Here's How To Save BIG On American Business Class Fares

Grrrr you just gave away one of the best kept secrets! The airlines are surely going to eventually catch on to this I would think.

Note: this also works great on coach fares. We did MSP-CDG-LHR-MSP a few years ago and booked as a package (and actually used the hotel) and the flight total was only $980 pp for all flights. If we would have booked those flights separate they would have been about $1,800 pp.

Do other Airlines have something like this too? United, Air Canada, maybe even Turkish?

@ ORD Flyer - If you benefitted from this deal years ago, it's not any kind of secret. It's been all over FT for ages, not hidden in the tricks thread or something like that.

Are their any reprocussions if you don't check into the hotel?

The same works with Delta Vacations. I've booked my boss on trips and the cost is always less than the flight as long as you choose a reasonable hotel. In my experience the only time it gets hairy is when you need a multiple destination itinerary and only want to book the one round trip. I booked him through Vacations to Amsterdam for a GREAT deal, but he needed to go to Berlin and London. I think we just booked the whole thing and paid for hotel in Amsterdam even when he wasn't in the city. I know we still ended up saving a TON of money though.

I did this in Maui. Actually did a rental car that we actually needed instead of a hotel. It wasn't 50% savings, but it was around 25-30%. I didn't know it was a "trick," I just happened to give it a try and liked the deal. 😛

@chancer it's a little different being out there for years on FT and whereever else, and somewhere like OMAAT. Let's see how long it lasts now. History is our guide.

@ nemme - The fares quoted here are good compared to non-package prices but would be much better during sales like the one AA Vacations had in September which was written about in a post on TPG credited to FT. You can argue which blog gets more attention, but I wouldn't call anything that's appeared on TPG a secret of any kind.

Ben, you are correct that the flights are eligible for upgrades, however, the process can be very challenging and can take a very long time. I’ve recently done this myself and the AA Vacations agent told me that their computer system is not fully integrated with AA’s system. Because of that, if you want to use miles, 500-mile upgrades, or system wide upgrades, you are required to call AA Vacations, the AA Vacation agent in turn will contact an AAdvantage agent. The AAdvantage agent will book new upgraded tickets. After the tickets are booked, the AA Vacation agent will cancel your original reservation, use the upgraded tickets and rebook the hotel, car, etc. that was on your original reservation. It can be done, but it can take several calls into AA Vacations to get an agent to actually do it and understand what to do.

can you use this for origins other than US?

Perhaps this is obvious, but wasn't clear (or I glossed over it):
If one does this to save solely on the airfare, and then doesn't use the hotel (cancel), will that flag anything with AA Vacations where in they cancel your return air?

It looks like you can book the hotel for as little as one night, although I believe you are charged for three. This makes these mile-runnable.

Can you book it the other way around? I mean for travel from Europe to the states?

@ nemme, etc.
To be fair to Ben, he waited a while to post about this. A few days after the FT thread went live, AA Vacations increased their prices. Still a good deal, particularly for Europe, but it used to be better.

Can I credit these flights booked through AA vacations and earn miles on oneworld partners (like BA) as normal?

I would like to get this clear. I travel to Milan for 2 weeks but going to the AA Vacation phone line I will get the business class fare published by them by just staying at the cheapest hotel for 3 (three) days?

This has been working for years with ba.com & BA Holidays, and also back in the day for travel agents (when I was one) where there were discounted airfares which could only be sold with some ground product.

So this isn't new, it's just revealing what's been around for years.

However beware - most hotel chains will not allow you to accrue their points/benefit from your status with them.

looks like these packages only work for departures from the US or Canada.
Below the warning when trying to use Europe or Asia as origin:

"American Airlines Vacations does not offer vacation packages from the departure city you have entered. For vacation packages that include a flight, you must depart from a city within the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands."

Even launching a request from a US airport and trying to modify the search to depart from outside the US/Canada, once in the site suggests a few options, will result in getting the nice "Oops! Something went wrong!" feedback... at least for me 😉

Is there a way to book the minimum hotel nights (say 3) even if the tota trip time is much longer (2 weeks+)? I am not given the option to choose the number of nights.

Yeah, too bad only for trips originating in the US, why do you think AA makes that distinction?

I've been booking on aavacation for this for years. But what the article does not tell you is that your EQM and EQD are necessarily going to be the amount your expect. You need to call aavacations with your plans itennary and find out your actual actual