Sometimes you don’t have to officially devalue a loyalty program for a real devaluation to occur.
American Airlines, at least for now, still has a saver award chart with fixed-rate award prices to each region in the world. This “saver” space (X for economy, U for business, Z for first class) is capacity controlled, but has historically been available, especially if you planned travel in advance.
I’ve been trying, for several weeks now, to book an AA saver award in first class. This is one first class product I have yet to review (I last reviewed AA’s now-retired 777-200 first class a few years back) and a product long overdue for inclusion in my trip report library.
Foolishly optimistic, I started by only checking space between Los Angeles and London. Depending on the time of year, American operates 1-2 flights a day on the 777-300 featuring an eight-seat first class cabin.
But there was no saver space. Not tomorrow. Not next week…or next month…or next year. Nothing at all. Thus, earlier this week I dramatically broadened by search. Instead of only focusing on the London to Los Angeles route, I checked out all AA first class routes, including:
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) to Hong Kong (HKG)
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) to London (LHR)
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) to São Paulo (GRU)
- Los Angeles (LAX) to Hong Kong (HKG)
- Los Angeles (LAX) to London (LHR)
- Miami (MIA) to Buenos Aires (EZE)
- Miami (MIA) to London (LHR)
- Miami (MIA) to São Paulo (GRU)
- New York Kennedy (JFK) to London (LHR)
- New York Kennedy (JFK) to São Paulo (GRU)
And guess what? No space. From today through EOS (end of schedule next April), not a single route above has a single saver seat.
While I am sure pass-riding employees love this, what gives? Why is inventory management so incredibly stingy? I get why AA would hold back space if it routinely sold out its first class cabins. But I’ve been monitoring the LHR-LAX flights and they are often EMPTY a day or two before departure. Again, what gives?
A Stealth Devaluation Is Still A Devaluation
I know I can redeem as little as 140K AA miles for a one-way “standard” award (prices start at 140K and can rise above 300K for a one-way ticket). But isn’t 85K enough for AA first class? What is the point of having a saver award chart when there are NEVER any saver awards available?
It’s a brilliant move, really. The old award chart stays and consumers are duped into thinking they can actually use their AA miles to fly AA premium cabins at a reasonable price.
But AA isn’t fooling many. We see the lack of space, especially in first class. Throw in the new lack of transparency with its horrific new award search interface and I’m wondering what comes next. At least partner award space should still be available.
CONCLUSION
So can any of you find 777-300ER first class space on an AA international flight? If so, I want to book it. But I doubt you’ll find anything, at least not now. All we can hope for is a dumping of space one day like AA once did in the ever-distant past…
Perhaps my time is better spent searching out cheap AA revenue business class tickets and hoping to upgrade them to first class with a systemwide upgrade. Because I’m done (at least for now) with the time-consuming searches for award space that is not there.
It’s not just F. Try C to Europe on AA metal-Same.
I was able to find C with some patience. It is certainly annoying.
Nobody seems to mention that the new search for saver mileage flights NEVER offer you a nonstop flight ANYWHERE in the US. If you want to go Mia-JFK unless you use anytime miles You will be routed thru CLT or PHL. I have 2,6000,000 miles and I cant use them unless i want to use all the miles to go Mia-Syd 1st class for 580,000 1 person and the 18 hr leg is coach! Good riddance
When they flew the 777-3ER to Sydney I snagged SYD-LAX I F. The F cabin was full of AA employees, at least based on conversations I overheard. All 8 seats were full, me on an award and 6-7 AA employees. Beyond that you aren’t missing much.
I just need to review it once.
About 2 years ago I decided to utilize my points as quick a s I can, get rid of all AA credit cards, pay and fly other airlines , and utilize other portals. I am Platinum for life. There is life after American Airlines. I pay for business class when I can. I utilize Amex and Chase cards for points. I live in DFW area. I only pay for AA flights when I have to due to circumstances. I was a good AAdvantage member for 30 years. No longer. I am done with AA until Doug Parker is removed.
Welcome to the world of AA. Been an almost daily topic or comment on Gary Leff’s blog for years
Amen, Same boat for me when they refused to honor my EXP exception request when a flight started prior to 01/01 but ended two days after. 22 years and 4MM miles – lost me for good. Freedom is kind of liberating with some matching from United and Delta.
Good riddance to AAdvantage. AA has made it clear that they are no longer interested in my multi-year EXP business. I am now (happily) well on my way to MVP Gold 75K requalification. Will save the 85K miles and spend 15K fewer miles on a Q-Suite redemption instead. Short-sighted idiots.
This is what happens when a company makes all its money selling miles. It is the old bait and switch.
Seems that way.
I’ve also noticed this trend and been pretty frustrated by it.
However, there are a small handful of dates available ex-GRU that offer first class at the saver award rate. It’s hard to find, but they’re there. Usually you have to do a married segment onward to somewhere else rather than terminating your trip in MIA or JFK to find the space.
A couple of days ago I specifically found GRU-MIA-LAX with GRU-MIA in international first class for same dates in May. Unfortunately the available dates didn’t work for me.
Generally I think you are right, however I snagged 3 F seats HKG to LAX this July on the same plane so sometimes weird inventory releases do occur
AA will not give you nonstop First Class intercontinental saaver award. You will have to connect somewhere, either JFK or MIA and as last resort, DFW. I have done it before.
Good luck
I don’t see space to any hub, though.
While sometimes AA will make a seat available as part of married segments only and not for a single segment, that doesn’t seem to the case here.
I just searched for some non-AA hubs (ATL, DEN, MSY) to GRU, and there is no First sAAver itinerary available through EOS.
I literally just booked a ticket in AA F yesterday. SFO—>JFK—> LHR in three cabin first the entire way. It looks like there are still seats available – look at June 3rd
Your point still stands though; availability so so stingy as to be deceptive advertising.
For a brief period of time last year, both DFW-GRU and MIA-GRU had wide open saver availability in F during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Like, literally, multiple seats available 5 out of 7 days a week from May through EOS (August at the time). They tend to do this. The floodgates will open randomly and then slam shut again for months.
I’d say I regret not pulling the trigger – but it’s because I ended up choosing KE and ANA F for my summer boondoggle instead, so not really.
THIS. I had the same experience and had to change my RT from DFW multiple times. Then on the leg back to DFW I had to find an additional seat on the same flight and even managed to do that ok. So imagine my surprise this year, now that we want to go back. I’ve been checking every day for 4-5 months. Not one seat at any time.
Why do none of the other big travel sites/groups talk about this? I’ve been looking for that to know I’m not crazy. Just another article about how “He” used Saaver miles to travel somewhere in first internationally. Paid off by the airlines to keep pushing what is becoming baloney maybe?
Book the cheap biz fare and upgrade with a SWU. Upgrade space is usually available from J to F, that’s the irony. I booked a J ticket from HKG-DFW to a random Mexican city for $1700 and upgraded to F with a SWU. This is for this summer.
Good tip. Thanks.
Same results here. No international premium seat availability at saver level.
Last week I called Citi and cancelled my Advantage cards. She asked the reason and I said lack of saver availability on AA flights.
If enough people do this maybe it can apply some pressure.
FYI AA uses the ‘T’ RBD for economy mileage saver awards
Is this not legitimate cause for a class action lawsuit?
Nope. It’s a bait and switch to be sure, but they can run their program legally in that way if they do choose. It certainly demolished their credibility.
Interesting! I didn’t realize AA still had first class. So maybe they’re hoping other people don’t either???
I’m not sure why they would reserve It only for employees, but that seems to be the trend.
I have no doubt that AA is generally unnecessarily stingy with award space. I also wonder if the problem was worse recently because of the elimination of the 10% rebate for credit card holders.
We might have just experienced a perfect storm where (a) AA decided to hold back space to restrict redemptions before the benefit ended on May 1 and (b) more people were searching for space just before May 1 in order to make one last redemption at a discount.
Will be interesting to see if any space shakes loose…
Let’s see. That’s an interesting theory.
I concur. Partly why I redeemed for JAL F seats on 4/30 was that I couldn’t find any saver AA fares to Europe and wanted to maximize my 10%.
Why on earth do you think this is something new? This has been the story with AA premium cabin availability for years. You’re just noticing this now? This “stealth devaluation” occurred at least 4 or 5 years ago.
I run an award consulting service. I’ve never seen it this bad and I look often. But you’re right, AA has been going down this path for many years.
I disagree, up until three years ago award redemption for EXP was easy, available, and frequent. A shift seemed to come when ConciergeKey was suddenly offered to everyone and then EXP became nothing (as it stands now). I beleive that CK systems/processes may be hoarding award availability since I know many CKs that have no issues. Seems they are just concentrating on holding on to the corporate purchasers and screwing the road warriors.
As an AA pass rider who obviously tries to fly F whenever possible, it’s not quite so straightforward. Most of the time the F cabin is full of J to F upgrades, along with the handful of seats it sells. For many flight, unless you’re flying in off season, F is difficult to get into, even using a high priority vacation pass. The flights to HKG are the worst. Flights to GRU seem to be more open, usually. I think AA wants to reward business travelers more than the no status folks that want to save up miles to fly F once. There is almost always upgrade space, but almost never confirmed mileage space.
Yup it’s for the intl heavy Explats whose companies pay for full J and want to use SWUs or miles easily. Most profitable customers.
They don’t get much use out of SWUs on 2 cabin.
I’ve seen F awards on a married segment basis, but not likely originating in LAX. I’d check SAN->LAX->LHR->CDG or something like that.
Also, J->F upgrades are easy, if you want get into paid J somehow.
I’ve seen F awards on a married segment basis, but not likely originating in LAX. I’d check SAN->LAX->LHR->CDG or something like that.
Also, J->F upgrades are easy, if you can get into paid J somehow.
Welcome to the real world. Most people don’t have Expert Flyer apps or other tools to find award space. In fact, most award bookers don’t even know much about how to do it so imagine how hard it is to find premium seat awards for the average Joe/Jane 6-pack. AA has been on this path for a while now and with planes full and the economy booming it’s not likely to stop until they devalue (again). Remember it’s wasn’t long ago you could book off-peak premium seats on USAir metal to Europe roundtrip for 60k in points AND actually find availability. Now it’s 115k and hard to find on AA metal. What is the next devaluation amount 150k, 200k? Come to think of it maybe that’s why I let my AA elite status expire and I’m booked on Delta next week. Not that Delta is great but when the playing field is level it matters little who I choose. #endrant
Considering truth-in-advertising, instead of advertising a “mile sAAver award,” it might be more appropriate for American Airlines to advertise a “never sAAver award.”
you really don’t need to review it, it’s been done a thousand times. save your points for something worthwhile
The airlines need to be continuosly called out this behavior.
I’ve seen F awards on a married segment basis, but not likely originating in LAX. I’d check SAN->LAX->LHR->CDG or something like that.
Also, J->F upgrades are easy, if you want get into paid J somehow.
This is really annoying. I was EXP for several years, and gave up last year. Also the introduction of Married Segment availability a while ago was a very negative initiative. One side effect was that it made setting up alerts on ExpertFlyer less effective for AA award space.
Aadvantage was such a great FF program, and it’s amazing how low it got.
The dearth of C inventory for eVIP’s has been a real buzz kill for me. I got extra VIP’s last year & this year for > 200,000 miles. But what’s the point? I have 2 trips booked this summer to BNE & HKG where the upgrade cleared on the outbound. If the return upgrade looks dicey prior to departure, I’m cancelling — I purchased packages on AA vacations, so only lose the insurance cost.
For at least a couple of years now, AA premium cabin space gets released occasionally in large batches and then much or all of it pulled a day or two later. Z space can be booked, but only if you’re willing to wait for it and jump when it does show up.
Given the small number of planes operating with F cabins, they may be being even more stingy with award space due to the problems arising from equipment swaps.
I agree and it’s become dismal finding saver awards. Even in business. The few times I have redeemed for F in AA it was me and no one else but off duty AA employees. We all know that no fool on earth would ever pay a premium for first on AA so what on earth are they hoping for? Foolish lottery winners from West Virginia who don’t know any better?
I was fortunate enough to finally find an AA unicorn (back on Jan 10, 2019):
2 tix, LAX-JFK-LHR (F on 777-300, both legs) for 85k each (minus my 10%, so 80k) for later this month.
Of course, they tried to shake me loose by moving the first leg departure up from 6:30am to a 12:30am departure. Nice try, I’m not budging.
Now, it looks as though I’ll be having dinner at the LAX AA Flagship First lounge, and a (now leisurely) breakfast & lunch at the JFK AA Flagship First lounge.
I’m now down to just over 80k miles remaining in my account…
Congrats!
I’m seeing plenty of business saver availability, some on ba, and plenty on as metal. From Tampa to carious cities in Europe.
This happens all the time for a while there is limited availability for saver space, then American opens up inventory and you can get any route you want on saver.
Only half of the story !
OW FC TATL Anytime awards used to be priced at an outrageous 140K miles. Even as recently as last year.
Now those are few and far between, with the new price being 175K, or even 225K. Virtually all of Sept and Oct TATL from the US to Europe on AA metal has not a single day at 140K. So while the other commenters here are correct that the dearth of Saver Awards has been true to several years, the new unannounced disappearance of even 140K Anytime awards is recent, and I haven’t seen anything about it on the major travel blogs. Except for my posted comments on stories about AA, of course. 😉
700K to 900K miles for a pair of RT FC TATL seats? At this rate, the price by 2023 will be 25 Million miles. Meanwhile, AA will still be offering a 25% discount on purchased AA miles. ;(
I am based in Boston, For my last six reward trips, I have never been able to find an award on American in premium cabins. I have used my miles extensively for first and business on BA with my AA miles, but I have yet to land any on on AA. The last award ticket on AA with miles for me was nearly ten years ago.
But on BA I have enjoyed flights to Istanbul, Nirobi, London, Rome, Madrid and more, all with AA miles because AA had no availability.
The worst part is that I have essentially paid for my points. Sure, I earn a chunk of them as a flyer with perennial status but most come from heavy use of my credit cards for paying estimated taxes. To pay taxes with a cc requires a convenience fee of about 1.9%, so I am paying 1.9 cents per mile.
So lets take my tickets for my family vacation this summer to Italy.
We found first class BOS-LHR and business LHR-FCO and return business MXP to LHR and first LHR to BOS all on BA.
The seats were 185K points each.
185K * .019=$3515 dollars per ticket,
But then AA/BA tacks on fees of $1678 for a total of $5,193.
I could have purchased a similar route for the same amount of investment for cash, with better routing options and more flexibility.
So, in general, not only have the miles been devalued, but there is almost no availability. I have been trying for months for reward seats to Auckland and virtually nothing is available. If I am essentially paying near cash value for redemption awards, and the airlines are receiving near cash value for their seats, then why are they blocking them out at all?????
You are so right. I had the same experience for a LHR-LAX in March. I started my search 2 months in advance up to a week before departure. No F saver seats. I was able to get a business saver and on the flight C was only half full and F only had 4 in it. So confusing. This is coming from someone that worked at AA for over 20 years both in RM and Sales and Marketing. Things are so much different since the merger/takeover.
try phoning their card reservation number, I always have better luck with flights to s.e. asian doing that, their site is slim pickens for those flights, but alway successful when calling, ( and better times than when flight are f0und on their site.
Anyone who continues to chase airline miles is dilutional. Get a cash back card.
does the tax man get a cut yet ?
I had an AA first award flight booked MIA-LHR for September 2018 (booked maybe a week before flying) and plans changed. I arbitrarily changed the flight to July, 2019, expecting that I’d be able to change to a date that worked better for me (and avoid the re-deposit fee) closer to day of. Nothing has been available since I changed the ticket last September. Guess I’m going to London for 4th of July…
After thinking about this. Someone should record AA.com award searching for AA metal premium seats for all long haul routes. It would take what an hour or two and then upload this to Youtube and tip off some media types until it goes viral to shame AA.