Questions and Answers

Hoping someone can give me some insight on AA award availability. Looking to book FCO>STL on June 28. I want the 30K economy redemption, 1 stop, and on AA metal. Of course there’s no availability right now. When looking at paid flights there are several options and almost no seats are booked.

Why wouldn’t there be award tickets available? Is there a time frame for when they would typically become available?

Any insight or previous experience would be appreciated. I’ve checked united as well since I have UR points but no great options there either.

AA is just incredibly stingy with award space, especially on their own flights. They’d much rather route on on BA and let you pay all those surcharges. While you’d have to make 2 stops, Iberia is not terrible and their surcharges are much lower than BA.

[QUOTE=”DSENT, post: 61552, member: 3116″]Hoping someone can give me some insight on AA award availability. Looking to book FCO>STL on June 28. I want the 30K economy redemption, 1 stop, and on AA metal. Of course there’s no availability right now. When looking at paid flights there are several options and almost no seats are booked.

Why wouldn’t there be award tickets available? Is there a time frame for when they would typically become available?

Any insight or previous experience would be appreciated. I’ve checked united as well since I have UR points but no great options there either.[/QUOTE]

In my experience flying US and now AA from PHL to Europe for about 20 years, trying to find a Saaver award on particular day – in June – is akin to trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. As MidSouth pointed out, AA is incredibly stingy with Saaver awards. When you absolutely must fly on a particular day, the best option is to pay $$ and use your miles to upgrade yourself (if possible). Just my .02 cents worth…

That said, I tried finding some Saaver awards between FCO and PHL (didn’t look for the PHL-STL leg). In May there are a ton of Saaver awards. Come early June there are no Saaver awards between FCO and PHL for the entire month. Now it may be that AA will open some up in the coming weeks and months, BUT there are currently Saaver awards available from MAD and LHR to PHL in June – quite a few actually. Surprising. But no availability the week you are looking to fly.

Thanks for your feedback. Luckily I was able to snag flights to from STL to Venice via PHL on AA at the saver level. But the return has been tricky. I’ve been checking every day to see if something opens up. I did find an option departing from BLQ but would have an over night in PHL. Not ideal but I could make it work.

AA has a four times weekly flight from Bologna Italy (BLQ to PHL) starting next year. For your date, it shows SAAver availability for 30K but it comes with an 23 hour layover in PHL.

Just missed your post – sorry for the redundant statement.

Why would you have to overnight? For arguably the cost of a hotel by the airport, you can just get home to St Louis that night on Southwest.

You’ll have to clear security anyways coming off an international flight…

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