of miles in both MP and AA, and am top tier elite in both programs so have full access to their best availability. Regardless, in most cases (estimate ~75%) I find better options from MP vs. AA flying out of ORD.

For instance, trying to book a trip to LIM this summer. MP had more options with shorter travel times, including the only r/t option w/o an overnight flight.

While AA can have some good low miles awards, when I do find better flights on AA/OW its for flights with such low ticket prices the redemption value is not really worth it.

For instance, I want to go to NYC next month. No good saver options from MP. I can use the Citi AA reduced mileage awards to HPN (15,750 AA miles r/t). I can also fly AA to LGA for $158 r/t (vs $328 on UA) but 1 cpm is not worth it to me. I'll just pay to fly AA.

Do you own booking comparisons and see if you get similar results.

TTnC4me

I've found UA has more reliable award availability further out. I've been checking AA for Domestic & TATL summer travel from t-330 and it's been hit or miss on availability. A complete miss on the domestic side, unless flying in F.

However, two weeks ago I was able to book 5 seats in Y for this upcoming holiday weekend for MCO-ORD-MCO.

AA may have award availability on some routes, for some days, eventually, but for hopefully less booking frustration I'm banking UA miles. From reading though, actual flying frustration may yet remain to be a separate thing entirely.