Our flight to Rome has been booked using frequent flyer miles, however, need to extend our trip by one day due to poor upfront planning. We have not had any luck with our daily calls to the airline (American) to change the return flight. They suggest that we call daily until the day of departure. Is this a waste of time? Has anyone had luck in extending itineraries using miles for their flights without paying a penalty?

I've done this for my boss on United without penalty. He flies only in first class where FF seats are very hard to get.

Are you looking for a direct, non-stop from Rome to wherever, or have you asked American to check alternative routing and FF partner airlines?

If you have checked alternatives, why wouldn't you just do as American suggests? Only you can decide whether extending your trip an additional day is worth this potential "waste of time."

If you have no luck before your departure, I suggest you find the AA number in Italy (most likely you'll be talking with someone in Ireland) and phone the airline a few days before your return. That's when the seats are most likely to open up. We've done this twice and have been able to extend each time.

Change of date is free on award tickets, but you cannot change routing or carriers without redepositing the miles, for a fee, and then taking out a new award.

Award inventory has to open up on the same carrier, same route if you want to extend your vacation by 1 or 100 days. Otherwise, it will cost, but you may have a better shot of actually achieving your goal.

If you decide to take out a new award, call AA and make sure the new award is on hold before cancelling the old one and redepositing the miles.

Either way, good luck, and have a great trip!

I guess you're really asking what the chances are someone will cancel their FF flight so their slot opens up for you. Well, the chances are real, so as mentioned above, only you can decide if you want to call every day or not. The bad news is they are more likely to open up one seat at a time, so you'll have to decide if you want to take that one and hope for a second one or not. The good news is whenever I call the AAdvantage number (which is quite often) -- 1-800-882-8880, it seems I rarely get put on hold, or at least for not more than maybe a minute. Learn the sequence of numbers to punch to get to the right person to make it happen quicker -- you don't have to wait for the speeches to punch the numbers.

<b>Neapolitan</b>,

Cancelling of an award ticket has nothing to do with inventory opening up for a new one.

That decision is solely based on the revenue people when they decide to open more seats for awards.

Really? You mean if they currently have 10 slots for FF tickets and there are 10 reservations for them, but 2 people change their dates, then someone else can't get those two slots?

In fact, I once was trying to do our FF Business Class to Europe tickets and there was only one available for the date I wanted. The person on the phone said there were only two slots released so far and one was taken. So I checked a few things to see if we wanted to go forward a day or back a day, but the next day when I called they told me that there were two seats available -- the other person had released the one he had on hold.

Of course, I realize that there could be additional ones released as well -- which would be fortunate for PapaG.

The agent was ~1/2 correct.

If the flight is so far out that none of the seats have been sold, then perhaps the released award seat(s) will go back to award inventory. That may happen if all the other revenue fares are still wide open,

but, if the award seat(s) get released when the flight has already sold many of the seats, the award seats go right back to revenue inventory and only get released to AAdvantage when revenue dept decides the chances of selling the remaining seats are slim.

&lt;&lt;If the flight is so far out that none of the seats have been sold, then perhaps the released award seat(s) will go back to award inventory. That may happen if all the other revenue fares are still wide open,but, if the award seat(s) get released when the flight has already sold many of the seats, the award seats go right back to revenue inventory and only get released to AAdvantage when revenue dept decides the chances of selling the remaining seats are slim.&gt;&gt;

This above response is correct

When I grow up I want to know just half as much as AAFrequentFlyer does about how it all works! And also be able to claim a flight like that last one he described -- sort of around the world with 37 stops, or something like that!!!

That does make sense. In the case I was talking about we were at that 330 day out period when I doubt a single seat had been sold.

This turned into a delightful brain storming session, and because of the encouragement, I'll continue to call daily. Betsy's advice to call from Italy a few days before our departure was something I didn't think of, but will also try. Now to find out how to call American Airlines from Naples... uh....

PapaG, I call AA from Naples all the time -- oooops, you mean Italy, not Florida.

But seriously call the regular customer service number for Aadvantage -- 1-800-882-8880 and someone should be able to tell you. I've spent many a summer traveling across Europe having to call AA frequently to book stages of the next year's trip with miles or to extend my hold, and I always got the numbers to call from where I'd be before I left home.

OK thanks, but (dumb question) do I call 001-800-882-8880 or what country code should be used?

uh-oh, maybe my post was really unclear. I meant you should call that number from the US before you leave (you are in the US right?) Call and get the correct number to call from Naples -- it won't be that number, but a different one.

OK.. gotcha! thx and yes... we're in Chicago.