Reminder - use AAdvantage miles by March 21

Just a reminder for those who redeem points for their cruises, that on March 22 the AAdvantage program is seriously devaluing their miles, so flights will cost more.

TPG has an article with more details...

http://thepointsguy.com/2016/03/what-to-know-upcoming-american-devaluation/

Thanks for posting this.

Thanks for reminder.

Keith

I'm new to the AA Advantage Program. I applied and was accepted and working on spending $3000. to get my 60,000 free miles for getting the card. We're booked for a Europe cruise departing to Rome. I've been checking the flights available for my OCT. cruise but my hands are tied for reserving for a month or 2. For the dates I need for a one-way ticket and a decent itinerary it'll cost me 65,000 miles.

We are departing from Pa. Is the chart that AA has on their site for Oct., 2016 the one that's up-dated to the changes or will that get worse? Should we book as soon as we can or do they reduce the miles needed if the flights aren't selling closer to Oct. Of course, if I don't have my flights secured by the time final payment is due, I wouldn't chance making final payment. We could never afford the airfare to Europe.

Since we won't have enough miles with AA for the return we will be using United miles for that. We are not big spenders and only fly once a year if we're lucky. Most likely, we will not be able to fly again until we replenish our FF accts or get super cheap fares.;)

I have a lot of experience using AAdvantage miles, so let me offer some points for you to consider.

First, I'm no expert on the devaluation, but my understanding is that most of the horrible changes will be to the business and first class tickets. The miles needed on the Economy tickets will rise, but not so much as to make a huge difference. I've resigned myself to flying economy in the future so I'm not making speculative bookings.

Second, make sure you will be able to fly without being on British Airways, who have huge fuel surcharges. The AA website likes to route you through London on BA. When you go to the AA website to check fares, there is an option for you to uncheck BA in the search function. Do a search and pick some flights, but go to the point where you see the total price in miles and money and you'll see what I mean.

Given my second point, it makes sense to book as soon as you see flights in the Saver category appear.

Third, there is a $75 late booking fee if you wait to book within 21 days of your flight.

And last but not least, take heart and don't worry too much! You are flying off season and should be able to get flights that will work for you. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

It is so easy to earn miles so unless you are one of the flyertalk folks who think the sky is falling all the time it really isn't that big of a deal. Between credit cards, shopping portals, dining programs and hotels you can stack up miles real quick. The bigger change is the way you will earn miles when flying on AA later this year when they go to a rev based system like UA did.

Great article in today's local paper about Delta and their mileage program. Delta is going to substantially drop prices of their first class and business class seats so to increase sales. In doing so, it will substantially reduce the number of these seats both available, at the gate, for upgrades and available for purchase with miles. Delta said that First Class is currently a money loser for them with only, on average, 45% of the seats sold. This policy change is directed toward correcting that.

Neither UA nor AA commented on Delta's move, but they are expected, by industry officials, to make the same moves. Good news for those buying tickets, bad news for those wanting to cash in miles for 1st and Business Class seats in the future, and those high status fliers accustomed to regular upgrades.

Great article in today's local paper about Delta and their mileage program. Delta is going to substantially drop prices of their first class and business class seats so to increase sales. In doing so, it will substantially reduce the number of these seats both available, at the gate, for upgrades and available for purchase with miles. Delta said that First Class is currently a money loser for them with only, on average, 45% of the seats sold. This policy change is directed toward correcting that.

 

Neither UA nor AA commented on Delta's move, but they are expected, by industry officials, to make the same moves. Good news for those buying tickets, bad news for those wanting to cash in miles for 1st and Business Class seats in the future, and those high status fliers accustomed to regular upgrades.

No great loss. Using FF miles for anything domestic is a waste anyway (in my opinion). The best use for them(again in my opinion) is a nice long international trip on a foreign carrier in either F or J.

Great article in today's local paper about Delta and their mileage program. Delta is going to substantially drop prices of their first class and business class seats so to increase sales. In doing so, it will substantially reduce the number of these seats both available, at the gate, for upgrades and available for purchase with miles. Delta said that First Class is currently a money loser for them with only, on average, 45% of the seats sold. This policy change is directed toward correcting that.

 

Neither UA nor AA commented on Delta's move, but they are expected, by industry officials, to make the same moves. Good news for those buying tickets, bad news for those wanting to cash in miles for 1st and Business Class seats in the future, and those high status fliers accustomed to regular upgrades.

AA has already lowered their advance purchase BC tickets to about $1200pp on the LAX-JFK route. When coach hits $700-800 over the summer, it makes a lot of sense to buy the seat outright instead of hoping for an upgrade that may or may not materialize.

I've been looking for seats to EZE for our Antarctica trip this winter and so far only the Aanytime awards are available, for 300k miles per person.:eek: I'm wondering if perhaps AA has choked off availability of the SAaver awards for the time being.

:( - Tried to book a flight to/from Rome for cruise in Sept - the flights that are available for reward travel are quite inconvenient - arriving in Rome at 10 or 11 PM. And the return flight is no better because it leaves in the evening, making the trip home pretty lengthy. I thought of booking a one way ticket with miles, and purchasing a one way ticket for the trip eastbound so we could leave in the morning. The one way fare was $2000 for one ticket. That is ridiculous.

I have given up hope of using these miles for air travel associated with cruising. In fact, I just purchased two RT tickets on AA for $2100, saving $1000 by using an alternative airport. Interesting that driving 100 miles to a different airport reduced the cost of the tickets $500 per person. I find this fascinating since two of the four flights (ORD -> FCO and FCO -> ORD) are the same for the two itineraries. How can that be?

I've been looking for seats to EZE for our Antarctica trip this winter and so far only the Aanytime awards are available, for 300k miles per person.:eek: I'm wondering if perhaps AA has choked off availability of the SAaver awards for the time being.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1745038-2017-milesaaver-awards-disappear-unavailable-aanytime-now-back.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1745038-2017-milesaaver-awards-disappear-unavailable-aanytime-now-back.html

I read some of that thread - gave me a headache, lol. I was able to score two BC tickets for 50k miles and a whopping $5.60 in fees for the outbound flight - Flyertalk also gave me the idea of searching for award travel on the BA website (I had created an account when I was looking for JAL award travel last year), which shows LAN award availability. I can book the return in 3 days, hoping there's something good there for us.:)

LAN teased me on the return, but opened up yesterday so I was able to book that flight, too.:D:D

Looks like AA may be pulling availability on a large number of routes in advance of the devaluation. Seems like a significant coincidence otherwise.

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/03/14/americans-devalue-theyve-pulled-award-space-heres-route-try/

If you find something that works for you and that would otherwise be subject to devaluation, a couple of things to remember about AA awards. First, you can make free changes so long as your origin and destination doesn't change. Second, mileage redeposit fees are relatively reasonable -- $150 for the first pax and $25 for all other pax so long as miles came out of the same account. As a result, it might be worth it if you find a good routing and speculatively book it. For example, if you know you'll be flying to Tokyo and see availability in business class on some date a decent way in the future, it might be worth booking it at today's redemption rates and then hoping that your dates open up later on the same routing and then you can just make a free change to the award. You have up to one year from the date of ticketing (though if you book a flight, say, for July, you'll want to change it or cancel it before your flight leaves so your award doesn't get cancelled). In the worst case, you simply pay to redeposit the miles. If you're an executive platinum, since you don't pay to redeposit, there's really no downside to making speculative bookings now.

(Note, this strategy is a bit sophisticated and only wise for those who have a general sense of AA and partner award availability trends, because any changes other than date/or time may well cause a reprice after the devaluation, and so you're just throwing the change fee amount away. Plus, mileage redeposit fees could go up any time, though they would probably give some advance notice.)

So, now I don't know what to do. We are flying DFW to SJU Jan 21 with a return on Jan 29. I was going to book using reward miles and was originally thinking of booking the Business/First MileSaaver if it was available for 30k miles.

Right now it is not available so I put a hold on Economy Anytime with free Min Cabin Extra for 27,500 pp and per flight.

Now I see these new changes and maybe I should wait and see? From what I read it looks like Business can go down to 25K? How do I know my dates will ever have those rates available.

Do you really believe you will ever find a Milesaver Award for travel on Jan 29th? You are about a month and a half past the date when those flights became available. Standard miles are most probably the only thing you will now see. Should have been looking for Saver Miles back in early Febr

Actually I have been looking since the dates opened up. Every day on my flight to SJU another day opens up closer to my departure date offering MileSaaver.

I guess since I do have the Economy Anytime flights on hold until the March 23 I can wait until then to go ahead and purchase.

Do you really believe you will ever find a Milesaver Award for travel on Jan 29th? You are about a month and a half past the date when those flights became available. Standard miles are most probably the only thing you will now see. Should have been looking for Saver Miles back in early Febr

Have you booked a Business Class seat in the last two years on American or their partners?

I used to be able to predict exactly when they would release premium Mileage savings awards for international and Hawaii and it was very predictable. The last couple of years the seem to release those rewards at different time and I have not been able to figure it out. I use Expert Flyer alerts.

Just curious if you are seeing something different.

Actually I have been looking since the dates opened up. Every day on my flight to SJU another day opens up closer to my departure date offering MileSaaver.

 

I guess since I do have the Economy Anytime flights on hold until the March 23 I can wait until then to go ahead and purchase.

We went to SJ last Oct. I found it one of the hardest places to get air to whether with or without miles! Not a big choice from where we come on the East Cost. Good luck!!

For SJU during the winter it's always wise to see what actual business class tickets are selling for, and make sure it's the best use of miles.

For example, on many days in January the cheapest AA round trip from DFW to SJU in coach is over $625 round trip, while business class on the same days is $913. If it takes 50,000 or 60,000 miles for a business class round trip, assuming you can get seats, that only works out to a value of 1.5c - 2c per mile, which isn't great shakes compared to using miles for, say, business class to Europe. It's worth doing the math.

Typically, with the saver miles, I have had my best luck between 2-3 weeks after the flights are first released. They let the seat buyers and full award mile users have first shot, then they allow saver miles. I have seen on popular flights, such as the SJ leg, where saver miles NEVER open up because all the ff allotted seats are taken up by those paying the standard award rate.

The last time I was able to use award business miles to SJ, I was living in Denver. The only way I could get there was going DEN-LAX-SJU.

Not specific to this flight, since it is all AA, but another issue that AA has discussed with me when searching flights is the actions of their oneworld partners. AA can only offer saver miles on an oneworld partner flights/legs, when that partner has agreed to release seats to such. For some flights that never to rarely happens. This is particularly the case during any high seasons.

Typically, with the saver miles, I have had my best luck between 2-3 weeks after the flights are first released. They let the seat buyers and full award mile users have first shot, then they allow saver miles.

Would it were that simple. Seats are put into various inventory "buckets" - deep discount, mileage redemption, all of them - according to very complicated (and very secret) computer algorithms that measure umpteen factors including pace of sales, how the competition is doing, historical data, the price of Jet A fuel, you name it. The computers never sleep and typically fares and seat availability are reviewed and adjusted several times a day throughout the 11-month booking period.

Trying to guess when the cheapest seats will open, or when saver award seats will come available, is just that - a guess. They can open on day 311 or on day 3, and anybody who says they can predict it is blowing smoke. In fact, on many routes, business or first class award availability is easier to snap up shortly before the flight date, when the computers have concluded it's less likely that somebody's going to pay thousands of dollars at the last minute. But even that is guesswork, and for people planning to get on a boat somewhere, very risky stuff.

Gardyloo;

I agree with all you have said. It is never simple, I only responded when I have had the best luck in the past getting savermiles for business class seats.

As a habit, I never wait to inside of 6 months to book any flight , for a cruise or planned vacation, hoping that discount award miles might appear. At some point well before then, I pull the trigger using standard miles (if still available) or buy the best priced seat I have found. I agree with you that I would never risk running up until the month or so before the boat leaves hoping that cheap seats become available or are priced lower. I do also realize that not everyone follows my plan of action. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes.....

Have you booked a Business Class seat in the last two years on American or their partners?

 

I used to be able to predict exactly when they would release premium Mileage savings awards for international and Hawaii and it was very predictable. The last couple of years the seem to release those rewards at different time and I have not been able to figure it out. I use Expert Flyer alerts.

Just curious if you are seeing something different.

We just (about a week or two ago) booked one way to Europe Business class and return First (snagged a great points "fare"), using Amex points in one direction and AA the other, but it was with a partner airline. Relatively easy availability for May/June, even with a connection needed (no direct flights on any airline from our location).

However, given this was the first time we were starting to use our nice bank of saved points, we used a service for this.

I know we wouldn't have found that routing on our own (not given the moving of points that was needed).

The point totals were less than we expected it would be.

(We figure we'll try on our own in the future, and if we have trouble, we'll use the service again... and keep learning from the combos they find for us ;))