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.
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