American AAdvantage is changing one of its generous policies. I’m sad to see this change, though even with this being implemented, American still has among the most generous policies in the industry, so I guess it’s hard to get too upset. Let’s first recap the old policy, and then we’ll discuss the new one.
In this post:
AAdvantage has allowed award holds for five days
American AAdvantage is one of the few frequent flyer programs that lets you place award tickets on hold prior to ticketing. Historically, how long you could hold a ticket depended on how far in advance you were booking. Prior to April 30, 2025:
- If you held a ticket 14 or more days before departure, you could hold an award for up to five days
- If you held a ticket within 14 days of departure, you can hold an award for up to one day
In reality, the hold times weren’t exactly 24 or 120 hours. Instead, awards were held through the end of the day in the timezone where the itinerary was originating. That means you could potentially have a hold of just under six days.
This was quite literally the most generous policy in the industry. Award holds are possible directly on aa.com. When you get to the booking page for an award, you should see the “AAdvantage Hold” option listed in the section with payment options. This is also available by phone, regardless of whether you’re flying with American or a partner airline.
Not only does AAdvantage allow award holds, but you can change and cancel awards with AAdvantage at no cost, so there’s a much lower risk to speculatively ticketing awards than in the past.
I really can’t overstate how nice this policy was, as no other major US frequent flyer program lets you place award tickets on hold at all, let alone for five days. Unfortunately all good things come to an end… or at least be scaled back.
AAdvantage award holds now limited to 24 hours
As of today, American will introduce a new 24-hour limit on AAdvantage award ticket holds, so the period of time for which you can hold an award ticket is being reduced by 80%. American highlight how this matches the carrier’s policy on revenue tickets.
Again, other US frequent flyer programs don’t allow holds at all, so American is still more generous than the competition, even if this is a negative change that I don’t like to see.
I imagine that part of the motivation for this change is that there were too many people speculatively holding awards, to the point that it displaced some revenue passengers and caused the airline to lose money.
For example, say that a New York to Athens flight had one seat left for sale in business class, and someone held it 14 days before departure for a period of five days. That person might not have ticketed the reservation, and then American might have had a harder time maximizing revenue selling that seat.
Bottom line
American AAdvantage has rolled out a new policy when holding award tickets, and members will now be limited to holding award tickets for a period of up to 24 hours. That’s quite a change compared to the previous policy of five days.
Of course I’m not happy to see this change, but given how much more generous American was than the competition, it’s also not surprising. Even with this change, American is still more generous than other airlines. On the bright side, maybe this will be good for award availability, in terms of people not speculatively holding award space.
What do you make of American changing its award hold policy?
Cool. Perhaps some of those first class speculative holds on JAL ex JFK will now be freed up. I look forward to this
The reservations already on the 5 day courtesy hold do not seem to be affected. I made one this morning (UK time), and it still shows the 5 day hold
It's a bummer if you want to transfer Marriott points to top off an award if you're a couple thousand miles short. Marriott transfers typically take 48 hours to go through, and the hold was great for that. 24 hours won't be enough time.
Lufthansa Miles&More also allows holds (up to 7 Days) for Award flights consisting only of Miles&More-Issuing Airlines (LHG+ LO, LG, OU)
I think this is another sign that points towards upcoming Citi transfers. When you add Citi transfers, suddenly a massive new user base (casual Citi cardholders) are able to access AAdvantage awards previously only available to AA flyers and big AAdvantage spenders. The 5-Day hold becomes the default operating procedure for all these new users so you don't risk transferring points needlessly into a locked system until you are 100% certain you are going to...
I think this is another sign that points towards upcoming Citi transfers. When you add Citi transfers, suddenly a massive new user base (casual Citi cardholders) are able to access AAdvantage awards previously only available to AA flyers and big AAdvantage spenders. The 5-Day hold becomes the default operating procedure for all these new users so you don't risk transferring points needlessly into a locked system until you are 100% certain you are going to take the flight. With a 1-Day hold, this evens the playing field by pushing users into paying at the time of purchase while still allowing some flexibility to hold and consider options.
In my experience, there is no such thing as "changing" an AA award, at least when it involves a JL flight (such as adding a domestic AA segment). All you can do is cancel and rebook whatever is available at the time.
That's not true. Many agents will say this but it is possible to keep the space and make changes or add flights if you get an agent who knows what she is doing.
@SBS - Copying Omar here, this is technically possible. I did it for 2x recent JAL awards but did have to HUCA for ~5 days before I got an agent who could do it. It's unfortunate but with patience it is possible.
A very competent AA agent told me once that only AA partner airlines’ itineraries can be changed, not the AA ones, because AA now has dynamic pricing, and not the standard fixed partner airline pricing like 57.5k transatlantic on AY or BA or IB.
@Daniel B. - a rule of thumb: the more confidently an AAgent tells you something, the more likely they are to be incorrect. When calling to change my itinerary I got the most confidently wrong explanations why it wasn't possible, every one different from the last. It's funny because when you find the AAgent who can do what you ask, it'll take ~1 minute and be so easy you'll start to doubt reality.
I agree that there has likely been broker abuse that led to this and this change will likely benefit individuals looking for rare premium seats.
But how does it matter if you can cancel all award tickets for free anyway?
If you have no miles and want to speculatively hold before transferring from AMEX etc
There is no CC that transfers to AA. Bilt used to but now they moved to Alaska instead of AA
I think Alvin meant to say transfer points from a family member. I did this and needed the 5 days as my family member was on vacation at the time.
I actually like this change for the broker reason. Especially since we can cancel the ticket at no cost later on if we don't find a workable return/onward flight, it doesn't affect us much.
Thank you AA for eliminating this loophole. Too many selfish members abused this system in the past and they're on the right way to fix it.
Award ticket "brokers" abused this policy for years to keep the nice tickets like JL F away from general public for nearly no price.
Great for AA to finally realizing this and make some changes.
If they are able to abuse a system that allows holds, they can do it regardless if it's a 5 day hold or 1 day hold.
The only effective way to negate this would be for AA to implement some kind of 1 hold per account policy.
The difference is that having to refresh a hold daily is 5x more labor intensive than having to refresh a hold every 5 days. Not saying it can't still be abused, just that the level of effort necessary to abuse it just got much higher.
@Dusty - more than likely these abusers are using automated systems / bots and not people so it makes no difference. Even if they are using people, paying someone in a third world country $5 a day to sit there refreshing holds is easily doable. As I stated before, this change is not intended to combat "brokers" as there are other ways to do that.
Highly unlikely they will be able to enact the same abuse. To "refresh" the hold would involve cancelling the held space and it is highly probable that the moment the space is cancelled, someone will grab it or the act of cancelling will not return the space to general availability as happens currently.
they already do for same day reservations. My original reservation hold has been cancelled twice after reserving an alternative (plan b) flight on the same day.
Not sure how much this really matters to me when I can just cancel an award ticket for free. Really the only avantage I see is not having award miles tied up that you could need for something else soon, or American might bothered as much for holds when you are doing a bunch of them for speculative travel.
I just held an award for 5 days this morning at 0839 EDT. Effective when?
@ PDS -- Very shortly, like later this morning.
It’s bad for me.
I like to put the award on hold. And the book hotels. Now I have to do that in 24 hours.
Wasn’t aware of broker though. But it makes Aadvsntage less attractive.
Why not book the hotels first. I always do that.
it also no longer allows holds within the 14 days
what if you dont get the flight????
Because flights are harder to get than hotels.