Johnny pointed out just how wide-open American’s new Los Angeles – Sydney flight was last night. I had to have a look for myself.
So about four hours prior to departure I had a look at the inventory for the flight. They were certainly selling plenty of seats.
Gosh, you’d think that on a wide open flight that’s four hours from departure there’s really no chance of selling out. Perhaps they’d make some business class award seats available. It’s pretty much a certainty that any upgrade request would clear.
In fact, I took a look at the seat map. Only 12 seats were even taken on the seatmap. Not a perfect indication of the flight load, but a pretty good one when more than three quarters of the seats are unassigned. This flight is an employee nonrev traveler’s dream.
- Blue seats are occupied
- White seats are available for assignment
Since they’re never going to sell these seats, it’s a gimme to use points right?
Not even close. Let’s take a look at the award calendar.
The cheapest business class award option is 215,000 points. That’s this flight:
It’s understandable that on a premium route with their best aircraft they’ll want to be a bit conservative releasing award space. At this time there is not a single day during the entire 11 months of the schedule that there’s even one business or first class saver award Los Angeles – Sydney. That’s absurd. But it’s worse than that.
They aren’t just protecting seats hoping to sell them, not knowing yet what seats are going to go unsold. Even when it is 100% obvious that seats are going out empty, they’re still extorting members for more than 200,000 miles for a one way flight. That’s some dirty pool.
What about dropping prices?
It’s this kinda stuff that makes the new award chart harder to swallow. As you said, it’s one thing if the plane is or could be full. But when they know a seat would be empty, they should be working to get miles off the books and let their members redeem their points.
Yes- is AA selling upgrades cheap for cash to economy passengers? If so, that is fair. They get some money and economy passengers can upgrade over people trying to get seats for free with points.
I’m tired of people blindly supporting what is in many ways a useless FF program. If I can’t redeem miles at a reasonable rate for AA’s own flights, what’s the point? No TATL availability, none to Australia, and little to Asia.
So many in the blogging world like AAdvantage because of the partner award sweet spots, but none of those airlines fly to the places that I want to go. BA has a lot of availability, but only if you’re willing to shell out hundreds of dollars in ridiculous fuel surcharges.
At this point, SkyMiles is the more useful program to me. Delta has a lot of low-level availability this summer on their own metal. Even when awards on their owns flights aren’t available, most of their partners do not charge fuel surcharges.
At this point, SkyMiles > AAdvantage
This is something AA should really answer for. It does no one any good.
Suddenly (GASP) SkyPesos are starting to look appealing!
Have you reached out to your buddy, Myra (or whatever her name is)?
Rubin should show her face and explain wtf is going on, if she dares
During Christmas week? Have I reached out to anyone.. for what?
American’s other favorite award trick is to have a bunch of outbound saver awards i.e. ORD-LHR in the summer months and no returns from any European destinations. Unless you want to fly BA and pay huge SQ charges.
Just because you can see a wide open seat map does not mean those seats are unsold it just means that seat assignments for certain fare types/non-elite status passengers have not yet been made. QANTAS does this all the time on transPacific flights… right up until boarding there are many “open” seats but once on board those seats are full.
I fly this route often in paid F and appreciate the empty cabin. Much quieter and more efficient service. Kudos to AA for keeping the riff raff looking to fly on points in the back of the bus.
Reached out to your vaunted contacts at AAdvantage? Sure, not on Xmas Eve but this isn’t a new problem and will still be a problem after the holidays. Your AA buddies are quick to use you to push out their PR stances – how about getting them on record as to why this situation is occurring?
@Bruce – all American Airlines premium cabin fares are eligible for advance seat assignment. You can see that the maximum display of seats for sale exist in all fare buckets from full fare business on down to the cheapest economy fare. And more than 75% of the business cabin is unassigned 4 hours prior to departure. That cabin is basically empty.
@Eric I have spoken with them about this issue generally in recent months, not about this flight in particular. And I’ve written about the situation — and that different groups inside the airline have different incentives. Unfortunately those who want to offer reasonable award space do not appear to be winning.
@Bruce
We are talking about Premium Cabin here, not the coach cabin. With AA, most business class fares allow you to select seats at booking. The QF analogy does not work in AA’s operation model.
The fact is plain and painful – it has been this way how AA operates not just on its premium long haul routes, but virtually all direct Transcon flights. Case in point, MIA-LAX has 7 daily flights, yet the best you would ever see being available is either the first flight departs at 6am or sometimes the last flight EVEN when there are plenty of seats available on the remaining 5 or 6 flights during the day. No release of award seats up till departure. So you are forced to go thru CLT or some other US hubs. The usual AA connections at either ORD or DFW are also missing. This has been the way how AA operates for the past 24 months.
I am glad some posters mentioned about DL. We were able to redeem 62.5K DL miles on VS Upper Class in the middle of August only 45 days out – the 3 months Jul, Aug and Sept being the prime time of European travel, there were low level seats on VS 75% of the days. AA had ONE, yes ONE day in August on its own metal and Five on BA metal. Yeah, it only costs 50K on AA versus 62.5K on DL program, but if you dont get to use your miles for its intent – award travel, the chart becomes meaningless. The only saving grace in the past is the relatively easy to get premium cabins on CX to Asia – that is going to change after Mar 22. AA soon will be the WORST program among the 3, because while UA has similar levels on its chart, UA has A LOT MORE Partners flying to all continents. It is much easier to find award seats with UA partners to virtually any where. Europe is much easier because 1) the number of partners, 2) the far less restrictive routing rules, just an example for the most traveled award routes.
Despite their older generation hard product, AA’s behavior makes United’s program look more and more attractive.
@William : so true. Have you noticed all the blogging world talk about is CX and EY ? That’s because that’s all there is to redeem for AA miles that is worth writing about. Even JAL F pales compared to ANA F (and yes, I’ve tried both)
Using AA miles to europe is painful too. Between AA’s non-availability and BA’s fuel surcharges, you need to the flexibility of a contortionist to stitch together any reasonable itinerary.
This has been a problem for quite some time. Over a year ago, I monitored saaver space JFK-LHR for a few weeks. Even though the seat map showed many empty seats and AA had many seats available for sale (expertflyer.com), they would let planes go out without allowing openning business or first award space.
Why collect miles if you can’t use them?
It’s really fraud to publish an award chart and not make any seats available.
If an airline is going to provide an incentive program – you need to be able to USE your points. Partner airlines should hold each other accountable for releasing awards. Why would IB want to allow AA to book tickets on their metal when they’re not providing much in return?
I was an AA 100K flier for 5 years – I have millions of miles. I can’t get to Europe, Asia, or Australia on AA’s metal in premium cabins even if i’m flexible.
Looks like tonight’s flight is equally empty. The only difference, and maybe last night was the same, is that upgrade space (c) is >7. So you can use an EVIP or upgrade w/ cash + miles. But that still stings as the cheapest coach tickets + the copays is still a decent chunk of cash.
“During Christmas week? Have I reached out to anyone.. for what?”
That”s a cop out answer.
@AJ Pennypacker: Since the route’s only been going for a week I doubt you fly it often in F.
@FLL: July/August/September aren’t prime time for European travel. They’re low season, hence the good award availability. The comment about AA space vs. DL stands though.
@ AJ Pennypacker says:
I fly this route often in paid F and appreciate the empty cabin. Much quieter and more efficient service. Kudos to AA for keeping the riff raff looking to fly on points in the back of the bus.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I get that you are just killing time on the internet looking for attention by pretending to be a luxury traveler who looks down upon everybody else but since this route started 7 days ago your premise makes no sense. Instead, try pretending that you fly the Etihad apartment each week and you are irritated that they let “those people” out of the baggage hold, that premise makes more sense.
AB seems to release two J seats on each flight out of the US. AA should do the same.
Great post.
@Jim – see my other answers in this thread. I have reached out on this, had conversations, and have written about the issue. And remember, I’m the one who wrote this post! So hardly giving them a pass…! 😉
@patricia: Yes, the bloggers only focus on programs that’ll get them credit card referrals. “Sign up for this UA credit card and you’ll have less than half the miles needed for LH F!” doesn’t make a great sales pitch. Of course, the fact that they’re the ones who destroyed the mileage game by blabbing all the secrets to millions of people for their own self interest never occurs to the bloggers!
I disagree about JL vs. NH F though. Both are great but I prefer JL.
And frankly I would have expected to get kudos from @mark because I didn’t write about my first trip to Sydney, or how I have family that moved there when I was 5.
Does this mean systemwides will automatically clear?? Or are they holding those back to ?
I completely understand that airlines want to hold back award space until it’s clear that seats won’t be sold, but AA really makes some odd choices that make no sense from a business standpoint. They should be trying to monetize any unsold seat, and for last-minute travel, the best way is to keep revenue fares high but release seats to the FF program. It’s a sad trade-off: DL almost always has availability, but your guess is as good as mine what the skymile price will be. With AA the price is clear and cheap (even post-devaluation, C is competitively priced), but to “north asia” you have to pray that JL doesn’t sell out, since they won’t let you “backtrack” on CX.
Gary: If you are reaching out to various folks for comment I would love to hear what a Citi rep thinks about this situation. I have used this reason to get the annual fee waived for the past 2 years.I have to believe that is costing them significant $$$. Also Citi is apparently sitting on billions of AA miles which are being devalued just like our miles. I can hardly wait for the first 250,000 bonus offer from Citi for $2500.00 spend!
Thank you Gary for this post it is spot on, this is worse than a joke. AA must know that many of us are watching carefully. Your commenters are quite articulate also. I just noted the same thing a few days ago surfing the site. The Europe nonstop availability on AA metal has been terrible for a long time now, and a J seat to Sydney would literally be a Christmas miracle. Thanks for raising this issue. I was in favor of the merger and am not an ‘I hate Doug’ guy – but theyve gone too far with all the AAdvantage program changes. I can only assume that they’ve written down the value of the miles of the books even further, and a couple of cash upgrades day of flight are worth a lot more than a cabin full of points people.
Here’s the key comment I read: ‘why have points if you cant use them’. That is the future. The programs are going away. Hopefully there will be surviving credit card point programs booking for cash – but I stopped playing the status game a long time ago and pay for the class and efficiency (nonstop on whatever airline). Burning my points as quickly as possible but only in an efficient way (Saver) – and its taking forever.
@Gic often held back until pretty close to departure but then the space opens up and clears..
They’ve been doing this for several years on European routes.
Seat maps are not a good indicator. By law airports hold a certain amount of seating for special needs and special services. Those seats, even if assigned, 75% of the time still show as open on public seat maps when boarding because the assigning processes vary. Having a flight with 10-12 seats open on a new international route is pretty good work in the eyes of most airlines. Of course the awards bookings are going to be expensive the first few months. It’s like a new TV, they are expensive then drop in price
I’m glad you’re giving this some attention, Gary — long overdue. 1-1/2 years ago I was looking for business or first MileSaaver seats for LAX-GRU. The business cabin was lightly booked; the first cabin was 100% empty on MANY days, three months out, except for the same two seats that were set aside for crew rest on every flight.
On repeated attempts with AA’s EXP desk, AAgents couldn’t explain it, other than to say that maybe it was a technical glitch on a (then) brand new route. Even as late as 24 hours before the actual flight, the first cabin was 2/3 empty, and the business cabin was barely half full, but we weren’t allowed to re-ticket my partner’s coach seat in the other classes. Letters to AA after the fact yielded nothing more than the usual automated non-reply of corporate BS.
For AA to say that MileSaaver seats are available for a certain price on a given route, and then never avail those seats is nothing less than false advertising.
The one thing it shows clearly is the contempt AA has for its loyal customers.
How much are they selling Y -> J upgrades on this flight?
So weird that Delta miles became comparatively much more useful without anyone noticing
To Europe, aa.com will only give you via LHR on BA with the ripoff charges.It will never let you have AA, AB, IB, Finnair flights. So, how would you ever, for example, use AA miles on AB flights?
I want to travel the same route on January 7, 2017 (2 Business Class seats). While that Anytime Award has not yet been released (a month or so down the road), if this year is any predictor, I will be faced with the same 215,000 mile one-way price tag. AA’s chart says that the anytime awards cost 140,000 miles or 175,000 miles–but with an asterisk “sometimes higher.” Is there any chance that, at least AA will revert to the published Anytime price of 175,000 (enough of a gouging!)?
As for your “reaching out,” no, not during Christmas week. But how about a more appropriately timed communication where you give AA the feedback about “dirty pool” and ask if there can be some relief?
@Steve is exactly right. The unfortunate reality that has emerged over the past 24 months is that those who have stayed loyal have been extremely foolish (myself included). I am disappointed that I cannot use the miles I have, but I am even more angry that I have been paying a premium in both cash and time to stay loyal to AA only to have them change the deal after the fact (please don’t quote my the T&C’s, I understand the T&C’s do not guarantee awards – I am talking about the devaluations, the rapid and dramatic elimination of availability, and the deliberate and obvious scheme to force people to pay BA fees). I have spent hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours this year alone flying AA through DFW when I could have flown UA, DL, Alaska or Jet Blue and gotten where I was going faster and usually cheaper. By October I had figured that I was done with loyalty, I will do what I can to use my EXP systemwides in 2016 but otherwise I will pay for the class of service I want and I will pick the airline based on convenience, reliability and quality of service – 9 times out of 10 that will not be AA simply because they do not excel in any of those characteristics for the routes I typically fly.
I am surprised that Doug and his crew are arrogant enough to think that they do not need loyal customers, particularly customers who are typically paying premium fares. I have not backed out taxes from this calculation but I paid a little over 24 cents per mile flying AA this year. Considering that AA’s PRASM is now at 13.16 cents, I would think I am an attractive customer to them, but apparently they’d rather fly empty seats to Australia than have me onboard.
They are finally making money because of fuel prices dropping – something they had absolutely nothing to do with – but they’ve deluded themselves into thinking that their sudden success has come because of their own capability and hard work.
The ironic reality is AA will make more money off the non-rev surcharges it charges its own employees to sit in premium classes than allowing ‘loyal’ customer to burn their earned miles.p on these seats. Absolutely pathetic behavior on AAs part. Everyone seemed to want this crAAptastic merger and downed Dougie’s [spiked] kool-aid…well, here’s your cake, now eat!
@Another Steve – I’d make two observations…
1. The massive decline in award availability began in mid-2012, under previous management, though it’s gotten worse both with new management and a better economy. Hard to demonstrate which is the driver.
2. I’ve been loyal to AA and don’t feel burned, they were providing substantially more value than competitors the past several years. I knew it wouldn’t last.
@Burt Hellman – the peak holiday period is 215k but there are definitely dates when AAnytime is 140k. I would expect January 7 unfortunately not to be one of those 🙁
@Jerry Mandel – remember that AA.com does not support searches for Iberia. So AA.com will never give you that as an option. Search award space on the BA.com or Qantas websites, then call. AA will waive the telephone booking fee.
Gary, your headline is incorrect…there are award seats available every day. They just aren’t at your desired price point! Big difference.
@DiscoPapa Etihad will sell you London – Abu Dhabi one-way in the residence for ~ 2.3 million miles. Do you consider them to be releasing award inventory?
Umm…comment. Reach out for comment. C’mon, thought leader.
Thanks Gary for highlighting a big problem with AAdvantage. Mrs Rubin would do well to address these issues as a devaluing program leave more incentive to go free agent or AS. I’ve succesffully used AA miles for TPAC on partners and it has been great. That only works for some members and any other awards I try are pointless on AA metal. Shape up AA or some longtime members will go to greener pastures.
I left a tweet to American and got a reply they are looking into it :
https://twitter.com/AmericanAir/status/680088316276916224?cn=cmVwbHk%3D&refsrc=email
I’ve got a good following on the Twitter 🙂
I don’t understand the comments that since awards are free you shouldn’t be upset with lack of availabikty. Airlines make millions of dollars selling awards to banks and consumers. We could get a cash back card paying 2% instead of using airline card. Awards are not free just a different priced ticket and airlines should make awards available on all routes at a certain price. if they are never going to offer a saver award on stdney or somehere else then don’t publish it- that is false advertising. At least BAeven if expensive has said they would offer two business seats on most routes.
Has AA availability ever been reasonable or fair? I collect their miles for two different reasons:
1. Their partners are great even apart from the “aspirational” ones. CX and EY get all the fanfare, but I have no reason to use AA miles on either, given that their routing rules preclude me from flying EY to Europe or CX to Oceania on a single award. Not that I wouldn’t like to go to Hong Kong some day, but I have nearly all of my available vacation time over the next several years tied up in planned trips to Europe and Oceania. Instead, I’m looking at BA, AB, IB, QF, etc. I don’t appreciate the fuel surcharges, but such is life. (In fact, those surcharges are a fraud, but that’s a separate issue.)
2. The connections to your international gateway city are included in the award. It’s amazing how many programs lack this feature. My city’s local airport is the hollowed out shell of a once great TWA hub, so the only international flights I can catch are to the Mexican spring break drinking destinations. It’s a big deal for me to have to use extra miles just to connect to a more fortunate city to catch my international flight. With AA miles, that connection doesn’t cost me any extra.
I think the correct response to AA’s continued abuse of their customers is becoming clear: We should fly Delta and credit to Alaska.
@Gary – Yes. It’s attainable via miles, just as it is with dollars. Just like every one of AA, UA, and DL’s flights.
The “competing interests within AA” as you mentioned earlier is no doubt Revenue Management. If they don’t like the recognized book value of a saver award to SYD (which clearly they don’t since they are never open), why would you expect them to blow the cabin wide open on the day of departure when the value they would book for a retail walk-up ticket is at a much higher level? Yield goes down, huge arbitrage, etc. You have to put your Revenue Management hat on since they are the ones driving the ship at AA.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas!
As a long-time AA loyalist (and usually EXP or PLAT), I never thought I’d say this, but I have to echo the comments about DL becoming a more attractive airline/program lately. This boils down to two main reasons:
1. I also agree that the arbitrage opportunities of loyalty programs are largely evaporating, and increasingly I’m choosing revenue flights based on price, schedule, and product quality… NOT miles (since the programs are largely the same now). In the past, I would choose AA because AAdvantage was better, but that’s not the case anymore. So, if I’m choosing my flights based on price, schedule, and quality, that’s often going to tip in Delta’s favor. I’m usually looking to buy paid F, and DL almost always has lower F prices than AA or UA. I can usually find a paid F fare on Delta from the west coast to anywhere on the east coast for less than $1,000, as long as I’m willing to make a connection. A similar itin on AA is typically more in the $1,300 range, so DL offers a big discount and usually better flight quality.
2. As this post and several comments point out, DL award availability is definitely better now than AA, especially on intl premium cabin flights, but also on basic domestic Y awards. Who ever thought we’d see this day, but it seems to be here.
So, based on #1 above, I find myself collecting more Skymiles just because I’m buying more paid F tickets on DL… not for the miles, but because the airline offers a better product (fare, schedule, quality). And then it’s easier to use those very miles on DL than they would have been on AA.
About the only thing in AA’s favor now is that, in theory, they have several partners who offer F cabin internationally. With DL, you are pretty much always going to fly J, which is fine, but I still crave the occasional aspirational booking on QF/CX/JL. Even though it’s not a very good product, with AA you can at least claim an F award on BA; whereas with DL, there’s no F opportunity to Europe (since AF doesn’t allow F award bookings unless you are elite with them).
AA has been doing this more and more for more than 2 years. I don’t need a comment from Rubin or anyone else, actions speak louder than words. This is not an anomaly, this is how AA does business now. Even if Rubin had a statement it would say something about “value”, “benefits”, “enhancements”, but that wouldn’t change the reality of the past two years. What’s that saying about piss and legs and rain?
How hard has it been to use AA miles to Europe on AA metal. I book 331 days out. Last year I got lucky with 3 F LAX-DFW_LHR and then equipment changed permitted (with an earlier date on Father’s Day 3 F nonstop LAX-LHR on AA’s 777-300. However F was not much better than J. This year was worse 331 days out and traveling with a minor I had to call in for the Mike and saw my 5 best flights for 2 taken in the 30 minute wait and then had one F BRU-LHR-ORD-LAS-LAX (with an expert flyover alert hoping the ORD-LAX would clear for 2-it did not yet), I of course was shooting for a replacement of the 777-200 to no F to be able to get on the nonstop from LHR-LAX. But then amazingly AA released some nonstop LHR-LAX business so I downgraded and changed by one day. Most people would never have booked a 4 stop F (instead of 2) anticipating being able to go more direct- but that is what you need to do to Europe sometimes. As a side note my ticket was F and my daughter’s J on the same itinerary – AA does not release 2 F even 331 days out, but 20 minutes later I received an alert that 1 AA F was available and called back and changed my daughter’s ticket to F. As only a small percentage of readers will read the comments down this far I thought I would let some fellow readers learn the trick to book one F and J same itinerary and wait for one more F to be released. Alfred all you have 5 days with AA…
Only semi related.
Booked on ORD-NRT departing in two days. There’s 22 seats available in biz, applied SWU and am on the wait list. They surely wouldn’t let the cabin go out basically empty if people are on the wait list would they? Guessing I won’t clear until departure.
This doesnt surprise me. I was on a flight in F with my wife 5 yrs ago flying ORD to NRT. We were the only people in F. Business class was full. I am sure there were some EXP flyers in there. My thought would be to bump them to F? In those days business was not the flat bed in the 777. At the time that did surprise me. Per meals they could have been served the business meal if needed?
LCC Dougie must understand he no longer is running a east coast-west coast regional puddle-jump airline. When he took over AA he gave us garbage on a bun as a “first class” snack, which quickly hit the trash can and was replaced with something which looked like edible food.
When he takes over the world’s largest frequent flyer program, how long does he think he can get away with another one of the LCC tricks? Sell “miles” to merchants and give them away to loyal customers while denying their use in obvious opportunities such as this and other lucrative routes where passengers go lacking seasonally and/or certain days of the week.
Once he devalues the opportunities, then the intrinsic value shrinks. He forgets Econ 101’s Gresham’s Law, when a currency is undervalued, then it disappears to be replaced by the overvalued. AAdvantage miles are being shrunk in value. Any number of substitute currencies could replace it, including good old fashioned customer respect and fair pricing.
very stupid indeed, would rather let employees fly for free than recoup base cost. I see this same pattern with UA. with CX they release everything the last minute to help bottom line.
Welcome to the world of transpacific premium seating where airlines traditionally will let seats go out empty rather than sell them for awards.
AA are simply trying to maximize their revenue over the long term by getting pax to understand that if they want to travel in premium cabin they will have to pay $$$ for it.
This is indeed contrary to what AAdvantage members have been used to over the last decades but is the way of the future.
“Shape up AA or some longtime members will go to greener pastures.”
Well, the way thing are going those ‘greener pastures’ may not be there for too much longer.
The airline(s) operate for the benefit of people paying to travel in that cabin (and said airlines bottom line) not for the mileage collectors who rarely, if ever, part with hard cash to travel in that cabin.
Correct me if I am wrong, but since AA announced the SYD flight I don’t think they have released a single milesaaver premium seat. It’s insanely misleading that they even publish an award level at that price since it has never been offered.
I have stopped flying on revenue fares altogether.
If the flights are not available on award ticket, I don’t fly.
With the crap I have to deal with the TSA, I don’t miss anything anyway.
If more will follow my lead, then AA will be hurt on the bottom line and will be forced to drop ticket prices and open more award seats.
It is not just Transpacific. It’s also S.America. I tried to change to a wide open flight (I had snagged a saver level) that was departing in five hours and they wanted to extort 100k more for the privilege. I stuck with my original flight. It’s really awful what they are doing but maybe it’s payback for getting 100k miles for their citi cc that everybody churned. Karma?
Just more evidence how worthless AA’s AAdvantage program has become. I know friends of employees who are flying on buddy passes first class to HK and Sydney and yet AA’s top fliers can’t even use their miles for a decent award when the seats are wide open. Just ridiculous.
@Gary – Glad to see you giving AAdvantage some well deserved lumps of coal for Christmas. This is the weakest part of their program.
Here in OZ trying to get any J/F award seat to USA is virtually impossible unless booking near a year out or get lucky, if booked on QF the additional charges are outrageous, now booking on AA at J/F saver rate not there, why are we being screwed over again and again, its about time these airlines were brought to account and put award bums on empty seats at a reasonable award rate.
Sadly, the LAX-SYD availability episode isn’t surprising. Unless you are a full-time FF wizard and have an PhD in using ITA, you are pretty much screwed in figuring how to unlock any value whatsoever in AA miles. AAbysmal availability, rapidly declining upgrade frequency (due to fewer F seats in Airbus metal) and juiced-up mileage requirements mean its time to buy the cheapest ticket on whomever. For travel in premium cabins, just pay for it (hey, that’s what the airlines want you to do anyway). Be willing to migrate to the metal with the best service (which usually isn’t AA). I’m a multi-year AA ExPlat and feel little loyalty anymore. I plan to shop around for long-haul premium cabin fares on my 4-5 international trips/yr, and use more domestic Virgin or Southwest from DAL, Just because AA really isn’t interested in rewarding loyalty anymore.
Gary
Did AA stop paying some bloggers to market them?
While this was obvious to many on FT, you (and several others) have been pumping up AA at the expense of UA
Now the tune has changed and one has to wonder if it has more to do with loss of revenue than any new info.
With the DOJ approval of the TATL venture, AA started ripping off its best customers.
AAdvantage has been on the skids for a while.
It is only the partners that keep the value and that may change at anytime
@Ross, yes there’s nothing wrong with AA wanting pax to pay for sitting in a premium cabin. But aren’t miles a form a payment? AA created the program and made all the rules, completely voluntary on their part. They said that it’s 62,500 one-way to Australia in J (or 80,000 post-devaluation). They’ve published that this is the amount they’d like a loyal passenger to pay to claim that award seat.
Of course, we all know that AA would rather sell it for more $$ and we’re all accustom to award inventory being somewhat spotty and typically found in cases where supply is greater than demand (off-season, poor economy, Tues/Weds, etc.). That’s fine and we all accept that, at least for Saver inventory.
So it seems disingenuous when AA has flights going out empty and won’t let members claim those seats at the prices AA published. In many cases, they get real revenue for selling those miles to credit card and other partners. Sure, it’s lower revenue than a published fare, but at least it’s something.
If AA doesn’t find it acceptable to take 62,500/80,000 for a J award seat when they have excess supply, they should change the award level. Given that they just announced a significant increase in Saver award prices, one would think that they’ve had their opportunity to tell us the latest prices they are willing to accept. So, to then not honor those prices, just feels like a slap in the face.
Where the hell are the banks? They’re the ones supporting these airlines with their huge mile purchases. The big 3 are basically FF programs with some planes. Citi should be furious and the complaints should go to Citi
As a long time DL customer and Plat Medallion my opinion maybe a bit jaded but after one flight on AA I feel so fortunate to have to NEVER fly that airline again. It is a total disaster of an operation. It seems like they ate a transportation company pretending to be a quality operation. The staff was quasi professional and the planes were subpar. Felt like I was on a referbished school bus. Maybe Delta has set the bar so high that other airlines need to play catch-up but needless to say THANK GOD FOR DELTA AIRLINES.
Am currently XP on AA , but can not get premium international ticket with my AA miles. I have not flown on AA since July nor will I until I burn almost 1 mil miles in my AAdvantage account. I have been flying mostly WN domestically and foreign carriers or UA internationally. I can buy 2 seats on WN cheaper than a flexible ticket on AA and it is more comfortable than the sometimes upgrade on AA. I miss getting upgraded from J to F on international flights, but I save money by shopping price.
But there is a good chance that your eVIP (SWU) will clear on those flights with only 10 assigned J seats!
I’m surprised that AA has been so consistently stingy with F and even J awards. I understand it being hard to find an award and being flexible, but when there’s nothing all 331 days out, that’s a real problem.
I hope AA gets sued for promoting mileage saver awards and then not offering any. Sounds like a perfect class action lawsuit. If they’re not going to offer them they should simply remove them from their charts and that would be the end of it. They leave them on because they know there would be a huge outcry if they eliminated them so they made the decision to leave them on the charts but just never offer them. I’m going to write to Citi to tell them my Exec AA credit card has become worthless based on the annual cost of the card.
And on the SYD/ MEL -LHR/ Europe Awards page it still appears to be almost daily availability in F on QF 1 or 9, but I have still to find a single seat actually available on these routes. This has now gone on for months!!
This one is really fraud, given that they are pushing their “sale2” of points.
AA the new lifemiles, but even trickier?
@Mark can’t really sue the mileage broken for something like this under Northwest v Ginsberg
@ffl – I have never been paid by American Airlines, if they’ve paid others I’m not aware of it.
Yes, no obligation–implied or otherwise–for the airline to act in good faith. Since the courts won’t help the traveler, the only leverage will come from the traveler sounding off, and flying with other carriers. But, when CLT is one’s home airport, it is difficult to avoid AA.
AA has been getting worse over the years in general and AAdvantage specifically has been flipping the bird to loyal customers. The last time I personally flew was years ago because my employees were complaining about the flights specifically when AA – no others.
Our last purchase with them was yet another mechanical breakdown problem with their planes. We’ll happily pay more to not have to deal with prodigious flight delays and unhappy employees.
Of course I understand AA is a business, but it’s a business that has put customer service, maintenance of flights, and usability of frequent flier miles on a Pabst budget while prices increased. Poor value all the way around.
@ Park Hyatt SYD now. Flew Virgin Australia LAX-SYD on the inaugural day of the AA flight (so I departed LAX just 5 mins different from the AA flight). Checked constantly daily for weeks and up to about 1 hour prior to departure, because would have been special to be on that inaugural flight. Seat map for business was about what you showed above. Nothing ever came available. Then checking in at PH SYD at the counter was a couple who was on that flight in business. They redeemed the higher mileage, and they told me the flight was about 1/3 full in business. What a shame they don’t open seats when they know its going to be available!
Many of those people in the 1/3 of seats that were occupied may have paid the higher mileage rate. If AA opened up seats at the lower rate, many would cancel and rebook. This could result in fewer overall points redeemed, but more seats occupied. Also, although I would never purchase a seat for cash on a flight for which I desired to use miles, many people do, giving AA incentive to make no saver seats available.
There are always people on every flight who use standard awards because they either prefer to book early when savers aren’t available or they just are willing to use whatever miles are necessary because they don’t want to use cash for the ticket. That still doesn’t excuse AA for not having any saver awards available period. When someone looks out over 300 days and cannot find 1 single saver award seat that is just shameful. Nobody is telling AA that they need to flood the market with saver awards to Australia, Asia or Europe but they shouldn’t have the award level on their charts if they are not going to offer any seats at that award level. It’s called fraudulent advertising and it’s also detrimental reliance. People spend money on their credit cards or fly on paid tickets thinking they can use those miles for an award saver ticket when in reality there are no award saver business or first class tickets made available. It speaks volumes about the management at the airline when they have to stoop to that level of deception.
@Ken, you say “although I would never purchase a seat for cash on a flight for which I desired to use miles, many people do, giving AA incentive to make no saver seats available.” I’m skeptical as to how realistic such a risk is in reality. Let’s say AA opened up SAAver awards a few hours or even a few days before a flight. I can’t see it being very realistic that people who’d booked refundable fares had set an alert and who would then cancel the refundable ticket and rebook on an award. Nor do I think it likely that people were holding off buying a revenue ticket until the last minute, to see if award space became available.
There ARE AA MileSaver awards to Europe but only if you fly on BA to or via LHR and pay the ripoff surcharges. Does AA share in those charges. If not, what Does AA get out of it?
Seeing this same issue w/ flights to South America – quite ridiculous really.
@randy, why do you think AA sends planes out with more than half of the premium cabins empty, if not to protect the revenue generated by the occupied seats? Since AA does not allow me to use my miles on a saver seat, I purchase my seat(s) on an airline other than AA. I do not intend to accumulate any additional useless AA miles.
So there are indeed clueless people who redeem full price awards. There must be thousands of retiring baby boomer middle managers with huge balances who now are willing to blow their stash on the dream trips they’ve been waiting for years.
Maybe AA is just trying to clear out mileage balances of those who have no idea about travel hacking and other options. If they’re training cash buyers to think awards will never sterilize then they’re foolish as anyone with that kind of money has better options with other airlines.
So in two days there are 33 seats out of 35 open on the 10:00am MIA to EZE flight and they are only selling anytime awards in J for 150k. Unbelievable
Same issue on AA metal to the caribbean. On AA Metal, no flights in saver J from MIA to UVF, or MIA to BGI. Other MIA to Caribbean flights they only open J a month or so ahead of time, but from MIA to UVF or MIA to BGI, Not a single Saver J for 331 days….doesn’t matter what day, time of year etc…NOT ONE AWARD. This seriously needs to change. Seems like it is false advertising to me.
If everyone took the time to write the DOT to complain and to oppose AA’s new joint venture with Qantas maybe AA would take notice. It’s become obvious they are engaging in some serious fraudulent advertising by stating on their award charts that they offer international mileage saver awards when in fact they make none available.
To whom would one address such a letter. I would absolutely take the time to write. It IS fraudulent advertising to promulgate an award chart when no, or virtually no, awards exist at the published rates. Gary: Do you believe a large letter-writing campaign would have any impact on either AA, the government or both?
I would send duplicate copies to both addresses below. I assure you that if they’re flooded with
complaints about AA they will look into it. Make sure to state that you oppose any special joint ventures for AA until they fulfill their current obligations to their frequent flyer program.
Aviation Consumer Protection Division, C-75
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20590
Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings
Aviation Consumer Protection Division
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20590