Fed Up With AA Air Miles
 

AA is making it increasingly difficult to use their air miles.

Increasingly they make the better flights unavailable for the minumum number of miles.

Is it only AA or are they all like that now?

If any are easier to use please let me know.

Without more information it's hard to give a useful answer. Which "better" flights are you referring to? When? What class of service?

Or perhaps you just want to vent.

Southwest is far better, IMOP. I have been able to use them just fine on 4 or 5 trips. I have yet to use any of my AA points(I have about 250k with them)

I have both credit cards. When I am able to use my AA miles(seems almost impossible to use them at their minimum number of miles-even when trying to book the very day they become available)I will do away with the AA card.

Southwest is fair with their mileage(they charge you more miles during Christmas only-at least thats the way I see it) and they don't charge you for luggage. Plus, they screw up far less on flights being cancelled, luggage issues, etc.

Of course, my opinion on all of this.

And while on the subject. I live 10 minutes from Fort Smith airport and live 2 hours from Tulsa. The flight from Fort Smith to Dallas(connection for most AA flights for me) is always $150-$200 more than Tulsa, yet the flight is actually less miles. AA bases all their rates on what the competition is doing(they really don't have any comp in Fort Smith).
XNA(Northwest AR) does have United and AA. They both charge more there than Tulsa too. You let someone like Jetblue or Southwest start flying there and prices will drop.

What's funny to me is that Southwest is able to make a profit and the others can't.

I understand markets vary from city to city. But, there is now way it can be that big a difference. Car rental companies and most airlines have somehow missed the basic fundamentals of economics. I expect to pay 10% more of so for gas, a cup of coffee, etc. But I don't expect to pay 50-100% more to fly or rent a car.

What I mean is this. Why can you rent a car in Vegas for $17 per day and the same car in Denver can cost you $60.

Gardyloo,
A better flight would be a shorter time between flights, a flight with less changes or coming back from Europe on a flight that has one or no changes as opposes to having to sleep over in London.

It's easy to see the better flights. Just click on the higher mile charges (50 or 60k per leg to/from Europe) and you see them.

About Southwest. I don't think they fly anywhere outside of the US.

Even in the US I once tried to fly with them and ended up paying more with a different airline because SW had one or two flights per day and the other had a much better choice.

If I save a couple of bucks and lose a day of a trip or have to add a day because of the ariline schedule I didn't get much out of it.

Your right, SW doesn't fly to nearly as many places as other carriers. But, check schedules and see what they have to offer.

SW has added a lot more destinations and flights than what they did have though. Perhaps they work well for me, because I am centered in the US.

<i>A better flight would be a shorter time between flights, a flight with less changes or coming back from Europe on a flight that has one or no changes as opposes to having to sleep over in London.</i>

Coming back to... Albany? Albuquerque? Anchorage? Sleeping over in London is usually only an issue if the originating flight plus MCT at Heathrow misses late departures to the US. Time zones happen. But without specifics I'm only speculating.

Many times with redemption trips it's the connecting flights intra-US that create the roadblocks; cheap fares tend to fill planes (as they drive the airlines into bankruptcy and force nickel-dime behaviors) and schedules have been dramatically reduced due to the economic situation.

Did you check out availability on partners? I've found that it's surprisingly easy to use AA miles, even in peak summer periods, for transatlantic travel, provided you're familiar with how to look for/ask for partner space. In the next 10 days or so, I can see award space availability ("SAAver," not "AAnytime") to New York from London most days, albeit mainly on British Airways planes. (BA has much more capacity crossing the Atlantic than American.) I haven't even bothered to check on space on Iberia, Finnair, or airBerlin from Madrid, Helsinki, or Dusseldorf/Berlin respectively, but know from experience that there is frequently space using those carriers. But they only fly where they fly; you won't see a Finnair A330 in Tallahassee.

Over the years I've redeemed around a million and a half miles on AA or AA partner flights, and I've never had a trip where I couldn't get redemption seats if I was fairly flexible with my route or travel dates. In my view (but others have differing opinions) AA's FF program is by far the best of the lot, owing to its broad range of partners and flexibility in its route options. I've helped a lot of friends book holidays using Alaska, United and Continental miles, BA miles and Adios points, and a few using Delta SkyPesos, and firmly believe AA's program is head and shoulders above those.

But as we say, YMMV.

YMMV?

Your mileage may vary.

I have used AA miles many times. As late as this June.

We flew to Marseille and back from Paris. I use Miami as a return so it's not an obscure return. That became a battle of wills and I only won because one of my flights had been cancelled and they didn't tell me for 3 months.

Last year I flew from Miami to Calgary and back from Vancouver.

This year I couldn't get a minimum miles flight to Calgary.

What we did in the past is no indication of the challenges now.

I find that over the past 6-8 months they really tightened the screws.

I might have to look at Delta. They fly to a lot of places that are of interest to me but I hate them. I've never bought a Delta ticket that flew as I purchsed it. Always changes and never for the better.

I just flew United to Calgary and back. Maybe I should look at them. They didn't change anything from when I purchase it. Every flight was on time even though they waited a half hour on the last flight so two connecting flights could meet. Also, they had good schedules.

But I've never flown with them before this. I'll take a look especially since they bought Continental.

<i>...(seems almost impossible to use them at their minimum number of miles-even when trying to book the very day they become available)</i>...

This is a common misconception; frequent flyer seats don't "become available" at any one time, most especially at 330 days out, when the <i>flights</i> become available. "Award" inventory (I hate the term "award" flights - whether you know it or not, you <i>paid money</i> for those miles) becomes available if and when the revenue-management algorithms say it's safe to release X number of seats into redemption categories. This occurs throughout the 330-day availability for the flight, usually just a few seats at a time, while the computers and Hogwarts grads in RM try to predict how many seats they'll sell for real money, and in which fare buckets.

Often the closer you get to flight dates (hence my comment above about the next couple of weeks) the computers decide that it's safe to put seats into redemption categories since the probability of money sales (at higher short-term fare levels) is low enough to do so. Plays havoc with vacation planners who want to book things months in advance, but that's the way it is.

Segment pricing has virtually nothing to do with distance flown, and everything to do with demand and competition (supply.) Not too different from most other commodities, from Fritos to Ferraris.

They not only release seats during the time between 330 days and the trip, there are also cancellations along the way.

Folks that booked early, change their plans.

Meyer - I have my share of Delta miles and I also hate the company. I use my miles only to visit a friend in NC.

What are Delta and United like for redeeming air miles?

Whatever you want to call them, I don't figure I paid for them. I pay off my credit card each month(have it set to automatically withdraw from my banking account). So, if I were paying with cash, check, or other regular CC, then I wouldn't receive anything. I fly a couple of times a years, so I don't accumulate that many miles that way each year.
BTW, I still consider GM Card to be the best reward card. You get 5% on it.

I fully understand that they release seats at any time.
I normally have my plans made 9-12 months in advance.

Yes, I always could go "anytime miles". But, it is nearly impossible to use the minimum miles trip on every trip I have wanted to use them on over the past 3 or 4 years.

With Southwest, if your airfare is $300 then you would use like 12,000 points. If your ticket is $400, then you would use like 16,000 points.

Much about your post confuses me. The idea of comparing Southwest's awards within the US to AA's awards to and from Europe is really a head scratcher. Another thing is the reference to staying over in London. Huh? To my knowledge, AA has no flights within Europe to London. So it sounds like the issue might be with other One World Airlines.

Normally I use AA miles and book the 11 months ahead with no problems. But I was kind of surprised this year when I was able to book TWO business class award seats for our itinerary in September, even though I waited till February. My only problem has been an 8 hour layover in London before picking up our BA flight onward to Venice, although I've been trying to get an earlier flight for months now. But that's really an issue with BA, and reasonable since it's the first day of the Venice Film Festival!

I have better luck redeeming my AA miles when we fly to Europe or the Caribbean. I got on a few months ago to just check availability to several destinations, using the flexible search. If I found flights, the connections were crazy.

I have had difficulty using AA for reasonable domestic flights or even to Canada. CLE-Halifax or Calgary required 4 connections and took all day.

I have never had a problem redeeming CO/United miles for domestic flights but they also offer more total flights from Cleveland. American has reduced the number of flights from Cleveland so that contributes to my problem with redemption.

<i>Whatever you want to call them, I don't figure I paid for them.</i>

That's their plan.

You paid for them indirectly - in $50 or $95 annual credit card fees if nothing else. Less visible methods (but a tenth of a cent multiplied by billions of transactions mounts up) include the markups businesses add in order to cover credit card processing fees.

Tell me, have you heard of any bank that undertook some "service" that wasn't intended to be profit-making? In point of fact, mileage credit cards are huge cash cows to the airlines <i>and</i> to the banks. The airlines sell billions (trillions?) of miles to the credit card-issuing banks for some (secret) fraction of a cent each, then the banks re-sell the miles to you, in CC annual and late fees, service markups charged to retailers (and passed indirectly on to you) and of course through interest and penalties assessed against the (majority) that don't pay their balances monthly.

When it comes time to redeem miles, many people (again, a secret known only to the airlines) don't have enough miles to redeem for anything but cheap coach seats, and millions of others got the miles but never paid attention to the balance such that their 5000 or 10,000 mile balance is never redeemed at all, and after 18 months it goes away. As with retail gift certificates, there's huge "leakage" - credit that's never redeemed - from FF programs. The airlines get the cash from the banks, the banks get your fees, and the best you can do is redeem the miles for a coach ticket that fills a seat that would otherwise go empty. When you redeem 20,000 miles for a seat that has a marginal cost of maybe $100 to an airline, that's taking a part of the airline's contingent liabilities off the balance sheet with a negligible impact on the P&L sheets. And if you don't redeem your miles, as many people don't, then it's pure profit long term to the airline <i>and</i> the bank.

Multiply this by a few million consumers, and it's not small money. In fact, when Air Canada went bankrupt a few years ago, it sold off its "Aeroplan" frequent flyer program for more money than the rest of Air Canada was worth.

Bottom line, if it wasn't profitable to the banks and airlines, they wouldn't do it.

<i>My only problem has been an 8 hour layover in London before picking up our BA flight onward to Venice...</i>

BA operates most of its VCE flights from Gatwick airport, not Heathrow. It's like American flying you to LaGuardia and connecting out of JFK - about as consumer-friendly as a sharp stick. But it's all part of the business - the more you know, the better job you'll make of manipulating it to your AAdvantage.

NeoPatrick,
I didn't bring up SouthWest I think spiro did.

I have an AA card and over the past 6-8 months they've really made it more difficult.

When I check I select AA or partner so BA comes into it as well.

The more preferrable flights will fly back directly from say Rome to Miami (for me) with a change in London (LHR). But for those you usually have to be willing to use 60,000 miles for the return leg per person. The minumum miles now usually gets a night in London. Not good.

"BA operates most of its VCE flights from Gatwick airport, not Heathrow."

Actually on Sunday -- which we're traveling, we found the same number of flights to Venice from Heathrow as from Gatwick. And since posting this morning, I have finally had success -- was able to get the earlier flight from LHR to VCE, so no longer have that 8 plus hours layover. Just three hours -- fine with clearing passport control and switching terminals.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Myer, my apologies -- somewhere along the line I forgot who the original poster was!

Meanwhile have you checked One World award travel? I have now generally switched to that and find better availability. In fact our flights this year -- JFK-LHR, LHR-VCE, FCO-MAD, and MAD-JFK is only 80,000 each in Business Class. It would be way more booked as AA tickets, and if fact couldn't include one of those other connecting flights! Next year I'm looking at flights to London, then to Vienna, then to Zurich, and a non stop return from Zurich to JFK. Again, all that is only 80,000 miles in Business Class!

Meanwhile, I'd also suggest you call and talk with a rep about those BA flights. I've found that many will not show up online but can be booked for you. Even this morning the rep on the phone had to put me on hold and confirm with BA that she could book me on the earlier BA business class flight from London to Venice just two weeks from now -- even though it showed no availability. She was successful in doing so.

Again, If I were paying cash or a non-reward cc, I would not receive any "awards". So, I don't see how it is costing me anything(yes some cards do have annual membership, not all though). The markup that businesses charge to make up for the cc fees also apply to anyone paying cash(at most places anyway).

If you are going to use a credit card and provided you pay off each month, why on earth wouldn't you want a reward card of some kind. My GM Card does not have an annual fee.

I just called and cancelled my AA credit card. That annual fee was next month. lol.

I also have a lot of AA miles that I haven't been able to use. All I want is LAX-JFK nonstop for a long weekend ... but I have to spend 60,000 miles to get a nonstop flight. When I've used them up (maybe a trip to Europe will be easier) I'm canceling the card.

you can cancel your card and keep your miles, btw

I cannot believe people don't think they ever paid for frequent flyer miles, either directly or indirectly.

Perhaps we should ask this question: when you redeemed FF miles to get your last ticket and you flew those segments, did you GET FF miles for doing so? Oh, really? Why not? IOW, if you pay that's when you get miles; you may not pay much but you paid something and I am not talking about the taxes.

As to the OP's question. I agree. USAirways, for example, has boosted the number of FF miles needed for trips to Europe and since I don;t fly as much as I used to, or use my CC as much as I used to, I simply look for cheap fares and save my money to splurge after I'm there.

And yes, I'm still plenty rich so go figure.

Myer,

I just picked a random long weekend flight from lsx-jfk.

Friday Oct 19 - Tuesday October 23. The outbound wea EWR.

Miles quoted 25k.

"Perhaps we should ask this question: when you redeemed FF miles to get your last ticket and you flew those segments, did you GET FF miles for doing so? Oh, really? Why not? IOW, if you pay that's when you get miles; you may not pay much but you paid something and I am not talking about the taxes."

OK, I've read that statement five or six times and I still don't get it. What does NOT getting more miles when you fly for free have to do with paying for the miles you used to cash in? And what are you saying I "paid" by using those miles?

I learned long ago to use my AA miles for biggies, not for domestic flights that I could often pick up cheaply.

Every year or two I end up cashing in miles usually for international trips in Business Class. Typically the ticket I get would cost me anywhere from $12,000 to $15,000 miles to buy. Guess what it would cost to fly (all in Business) from New York to London, then London to Venice, then Rome to Madrid, then Madrid back to New York. But I can do that for 80,000 miles. I'd hate to state what my 11 stop Asian One World ticket would have cost in dollars compared to the 110,000 points I used! Ignoring miles earned flying and various other ways, with Citibank bonuses, it means maybe I charged a total of around $60,000. Everything I charged I would have charged anyway, and it didn't cost me extra to get the miles.

I laugh when Capital One and others say "but with us you can choose any airline". Yea, but at what cost? To book a $15,000 ticket with Capital One points, I'd have to have spent a million and a half dollars on my credit card instead of $60,000, something I'm not likely to do in this lifetime. And meanwhile I couldn't combine the spending with actual miles earned flying or dining or any of the other ways I earn miles.

Dukey, Tell me how I have spent more money out of my pocket than I would have otherwise to get my last FF mile.

I don't really accumulate many miles by flying, I get almost all of them on credit card purchase. I have always made sure that they are paid off in full on time each and every single month. Some gas stations do charge more for credit card purchases(but very few). Yes, some credit cards do have a yearly fee(so I am guilty on 2 of my cards and the other 2 I have do not have any fee). For what it's worth, I have cancelled Citibank card twice, only to have them call me and offer me another 35k and wave the yearly fee for me to reinstate.

Southwest charges $10 for each segment on the freebies, so I guess getting a $300 ticket for $10 is not totally free.

I rarely make long distance trips, but that is what I am saving my AA point for(as NEO suggests in above).

I remember McDonalds giving away their new fruit smoothies about a year ago. Yes, they were free. Are we paying for them by buying a big mac or fries. I guess so, but the point is the smoothie didn't cost anything. That's the way I see any type of reward card, whether its airlines, cash back, or car.

This is like saying when something goes on sale, then you are going to have to pay for something else that is higher priced. Same principal.

Back to the original OP. The question was about AA awards and other airline awards. I feel exactly the way the poster does about AA awards(I think). I don't feel like I can use them the way I thought I could use them. My dad has had AA award/mileage for years and has flown to Europe 3 or 4 times using them. He has really thrown up his hands this past year trying to redeem his miles too. I fly in the lower 48 for the most part, so SW works well for me on 90% of my trips. They do charge an annual fee(free the first year).

I love my AA FF miles I use them every year to make a first class roundtrip in the lower 48.
I use my card for everything and pay it off every month.
The flights I book would cost thousands of dollars. I pay ten.

A few years ago I got fed up trying to book flights using points. I got myself a Capital One Cash Rewards Card and I converted my green American Express card for an American Express Blue Cash Everyday card. Now, earning dollars rather than points, I am one happy camper (and I don't pay card fees).

HTTY

Good for you, happytrails, and how much do you have to spend with Capital One to get $15,000 credit for a multiple European business class flight? Or, if you prefer, how much do you have to spend to get $15,000 cash back to buy a $15,000 ticket? If it is even a fourth of what I get with Citibank and AA miles, them I might consider it. Otherwise, probably not.

I have had no trouble in the last two years with American (Phoenix to Germany), Alaska (Anchorage to Denver) and Southwest (Denver to Phoenix, San Diego, Minneapolis)

There are millions of AAdvantage members, also millions of members of United, Delta, Alaska, Southwest, British Airways, Lufthansa and who knows how many other airlines. Presumably these people have figured out what works best for them, and they won't get any argument from me. From my point of view, there are numerous flaws in AA's program, and it is true that since bankruptcy it's been more difficult to redeem AA miles in some circumstances than in others. Also, since AA, BA, Iberia and some other Oneworld airlines got antitrust indemnification, AA has increasingly deferred its TATL award "obligations" to BA, who, of course, make even more obscene profits out of FF miles than most, due to their assessment of fuel surcharges on "award" tickets.

But I also have experience in redeeming United, Alaska, US Airways, BA, and Delta miles (among others) and - just in my experience - AA offers much better redemption options than the others, mainly due to where AA and its partners fly. Just try - I dare you - to get Delta "low" mileage tier FF trips in the summer to Europe. Or redeem US or UA miles for trips within South America or Australia. Let me know how that works for you.

But try to use AA miles to get to Mongolia, or to fly on routes within West or East Africa... same outcome. No FFP is perfect, but some are better for some people than for others.

Two weeks ago my wife and I flew in first class on Cathay Pacific from Vancouver to JFK, 32,500 AA miles each and $40 in taxes (thanks, Canada.) Booked them 10 days in advance; we had the first class cabin to ourselves. I tried to get AA mileage seats back to Seattle, ha ha. The "free" CX PJs are probably worth $50. The retail price for that flight is $3,428, so in my view a good exchange. But again, YMMV.

<i>Good for you, happytrails!</i> Thanks for your kind thought.

<i>How much do you have to spend with Capital One to get $15,000 credit for a multiple European business class flight?</i> This isn't a problem for me, because I don't spend $15,000 on one flight. I know airline loyalty works for some, but it doesn't work for everybody. I was trying to get the OP to consider that life without airline miles is a possibility.

HTTY

Gardyloo,

I can keep up with you, but some of these other posts are so convoluted and redundant, that this has turned into a free for all.

No, no, no! Don't switch to Delta. For many years they have come in at the absolute bottom of the carriers for availability of the lowest mileage tickets in annual surveys. That said, I just booked a lowest mileage trip to Rome in April by using their monthly calendar and flying over on a Wed. instead of a Thurs. But since they stopped giving any priority to their Medallion flyers about 10 years ago, usually I've had to use their intermediate mileage to get anywhere. (Have just refused the double mile flights.) Used to fly Business to Europe 10 years ago but don't even try to get that now.

One of the things Delta does - and I gather other airlines - is throw in a few lowest mileage seats with things like 16 hr. layovers or extra changes. We have a flight every 60 to 90 min. to Atlanta from 6AM to about 10PM, so there's absolutely no reason that they have to fly me into Atlanta at 7AM to take an 8PM flight to Europe. They will offer one with a 2 hr. layover for 50% more miles. Only reason for the unpleasant itineraries is so you'll cough up the extra miles and the airline can get them off the debit column. Have read in newspaper and Flytalk that United is picking up the less-responsive customer service Continental business model, which is making their frequent fliers furious.

http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/u...tml?id=4840019


http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...-air-miles.cfm

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/best-...3#.UC-M_91lQ7s


Obviously the fodors link is wrong.

Anyway, these are the first two things I found on google.

So the real question perhaps should have been--

What's in your wallet?

I'm not a pro like gardyloo but I'm learning to use AA FF miles more wisely.
Neo, I'm impressed with your canny use of miles too.

I've made a few mistakes along the way. I 'paid' way too many miles for a trip TO Hawaii in coach and then fewer miles for the return leg in first class because I was inflexible with my dates and not prepared to wait it out!

I could have gone a lot further than Hawaii on those miles!

I do think it's a good program and with more research and some personal restraint I will get there.

spiro, I read the article you linked and it really does depend on what's best for the individual depending on where they live and travel patterns. Southwest doesn't get me to Europe.