Questions and Answers

I’m looking into using my AA miles to fly premium to Australia/NZ over the Christmas holidays in 2017. It’s a long way off, but a popular travel time and I want to be able to make a sAAver booking if possible. I’m looking to fly either from LHR or IAD (depending on where I am) and want to a. minimise BA (YQ charge), b. find sAAver awards, and c. minimise AA availability. I’ve been playing around with dummy bookings on QF’s website as well as on Etihad’s and have found availability on CX, QF, etc, but I’m not sure what will translate to a sAAver award in AA’s system. Any tips on how to do that, or am I at the mercy of AA?

Can’t speak for CX, but here’s the thing with QF: they make award seats available before AA will allow you to use their miles to book (~330 days in advance). That means that people booking with QF miles or Avios will have first shot at those seats. Doesn’t mean you won’t be able to book them, just that there are ~10 days where they could be snapped up by people using other award currencies.

That being said, I seem to recall Lucky mentioning that award space on QF from LHR via the Middle East had better award availability than from the US. Don’t know if that still applies over the holidays or not. You still may have to pay the LHR departure tax, of course. That being said, I flew DFW-SYD in F using Avios and paid the ~$400 fuel surcharges and don’t regret it. I was so thrilled to snag the seat I didn’t want to risk losing it by changing the booking to use AA miles and consider it money well spent. (Of course, your opinion may be different! ;))

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] that sounds like a fantastic deal and I’d be happy with the same. I’d rather pay $400 in taxes and fees instead of an actual ticket in your case.

[USER=2108]@Thomas L[/USER] BA’s search tool is pretty good for finding CX space. You can use QF or JL’s tool to verify but if you find it on BA, you can call AA too book it. QF space should show on AA’s website so if you see if there and on QFs site, it [I]should[/I] be bookable. There has been phantom space though. For EY, look on their website and GuestSeat availability [I]should[/I] mean that AA can see the seats. There have been glitches though – there’s a sticky thread on the forum that covers this so I recommend reading thru those comments. Note that IAH-AUH-SYD will price as 2 awards but it’ll be on a B787-9 and A380 and could be well worth it. You;d also be able to stop in Abu Dhabi for a few days if that’s your kinda thing,