Upgrade using AA FF miles

[Suzanne123]

If I book Economy Anytime to Europe from US using FF miles, is there a way to upgrade to Premium Economy ( either with extra miles or $) ?

[pinotlover]

If you “book “ via FF miles, I believe you have to cancel that booking, put the miles back into your account, and then rebook again.

AA doesn’t typically do the miles and $$ programs other airlines do. 

I’ll have to check but I don’t believe AA is currently doing PE on Ff miles. Best to call help desk on that one.

[Gardyloo]

AA doesn't yet offer straight redemptions for  PE.  If you buy a discount economy ticket for cash, you can upgrade to PE, but as with most upgrades, the cost in miles is generally a very bad deal.  

Not knowing any details, but using AAnytime miles, particularly for economy, is - in my view - the single worst deal available using AA miles.  Most of those of us who play the mileage game put an unofficial cash value on our miles; in my case I value them at around 2c per mile.  I don't redeem them if the cost of a purchased ticket is less than 2c per mile, e.g. a $1000 trip that would "cost" 50,000 miles is a bad deal in my book.  Now you might disagree, but it's worth considering what other trip you could do with the same number of miles you'd spend on an AAnytime ticket.  Just sayin'.

[FlyerTalker]

In fact, the airlines WANT you to make those kind of crappy redemptions.  They want you to cash them in for quickie trips, and structure their redemptions to facilitate that.

[Suzanne123]

I’ve been looking at the AA web site a couple times a day for the past several weeks.  I swear that the cabin availability and the cost in miles for those seats change every time I look.  Also, when they do have availability it’s on BA, and those flights have a stop in the U.S and another in London on the way to BCN. One stop is unavoidable from my little airport, but I would like to avoid an additional stop in London.

Anyway, I have 150,000 AA miles to use for a round trip Harrisburg (MDT) to Barcelona (BCN) Sept. 15 or Sept. 16 to Sept. 30 or Oct. 1 next year.

Just FYI, Celebrity air wants over $5,000 for a one way Business class flight MDT to BCN on United on 9/15. Ugh.

I read somewhere that the airlines don’t open all their ff seats right away.  I’m thinking I should not book the first flight  when it becomes available on Friday but wait until I can get a one (U.S.) stop flight on AA with the 57.5k miles that they usually charge for Business class.  

what do you think?

[klfrodo]

1 hour ago, Suzanne123 said:

I’ve been looking at the AA web site a couple times a day for the past several weeks.  I swear that the cabin availability and the cost in miles for those seats change every time I look.  Also, when they do have availability it’s on BA, and those flights have a stop in the U.S and another in London on the way to BCN. One stop is unavoidable from my little airport, but I would like to avoid an additional stop in London.

Anyway, I have 150,000 AA miles to use for a round trip Harrisburg (MDT) to Barcelona (BCN) Sept. 15 or Sept. 16 to Sept. 30 or Oct. 1 next year.

Just FYI, Celebrity air wants over $5,000 for a one way Business class flight MDT to BCN on United on 9/15. Ugh.

I read somewhere that the airlines don’t open all their ff seats right away.  I’m thinking I should not book the first flight  when it becomes available on Friday but wait until I can get a one (U.S.) stop flight on AA with the 57.5k miles that they usually charge for Business class.  

what do you think?

You roll the dice and takes your chances. I was using miles on my last trip to and from AMS. Got my outbound flight with no problem.

For days and days and days, there were no return mileage seats. Then for some reason in the middle of a day in the middle of a week, I checked again. 2 seats, Booked em up.  Kept checking for the rest of the year for maybe better routing or flight times. Never did see available seats again.

[FlyerTalker]

4 hours ago, Suzanne123 said:

I’ve been looking at the AA web site a couple times a day for the past several weeks.  I swear that the cabin availability and the cost in miles for those seats change every time I look. 

 

And your point?  Did you honestly expect it to be static?

Award seat allocations are done dynamically, and are directly related to how revenue seat sales for those particular flights are happenng.  Flights with strong revenue demand tend to have fewer award seats and/or higher redemption costs.  Weaker demand can lead to increased inventory and/or pricing.

[Gardyloo]

12 hours ago, Suzanne123 said:

I’ve been looking at the AA web site a couple times a day for the past several weeks.  I swear that the cabin availability and the cost in miles for those seats change every time I look.  Also, when they do have availability it’s on BA, and those flights have a stop in the U.S and another in London on the way to BCN. One stop is unavoidable from my little airport, but I would like to avoid an additional stop in London.

Anyway, I have 150,000 AA miles to use for a round trip Harrisburg (MDT) to Barcelona (BCN) Sept. 15 or Sept. 16 to Sept. 30 or Oct. 1 next year.

Just FYI, Celebrity air wants over $5,000 for a one way Business class flight MDT to BCN on United on 9/15. Ugh.

I read somewhere that the airlines don’t open all their ff seats right away.  I’m thinking I should not book the first flight  when it becomes available on Friday but wait until I can get a one (U.S.) stop flight on AA with the 57.5k miles that they usually charge for Business class.  

what do you think?

For next September/October you're just looking too early.  Airlines release seats into award inventory based on extremely complex (and extremely secret) computer algorithms that take numerous factors into account - current and previous sales, competition on given routes, historic loads on given days, and on and on...  This process continues hour by hour throughout the 11-month booking period, and trying to guess when the computers will make seats available requires an advanced degree from Hogwarts. 

For users of AA miles, one of the reasons (we think) that you can find award seats on British Airways earlier than other airlines, particularly AA, is that BA charges very high "carrier fees" or surcharges, on tickets acquired using miles.  Particularly in business class or above, these fees can amount to hundreds and hundreds of dollars per flight, often exceeding $1000 on a round trip.  AA passes these fees through to their mileage users.  The effect of this is that the miles you spend for an "award" seat are reduced in value hugely compared to using an airline that doesn't charge these additional fees.  (These fees need to be distinguished from taxes - airport taxes, departure taxes, etc. - that apply to all airlines.)  Because BA can count on these fees, it "costs" them less to make award seats available than it would on, say, American Airlines, so they seem to be more "generous" in making seats available.

If you want to use miles, particularly in business class, patience and persistence is the key.  Monitor the sites and be prepared to commit when you see something.  But don't be discouraged; the flights aren't going to sell out, and quite often the best availability in business class over the Atlantic shows up much later in the booking period.  You might not have that much patience, but trying to book almost a year in advance is often not the smartest move.

Regarding places where you can change planes, you're going to have to live with the fact that secondary cities like Barcelona (as opposed to London or Madrid, for example) don't have large numbers of daily flights from North America, and are only served nonstop from a few major hubs, like JFK in New York, Newark or maybe Philadelphia.  If you try for a "rifle shot" that meets all of your criteria - using miles, departure from your home airport, only one stop en route, specific days (to meet a cruise) and so on, then recognize that you're tying your hands behind your back because each of those preferences reduces the number of possibilities, until nothing works.  You're going to have to compromise at some point.

 

[Suzanne123]

 Thanks all for your explanations and advice.  Much to think about.😊