Last week United announced that they were bringing back discounted economy short-haul awards through August 31.

So naturally I just received an email from American announcing the same — down to the length of flights this applies to and the deadline for booking those flights, as well as the pricing.

With short-hop awards, customers can fly on American Airlines®, American Eagle® or AmericanConnection® non-stop routes under 700 air miles each way within the continental United States and Canada for a reduced number of miles.

Travel one-way in Economy Class for only 8,750 miles (17,500 miles round trip) — a 30% savings off of the standard MileSAAver award!

To qualify for this special award, book your reservation by August 31, 2010 and travel between August 3 and December 15.

As before, these awards are more expensive than they were when they were around a few years ago (15,000 miles back then) and apply to shorter flights than back then (the earlier offerings were for 750 miles). But I’ll take them, and hopefully American jumping on the offer will encourage United to extend the offer, American to match again… Sadly American now is only matching, rather than trumping such as with a longer promotion. So we may need Delta to enter the mix…