Last night American Airlines rolled out on-line booking for one-way mileage redemption itineraries. The redemption rates are 1/2 the previous round trip rate. It looks like all awards will be one-ways going forward, i.e. two separate bookings (and booking fees) for one round-trip journey.

So far they're limited to AA "metal" (i.e. operated) flights only, and no word on when or if one-way partner awards will be subject to the new rules, or when or if on-line booking will be available for partner or Oneworld awards. It looks, however, that the rules on stopovers en route (at last US or first foreign airports) may have been modified (or possibly some stopover rights removed.

Still, this will facilitate easy open-jaw itineraries, and will also allow people to book in one direction as soon as inventory opens (i.e. 330 days) and wait until the 330-day limit kicks in for returns, rather than trying to wait until the return window opens at the risk of losing the outbound. You can also mix classes of service, e.g. business out, coach back.

There may well be other major modifications to the AA award program emerging in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Good news (I think). Thanks for posting.

Does this apply to upgrades as well as just tickets bought with miles?

Upgrade awards were already one ways before this change.

I like the one ways and ability to mix classes. The possible elimination of some stopovers will be a bummer though.

<i>It looks like all awards will be one-ways going forward, i.e. two separate bookings (and booking fees) for one round-trip journey.</i>

Does that mean two redeposit and two change fees too?

I agree that it's great we can mix class of service with this new feature.

However, I am not crazy about the potential 2x booking fees.

<i>However, I am not crazy about the potential 2x booking fees.</i>

I did a dummy booking, and here are the results:

One Way
TPA-LHR - business 50K miles plus $5 taxes and fees
LHR-TPA - business 50K miles plus $170.40 taxes and fees

R/T
TPA-LHR-TPA (same dates, same flights) business 100K miles plus $175.40 taxes and fees


so it appears that the charges are broken down to what only each route requires and since you can do the one way bookings and make it open jaw on www.aa.com, there is no need to call anymore, so no booking charges.

Can't answer the redeposit and change Q.

According to the thread on flyertalk.com, you can build up to 4 "trips" on a PNR. So, no 2x booking fees.

The main discussion there is the elimination of free stopover. So, if you want to do LAX-JFK, stop a few days, then JFK-LHR, and then LHR-LAX, you need to claim 3 different "trips". Not just a roundtrip US-Europe. But the upside is that you can do double open-jaw, like LAX-JFK, BOS-LHR, CDG-ORD-LAX, for example.

So, it will benefit some, and penalize a few.

<i>So, if you want to do LAX-JFK, stop a few days, then JFK-LHR, and then LHR-LAX, you need to claim 3 different "trips". </i>,

perhaps the above is not a good example, because if that's what you wanted to do then just claim a R/T and have a free stopover.

From what I understand, you can't have the free stopover anymore. But I haven't flown AA for years, and I was just glancing through that thread.

This is semi-fantastic news for those of us who buy RTW tickets that originate outside our home country, using FF ticket to get to/from the origination point! The semi- part being, of course, that AA doesn't go to all that many of the good starting places.

Here are some definitive answers from AA:

<i>Q: Do one-way awards include any stopovers?
A: Awards between North America and Europe, India, Asia, and Central / South America allow a stopover at the North American gateway. However, other one-way awards do not allow stopovers.


Q: Will I have to pay any additional AAdvantage award or reinstatement charges if I book and ticket two or more one-way awards?
A: When applicable, AAdvantage charges are applied per ticket not per one-way award. Up to four one-way awards can be issued on one ticket.</I>

Thanks Gardyloo! This works great for us
We are going to book one of our legs (DFW-SJU) on business the rest on coach.

SD