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Last minute saver award space on American?
Hi all – I’m looking to book two one way tickets from LIS – PIT in July on American. How reliable is American with releasing last minute award space? I have 100K miles in my bank and would prefer to use them for 2x economy saver tickets or 2x biz saver seats, but currently there are no seats available on my preferred date. Wondering if I should be patient and wait it out or look for my return flights on another carrier with other miles. I don’t have a great deal of experience redeeming AA miles. Thanks in advance!
While they’re getting a little better, AA is still pretty stingy with award seats on their own planes. Mostly they want to route you via London on BA, which means you’ll have to pay fuel surcharges. Maybe someone else knows better but I wouldn’t count on space opening up.
I’ve never had any luck in the past few years with late booking of AA saver award seats to Italy, France or Germany. It’s particularly difficult to book specific dates at any interval in the process since the release of any saver space has been sparse at best. I’d look around if I were you. Good luck!
Another strategy that has worked for me recently, in Y but not in J since they process upgrades vs. opening the U (Biz SAAver) – is to just book AAnytime and then use expertflyer to track availability on said flight(s) in T (SAAver Y) with the EXP redeposit fee waiver. This would of course be after getting a good picture of what availability looks like on your travel dates 🙂
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