A couple of weeks ago, immediately after US Airways transitioned to using American’s fare class codes, the floodgates opened on US Airways international awards in business class.
Then over the weekend things opened back up for summer travel — not the floodgates of the first wave, where whole cabins were practically available for redemption on most routes, but a few seats in business class most days, which is very much not the historical norm for US Airways.
And then within a few hours it was gone. Glitch, corrected. Some folks got their summer award trips booked in the interim, however.
Commenter Joe just noted that “Saver level US flights are back up..”
It’s not quite the wide open field that it has been in the recent past. This looks to be primarily over the summer, and for certain routes only.
For instance, searching for 2 non-stop business class award seats Philadelphia – Tel Aviv looks like this:
But some routes do have pretty good availability again! For instance:
Philadelphia – Paris
Charlotte – Madrid
And some only ‘decent’ space, like Philadelphia – Zurich.
So if you missed out on the last go-arounds, and are looking to redeem US Airways or American frequent flyer miles for summer business class transatlantic trips without fuel surcharges this is a good opportunity. And of course the US Airways business class seat on the Airbus A330 is darned good.
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Hm, I’m getting a timeout on usairways.com when trying to book CLT-MAD
Can I put it on Hold and be assured of a ticket in 2-3 days?
I think it is gone again. I was searching and found space from both PHL and CLT to MAD, looked for the domestic connections and by time I got back to the transatlantic, it was gone.
Gary et. al.,
Can domestic segments be added to a reservation on hold?
– narayana
Well this is the second time I’ve taken a big bite of the new AA’s award availability shit sandwich.
@Narayana S – yes
DEAD again.
Some flights in business to/from London are still there.
On AA.com on American metal.
Nothing doing with USAir London-New York in August Business Class. Only AA or BA with their hefty surcharges
@Gabbai
AA awards on AA metal LON-NYC will not have fuel surcharges, just the UK’s (and LHR’s when applicable) hefty departure taxes. AA awards on US metal would have the same fees.