Earlier this year American introduced a new booking interface, though their rollout has been slow. This new interface has been especially bad for award tickets, as the calendar function with the new interface mostly hasn’t been working properly.
Continue reading: American’s First & Business Class Web Special Awards
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Selling these without saver equivalent makes sense. They don't have to market to their partners. This is great for people who actually fly American a lot. Not good for people who like to transfer amex miles to Etihad for cheap American flights.
@Lucky Do you think your blog had anything to do with American reducing the award price for first class flights to HKG? 🙂
What's confusing is that the website sends me to either the old or the new award listing screen, apparently at random. The web specials do not appear on the old-style page.
Just to highlight how absurd it is: I just booked a web special, and then when trying to search another, I keep getting the old screen. Strange.
Actually, update on my previous posting: the old screen DOES list web specials, but only in economy.
1. The old interface is still avail. When searching for a flight you need to click at the top “plan travel” then “fights”. However the old interface only shows economy web specials not bus.
2. I just booked 25k west coast to east coast in bus. So hopefully we will see some more of those tkts
Would this cheap fares deemed exploitative practice by AA will result in shutdowns on our accounts?
Yep, was looking for a short haul AA flight to book with Avios lately. Tons of 5k “web saver” availability on AA but 0 BA Availability because there is zero “saver” inventory.
Avi and Alex are correct, I’m afraid
They need to just rip off the bandaid and copy southwest's program...which is where this is going. All of these web special and other deal contraptions probably cost then a WHOLE LOT MORE money to configure and administrate than just going with a fixed ratio of points to fare values. Put any remnants of the former AAdvantage out of it's misery and let it be done. Loyalty died a long time ago.
"The only thing you can’t do is change the dates and times for free".
Not totally accurate. I recently booked a web special award under my wife's maiden name and requested to update it to her married name. I was told both by the gold desk and a twitter rep that absolutely no changes are allowed, even minor name corrections that would otherwise be allowed for free, specifically because it was a "web special".
After what you have gone though, I'll save my miles for some other applications. My parents gave me a name and even they don't call me "woohoo".
Interesting, some of these web specials appear to book into J and F. I wonder if there’s a way to credit the mileage to another program? Hypothetically, of course!
Does anyone know how often “dynamic pricing“ changes? Hourly? Daily? Would be nice to know so we wouldn’t have to keep checking the computer minute by minute .
Good morning, I just came across your blog. I am an international aadvantage reservation agent retired 10+years . Fyi married fares/mileage were in existence years ago. I don't travel often and I'm sorry to see such unhappiness withAA. I was there during the end of the Campell years. Such a
difference.
No more saaver tickets (economy or business) for flights booked under a week before departure. Instead, everything is a “web special” at a higher rate than Saaver.
This SUCKS. No more last minute BA redemptions for AA domestic flights. Was always the better deal and was a favorite redemption of mine for last second trips home.
After they illegal garnished nikes yesterday and cancelled tickets. Who would use this?
Lucky - What will happen when trying to redeem for AA on BA? Can you still book AA like that and if so, at what rates?
Lucky,
Any suggestions of how to search for availability with the married segment logic? For example, if you want to determine whether the DFW-HKG flight is available what city do you choose as your origin since simply searching DFW-HKG probably won’t show anything.
@ James -- For the most part I find that American's married segment logic isn't that sophisticated. It seems like just about any market will show the availability, as long as there's a connection. So if you want to get a general sense of availability I'd probably choose a high frequency route that's not from a hub.
My wife and I enjoy first and business class but like being together and playing cards and after 53 years still enjoy holding hands. We do not like the "pods" most first class offers. Which planes would be best , which airlines are still old fashion for others like us
TBH, I’m tired as most are of the endless changes and machinations on all airlines, especially AA. But perhaps someone could kindly explain the redemption fees. Until I gave up chasing last year thanks to diminishing returns, I’d been EP for 6 years running. Even then anytime I tried to redeem miles, the international fee was much higher than $5.60 each way(one Caribbean redemption was roughly $38/each way). So how does Lucky (and for that matter, the good folks at TPG) consistently show $5.60 even for flights to Asia?!?
Thanks for any explanations...
I have just booked Santiago Chile to Miami Direct flightin November the awards appear around 1 am for business class for 150 k but generally fall to 57,5 k after a couple of days then increase again to 110 150 170 a week latter Ps if you like economy there are some 15 k awards!
You guys moan about AA and their award redemptions. . There are smart guys their making the most of it behind this yelling. I just landed here at DFW and I was in C class . Tried to use EVIp to move to F class . It was minus 1 in F class on sold out flight. So people relentlessly moan about AA.still they all love to fly AA . It was 777-300 fully booked!!!