Questions and Answers

Is there a fare-class difference between the 7.5K and 12.5K domestic saver awards — both show up as ‘T’ on aa.com (or expert flyer), but only the 12.5K are visible on BA.com (often)? Additionally, many times on the same day a route (e.g. phl-ord) might shows 7.5K and 12.5 non-stops — can one book the 7.5K and do a free change to the 12.5K flight?
thanks!

Skdelta airlines don’t always release the same amount of space to their partners as they do to their own members. It’s possible that AA is not releasing that space to BA.

The other thing that seems a little confusing to me is how you are seeing 7500 mile awards for PHL ORD. Those awards are only for trips under 500 miles and gcmap shows that route clocking in at 678 miles. I took a look at the AA award calendar and it seems like the lowest award level for the month of May is 12.5k.

I was surprised too that I was finding 7500 awards on >500 mile route. It looked like (similar to or copying Delta’s dynamic pricing?) that the same ‘T’ award was pricing on the less desirable 545am flight on a Sat at 7500 but a better 9am option was 12500, still ‘T’ space (not surprisingly BA could see the 12500 ‘T’ seat but not the 7500 ‘T’; expertflyer shows both as ‘T’ as well). I’ll see if I can recreate the searches again, but I’ve seen it several days in a row. My main interest wouldn’t be necessarily in the BA view, but whether I could buy the 7500 ticket and for free change to 12500… I might just have to take a chance and try it if I run into this again…

PS – the monthly award calendar shows 12.5K, only upon clicking to the date did the 7.5K show up.

Actually, another similar example would be say BOS-PHL on apr 7 — there’re early morning non-stops at 7500, not surprising; then later in the day there’re 1-stops at 12500. Both sets are at ‘T’ saver level, so presumably one would be able to change the early morning to later in the day for free…If I try it out, will report back.

[USER=1757]@skdelta[/USER] – are you an AA Executive Platinum? If so you can do a free same-day change. Otherwise it’s $75. [URL=’http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/07/20/american-same-day-flight-change-restrictions-added/’]See Lucky’s post from last year[/URL].

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] I think [USER=1757]@skdelta[/USER] is asking if he can use AA’s relatively generous policy to change routing without paying any extra miles since both flights are quoting at the saver level at different prices.

[USER=1757]@skdelta[/USER], bos-phl is less than 500 miles so it would make sense that the nonstop is pricing at 7500. If the one stops go over that barrier it would make sense that they price at 12.5k like the PIT or BUF connections. However the LGA connection also prices at 12.5k so my assumption would be that AA has only coded the discounted fares for non stop flights. I know United does this differently so this is good to know.

[USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER] – correct, I was interested in changing without extra miles since the origin/destination are the same. I do this all the time for normal 25k AA awards, changing dates or when better flights open up. I’m not exec plat, so can’t redeposit for free, but would be an interesting experiment for an AA EXP to do….book a 7.5k, change later to 12.5K to see what they say…