American Airlines has taken the use of married segments to a whole new level, prompting a reasonable question: Why does AA loathe New York City residents? But don’t worry NYC…I’ve got your back.
Last month, I wrote about the lack of “sAAver” first class award space on American Airlines. I challenged anyone to find me a single day that had three-cabin first space available on a 777-300ER. There are now several dates with space…but with a big asterisk next to it.
Want to fly to New York in AA First Class on August 31st? It will cost you 140K miles.
But want to fly onward to Los Angeles or San Francisco? You can get both segments, in first class, for 85K AA miles. How’s that for logic? That’s right, by adding a six-hour flight, you save 55K miles…
And you can find examples like this all summer long…
I’ve written about the logic behind married segments in the past – please read my primer here. But in terms of premium cabin redemptions, this really illustrates a great arbitrage opportunity.
If you are a New York or East Coast resident, I am absolutely telling you to book a “throw-away” connection to San Francisco or Los Angeles and hop off in New York.
If you are wondering why AA is continuing punish New York residents, the answer is simple enough: hub “captive’ passengers are stuck using AA, so why cut them a break? But charging dramatically less for A + B than A alone is not the way to win enduring loyalty from your hub customers.
The True Problem
Even if New York residents understand why AA wants to attract customers in San Francisco, they have every right to be angry when American NEVER shows New York any love.
That’s the bottom line. The problem is not the use of married segment fare logic, which does make sense to lure customers away from competitor hubs. What does not make sense is the fact that throughout the entire 11-month calendar there is not a single day that you can get a saver first class seat between New York and London when booked alone. Even as flights go out empty or filled with employees in first class, AA simply does not make saver space available, despite still claiming to offer these so-called “sAAver” awards by virtue of its award chart.
That’s the true travesty here…
> Read More: American Airlines’ Devaluation Without A Devaluation
What the heck are you talking about? I’m in DFW and they do this all the time. It has nothing to do with NYC. It’s some sort of strategy that they have. If I want nonstop from DFW on AA I’ll have to connect in order to use a saaver fare. If not, then I connect in RDU, CLT, ORD, PHL or JFK to get to Europe.
No other airline that I know of does this but AA. It has nothing to do with NYC. If you want a nonstop then you pay more miles.
Maybe with dynamic pricing it’ll change. We shall see.
Today the example was JFK, but I’ve written before that AA does the same thing to nonstop flights out of all hubs. But since all married segment saver first class space goes through New York, it presented a better example for today’s post.
You might have done other segments on other cities but there is no “loathing” NYers. If AA does it at all of their hubs. If they did this exclusively at JFK I could see your point. They always want me to connect thru a hub no matter how many nonstop flights there are in order to use a saaver award.
But since i fly out of DFW I have no choice. I fly nonstop when I pay cash, but on award tickets I have to connect thru PHX, LAX, RDU, MIA, ORD, CLT, JFK or PHL in order to fly to LHR.
I hear you, but nearly every day in July you can fly between New York JFK and London LHR in first class on AA (saver level)…but only if the trio starts or ends in San Francisco.
That is a striking slap to residents of New York City who also want to use their AA miles to go to Europe.
But yet our politicians celebrate a ‘hometown airline’ that penalizes those that live at home… I guess you can fly from HPN or ISP, but then you are connecting.
The thinking there is that they might sell a JFK-LHR flight, so they do not want someone spending miles for it who might pay cash. Whereas they are VERY unlikely to lose a cash buying SFO-LHR in first by offering SFO-JFK-LHR award availability.
Not justifyiug or suggesting this is a reasonable approach to New York AAdvantage members just offering the why.
thanks for the explanation
I must be dense as how does that add up if the same seat from JFK-LHR is allocated to an SFO person instead of a JFK person? It’s a warm butt on the same seat, same day, same flight. One less seat to sell whatever way you turn it.
Buyer beware, should you run into Irrops therrs a good chance they will put you onto a non-stop BA flight to SFO or via MIA or DFW, ORD etc etc if your bag doesnt make your flight for whatever reason it will be sent to SFO and the cost will be on you to get it to NY
Recently ran into this problem elsewhere took awhile to convince the airport folks where I was that Id rather wait 12 hrs till their next flight and overnight at the connecting hub in Europe then to be rerouted w/o the overnight. Took the supervisor getting involved to get it OKed.
My point is its not always a slam dunk way to save and can end up biting you instead, cant help but feel that had anyone been doing this the past few days with NY getting hit hard Weather wise, they would have been up the creek w/o a paddle and checking out The Golden Gate Bridge as they were rerouted to SFO
i pity the losers who actually think a worthless Trumpian airline like AA knows jack shit about how to service the largest economic engine of the nation.
Articles like this really diminish the meaning and impact of words like “hate” and “loathe.”
Perhaps, but when you would rather send out half full first class cabins than offer saver awards, I’m not sure I was all that far off…
I loathe hyperbole…
I am not quite sure what you mean by NYC residents are hub captive for AA… NYC isn’t DFW or CLT and AA has, by far, the smallest hub of the four large carriers in NYC.
I was referring to AA customers. If they want to remain loyal to AA, they are stuck dealing with award inventory policies that hurt them.
This goes on with revenue tickets as well. I was recently looking at Premium Economy seats for clients on several trips.
MIA-GRU completely sold out months in advance in PE (presumably to encourage local market passengers to book business class), but lots of availability for XXX-MIA-GRU for dirt cheap fares in PE.
LAX-LHR? Have to book higher W class fares to sit in PE on many dates, while LAX-LHR-XXX has discounted P class availability.
Married segments represents a huge evolution in revenue optimization for all the airlines.
Does the same apply when in economy?
The bottom side of this coin is that the airlines are offering cheaper tickets to other people. They expect X amount of redeemed miles per quarter, year, etc. and get to that number through a multitude of pricing strategies including this JFK LHR example. But because they forecast some people to redeem at these rates they are able to charge fewer miles in other areas. Maybe not quite a zero sum game but there are some winners out there while New York is most definitely the losing party.
Good thing NYC customers are not hub captive since every other airline flies from NYC.
I am completely confused. On the surface this just seems like the most absurd shell game ever concocted. But there seems to be some sentiment here that there is reason for this beneath the surface? That some bean counter has justification? I never got it really with paid fares and why they do this….so I sure don’t get it with awards.
What is a ‘throw away’ flight?
1) Piggybacking on Gary’s post, AA can also occaisonally oversell business class and on JFK to LHR and op-up some customers to first class. They would rather sell a business class seat for cash and put that passenger in first rather than have those first class seats occupied by a customer that paid miles.
2) AA customers are by no means “hub captive.” They are free to fly other airlines, and most of them seem to do so. First class availability to London from JFK is limited no matter what airline. NYC is one of the only markets where there is a deep customer base for cash business class tickets to Europe. The airlines adjust accordingly
3) San Francisco is a lovely city, and economy one-way flights to San Francisco can run as low as $200 on Delta, Jet Blue, whatever. It may make sense for customers originating in NYC to fly out to San Francisco, spend the weekend there then book these flights to London.
So, this means that there was a Z seat available between LHR and JFK. If I were to call the AA EXP desk, I assume they could grab the seat for me at the correct price.
No, married segments means flights are not available on an individual basis.
But as an EXP, I can make changes to my routing at no cost, so I assume I could book SFO-JFK-LHR, get it ticketed, and then call back and drop SFO-JFK.
Not in this case, because what AA brought together, let me no man break apart. By that I mean the two are considered one segment. It takes an agent willing to go the extra miles and break the rules to separate the two.