DH and I are looking at a vacation in France next fall, and would fly LAX-CDG (with a stopover at ORD or JFK) on American Airlines. I looked it up and at this point it would cost ~$800 to outright purchase or 60,000 miles. I would like to cash in my miles and go ahead and book my ticket now.

Would it be detrimental to wait to purchase his ticket until prices came down a bit (for instance, earlier this year, I saw the same route going for ~$580 on American)? Or shoudl we buy the accompanying ticket now for fear of the flight selling out? (We're looking at travel late September - mid October next year.)

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not much of a ticket diva!

It is not necessarily detrimental to wait to purchase the ticket and the flight isn't likely to sell out this far ahead. That said, I would be leery of expecting a fare of under $600 to show up for LAX-CDG for that time period. Fares are just flat out higher now than they were earlier this year.

We just returned from Paris on a $621 r/t coach tickets from the midwest and while I felt bad about having to pay that much, it turned out to be the lowest priced opportunity for the itinerary in all of the time that I watched the route. We flew CDG r/t for $395 in January and I don't expect to see that kind of fare again. I guess what I'm saying is that $800 may not be a terrible price and your potential savings between now and next fall are probably not all that great (I would guess MAYBE $150 max, if you're lucky.)

Be sure to use the free ticket for the person who accumulates miles most slowly on the airline you're flying.

Possibly a long shot, but you might ask American whether the fare rules on the purchased ticket will permit you to refare and get a voucher if the price goes down. I don't have any recent experience with AA, but I'm pretty sure I've seen others here mention being able to do this with international tickets. I did the same earlier this year with United. Bought tickets to Japan for $1300 each. About two months before travel, UA opened up lower fare buckets, and the same itinerary was pricing at $900. I got $400 vouchers; no fee involved--better than nothing.

Checking on the AA site, it takes 40K points for Economy off-peak and 60K peak. Do you know that that time will be peak?

Also, you can see how the flight is selling by checking on the 'view seats'.

Off Peak is OCT15-MAY1


AFAIK, AA still does fare rollback without any fees for international flights. If you see a lower fare for the same flight(s), just call and they will send you a voucher. But with that much time, the rules may change.

Good luck!

You guys are the best! Thank you!

And actually, it gets better! I found out today that I have a firm work commitment until October 18, so we could go off peak. Yay!!!