dabear Posted July 23 #1 Share Posted July 23 (edited) Last week AA first made available a round trip to Spain next June. On the second day PE fares were 157000 miles pp. Today (less than a week later) I went to book and AA now wants 176,000 miles pp. Yes, I know the supply/demand analysis but this is awful quick and disappointing.For DW & I , it's 40,000 more & now we"re short miles. Edited July 23 by dabear addition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare GeezerCouple Posted July 23 #2 Share Posted July 23 10 minutes ago, dabear said: Last week AA first made available a round trip to Spain next June. On the second day PE fares were 157000 miles pp. Today (less than a week later) I went to book and AA now wants 176,000 miles pp. Yes, I know the supply/demand analysis but this is awful quick and disappointing.For DW & I , it's 40,000 more & now we"re short miles. Have you ever looked at using awards to book flights on AA partner airlines? We've had very good luck with that, and at least in the past (we haven't traveled the past few years for health reasons, but we are about to start again), sometimes the number of points needed for partner airlines is less than the number needed if it were AA flights. And... the experience is often much better on some of the top international airlines. (We don't use awards for domestic flights.) Also, if you are just short a relatively small number of points, you can buy points to top your account up to what is needed. AAdvantage used to have some sales where points were close to half price, but that doesn't help much if you need the points *now*... unless they happen to be having a sale (?). Good luck! GC 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FlyerTalker Posted July 23 #3 Share Posted July 23 15 minutes ago, dabear said: Last week AA first made available a round trip to Spain next June. On the second day PE fares were 157000 miles pp. Today (less than a week later) I went to book and AA now wants 176,000 miles pp. Yes, I know the supply/demand analysis but this is awful quick and disappointing.For DW & I , it's 40,000 more & now we"re short miles. You had the opportunity to buy at 157K. You chose not to. Just how long was AA supposed to keep that price? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the mice Posted July 23 #4 Share Posted July 23 Awards seats can fluctuate in terms of both availability and number of miles required. Keep watching. Finding seats you want at the mileage you can "afford" doesn't always happen when the seats are first released. I have often taken weeks to find an award that I wanted. Sometimes it was often a few months after seats first opened for booking. And I second looking at partner awards. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6rugrats Posted July 23 #5 Share Posted July 23 (edited) I think the thread title is pretty misleading. Only a certain number of award seats are released at certain redemption rates. They probably were grabbed up by someone. You should always book when you see a good award redemption. AA does not charge you to cancel or change the award flights. Don't just sit on it if it's what you want. Availability/redemption rates constantly fluctuate. To the suggestion to look at AA's partners; the seats have to be available to book through AA if you are using AAdvantage miles. If you find BA seats, the fees are going to be as much as if you just purchased a ticket, at least in economy. Just keep checking you have a long, long time until June. Something may pop up. Edited July 23 by 6rugrats 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach1213 Posted July 23 #6 Share Posted July 23 13 hours ago, GeezerCouple said: And... the experience is often much better on some of the top international airlines. (We don't use awards for domestic flights.) If OP is going from the US to Spain, the partners would probably be BA or Iberia. Not sure I would refer to either of those as "top international airlines". They're fine, I fly on both of them (and AA) many times each year. But they're not necessarily any better than AA in either J or Y class, and sometimes worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FlyerTalker Posted July 23 #7 Share Posted July 23 2 hours ago, 6rugrats said: You should always book when you see a good award redemption. DING DING DING....we have a winner. He who hesitates is lost. As noted, there are a finite number of seats at various award levels. Just as there are a finite number of revenue seats at various price points. Would we be hearing the same complaint if someone found tickets for XXX dollars and later came back to find that there weren't any left at that price? (probably yes) Econ 101. No matter how much you might like to change it - and politicians of all stripes are fond of trying - they are immutable and ever present. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelectSys Posted July 24 #8 Share Posted July 24 @dabear I can share my own experience with AA rewards and dynamic redemption rates. Unlike in the past, it's rare to find premium awards at a low mileage rate when they first become available. This is a break from the past when the rewards had static redemption values and jumping on awards early was the main way to get awards tickets. As @6rugrats said, the redemption rates go up and down over time as a reflection of overall demand for the flight. So what is my strategy to getting tickets for long haul travel using AAdvantage miles? 1) Try and book an early seat even if it means sitting in economy. This works for me as I can get main cabin extra with my status and can still get some rest. I first simply want to make sure that I get to my destination on time for a cruise or other travel event. 2) Monitor the award seats for better redemption rates and change out if I find something better. AA really shines at allowing one to cancel and rebook award travel at will. 3) Try to remain flexible with exact dates to give myself the best opportunity to find a good award value ticket. Trading an extra day one way or another can make a big difference in redemption rates. 4) Always look to see how far your miles are going by dividing the cash ticket price by the number of miles. The "rule of thumb" - at least on the web - is that AA miles are worth 1.7 cents. If I am not getting at least 1.7 cents per mile, I won't likely book the flight. 5) I try and avoid BA and all their fees. It really cuts into the value of tickets and my understanding is that those fees aren't refundable if you cancel the award ticket (someone please check me on this as I am not really sure) How is my strategy working? Currently, I am sitting on 2, one way economy award tickets to Japan that I got for 37.5k / ticket. My goal is to hopefully exchange these seats for something better as it gets closer to my departure date. I am starting to see space available showing up in premium economy that requires a either an extremely short or long connection for around 50k. I could also switch to a JL economy with a connection for 2.5k less. Nothing as of yet too worthwhile for making a change. I am hopeful to get something better as the time gets closer. If nothing pans out, I still have a seat that gets me to Tokyo without too much pain before starting another trip! BTW - one way travel for a transatlantic or transpacific cruises is one of the best uses of miles in my opinion. Good luck! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dabear Posted July 24 Author #9 Share Posted July 24 SelectSys, great advice. Interestingly, I was still under the assumption that a good miles offers occurs when the flights first become available as described in my first post. In the past I was able to get business class seats at reasonable miles. As award miles increased we started to fly PE. As you described, I now will begin to monitor award miles flights. FYI, yesterday I actually did book an award one way return flight of my desired flights in economy and then paid for an upgrade to economy plus for the legroom, just as a backup. I now need to book my outbound flight when a decent award becomes available. It's still 10 months out and if I get nervous I may do the same thing for the outbound overnight flight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Gardyloo Posted July 24 #10 Share Posted July 24 2 hours ago, dabear said: SelectSys, great advice. Interestingly, I was still under the assumption that a good miles offers occurs when the flights first become available as described in my first post. In the past I was able to get business class seats at reasonable miles. As award miles increased we started to fly PE. As you described, I now will begin to monitor award miles flights. It's a commonly held notion that the early bird gets the worm with mileage redemption. Nope, in fact the early birds can get cats instead. Airlines release seats into award "buckets" when their very complex and very secret revenue management algorithms decide that the sales trends for specific flights indicate that there will be unsold seats (for money) at the end of the day. The robots are constantly monitoring and updating the data used to make these decisions, and as a result seats can come open at any time during the (typically) 11-month booking window. In fact, it's not uncommon for premium cabin seats (PE, business) to be MORE available a couple of weeks before the flight than they are/were earlier in the season. In these cases, the robots have decided it's unlikely that somebody is going to show up and pay thousands of dollars for the last few seats available on the flight. Of course that uncertainty isn't comfortable for people wanting to make a cruise sailing, so the airlines' use of "dynamic pricing" (i.e. unpredictability) for award seats comes into play. Sure, you can fly in the pointy end on July XX, but it's going to cost you. Some airlines DO release seats into award inventory earlier than others. British Airways is one of these, because their extreme fees added to the miles needed makes for a profitable outcome regardless. As suggested above, the best approach is to treat the miles/points as a form of currency, and look for deals that equate to the best value for "money." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelectSys Posted July 24 #11 Share Posted July 24 7 hours ago, dabear said: SelectSys, great advice. Interestingly, I was still under the assumption that a good miles offers occurs when the flights first become available as described in my first post I am glad you found my post useful. The whole awards process changed dramatically when dynamic awards became the norm. 7 hours ago, dabear said: I actually did book an award one way return flight of my desired flights in economy and then paid for an upgrade to economy plus for the legroom, just as a backup Great. I think you paid for a main cabin extra seat as I have not heard of economy plus on American? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6rugrats Posted July 25 #12 Share Posted July 25 Yes, UA has E+ not AA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dabear Posted July 25 Author #13 Share Posted July 25 5 hours ago, SelectSys said: I am glad you found my post useful. The whole awards process changed dramatically when dynamic awards became the norm. Great. I think you paid for a main cabin extra seat as I have not heard of economy plus on American? Correct, main cabin extra. Correct UA has E+ which we'll flying on to Europe next month. Thanks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the mice Posted July 25 #14 Share Posted July 25 I also think there is a lot more "competition" for award seats. Back around 2010 or so, a lot of people did not know about accruing and using airline miles. Enter The Points Guy and a number of other blogs all promoting how to travel for "free" (which it isn't) and pumping credit card sign ups. Now every newspaper and magazine runs articles on doing this. Banks are constantly promoting miles and points and many more people are looking to cash in. So lots more demand. Add in dynamic pricing, and it can be a real challenge. I'm quite literally ecstatic whenever I manage to get really good award seats in J at a great redemption rate. And I've also resigned myself to the fact that in the future I might have to pay actual $$ for our flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelectSys Posted July 25 #15 Share Posted July 25 10 hours ago, the mice said: I also think there is a lot more "competition" for award seats. I think you are correct that there is definitely more competition for premium award seats. I am not so sure as it relates to the economy seats. While my experience is just anecdotal, I tend to see lots of economy award seats available at what are "reasonable" redemption rates. 10 hours ago, the mice said: Add in dynamic pricing, and it can be a real challenge The "good news" about dynamic pricing is that seats are always available for claiming. It's also possible to find some good deals if you are willing to invest your time. 10 hours ago, the mice said: I've also resigned myself to the fact that in the future I might have to pay actual $$ for our flights I pay for most of my flights since the restart of travel following COVID. The key, just like with award seats, is to be flexible on timing and airports utilized. One of my main uses for points these days has been to position myself to use other paid tickets. This can be a very effective use of points in my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the mice Posted July 25 #16 Share Posted July 25 15 minutes ago, SelectSys said: I think you are correct that there is definitely more competition for premium award seats. I am not so sure as it relates to the economy seats. While my experience is just anecdotal, I tend to see lots of economy award seats available at what are "reasonable" redemption rates Yes, I do see lots of economy awards at more reasonable rates but business class awards are definitely harder to come by. Unfortunately, DH won't fly an overnight in anything but a lie-flat anymore. Since that is usually the start of a trip, I need to get it off to a good start since he's not the best traveler. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare GeezerCouple Posted July 27 #17 Share Posted July 27 About that dynamic pricing... I have *not* looked recently, as we haven't gone overseas since Covid. However, for many years before that, including the very end of 2019, we found that AAdvantage's partner airlines required *fewer* AAdv points for the same class of service than if we flew in AA planes. And there was no dynamic pricing at all; the same flight on any day was the same number of points. This was true for Business (J) and F (where it still exists). And the equipment and service on some of those partner airlines was superb! Not at all bad, given that there were fewer points needed! This was especially the case when heading to Asia (Hong Kong & Japan) or Australia/NZ. The premium lounges were terrific, also. AA has probably changed their award program ( 😞 ?), so I should look... GC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOB999 Posted July 27 #18 Share Posted July 27 1 hour ago, GeezerCouple said: About that dynamic pricing... I have *not* looked recently, as we haven't gone overseas since Covid. However, for many years before that, including the very end of 2019, we found that AAdvantage's partner airlines required *fewer* AAdv points for the same class of service than if we flew in AA planes. And there was no dynamic pricing at all; the same flight on any day was the same number of points. This was true for Business (J) and F (where it still exists). And the equipment and service on some of those partner airlines was superb! Not at all bad, given that there were fewer points needed! This was especially the case when heading to Asia (Hong Kong & Japan) or Australia/NZ. The premium lounges were terrific, also. AA has probably changed their award program ( 😞 ?), so I should look... GC This is still (generally) the case, particularly in the Premium cabins. AA only dynamically prices awards on their own flights, partner awards are still priced at the old award chart levels. Of course the flip side of this is that partner awards (particularly in the Premium cabins) are tough to come by. Some (BA, cough cough) are accompanied by high airline surcharges. In nearly all cases on AA metal, if a seat is available for sale with cash, it is also available with miles, just might be a heck of a lot of miles. The AA search engine will also (IME) not combine AA's dynamically priced awards with partner awards, so searching for connections can be a challenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare taxatty Posted August 3 #19 Share Posted August 3 For transatlantics to and from Spain using AA points/miles, IB is generally your best bet for finding reasonable (example, 57.5K one-way) business awards. Some may require a domestic or LHR connection. I've booked various AA partner (IB, BA, QF, JL and CX) business awards immediately upon AA's award release "opening bell" precisely at 1:00 EST, others may show up later with no set pattern--as was stated, you have to be vigilant. IB charges higher fees than AA, but much lower than BA. IB is a decent airline for flying, but in my experience, it has the worst customer service of any airline I've flown. It took me almost 2 years, many calls and emails, and finally filing a US DOT complaint to get my money for a flight IB cancelled when the COVID pandemic began. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelectSys Posted August 19 #20 Share Posted August 19 On 7/23/2024 at 7:59 PM, SelectSys said: Currently, I am sitting on 2, one way economy award tickets to Japan that I got for 37.5k / ticket. My goal is to hopefully exchange these seats for something better as it gets closer to my departure date I was finally able to find something a bit better this morning in premium economy seats for 60k per seat on a flight with a much better departure and arrival times. This really isn't a great deal, but the improved timing of the flight and a somewhat better seat got me over the edge. I am still holding out some amount of hope that JAL awards or a cheap AA business class award will become available between now and my preferred flight date. If not, we will be fine with what we have. The bottom line is that dynamic awards require more effort and patience to find seats at a reasonable price. BTW - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovesalchows Posted August 19 #21 Share Posted August 19 I realize it is apples and oranges, but I got a better deal on an AA award ticket a month out. It seems they did indeed release more inventory. I was originally booked on FinnAir with two stops and was able to rebook on AA PE with one stop. So just keep checking. I am so glad they backtracked off of charging to award ticket changes a few years ago! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelectSys Posted August 19 #22 Share Posted August 19 (edited) 5 hours ago, ilovesalchows said: I am so glad they backtracked off of charging to award ticket changes a few years ago! Me too. This is especially important with dynamic awards. In AA's latest investor day presentation and in other public comments, AA stated that AAdvantage is a big source of high margin revenue. AA also views their program as a competitive advantage over their primary competitors UA and DL. It will be interesting to see how the program evolves... https://americanairlines.gcs-web.com/static-files/383c2fd2-a7dc-476f-bd0d-9e9b05e9b98c Edited August 19 by SelectSys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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