AA eliminates Saver Awards; seats no longer available for QFF/partner airline redemptions?

[levelnine]

But is there a way to tell with the AA site at all which is which?

Not necessarily, because aa.com will offer you a web special if it is priced lower than a saver award.

Eg this flight has saver availability


Choose it on aa.com and it shows up as a web special:

 

[Guvner]

Not one award flight on QF's website for LAX to DFW past 13th Feb 2023 in any cabin.
Not one? Seriously. Finally found DFW-SYD-MEL in J for August but no way of getting to DFW on an award? Happy to pay rev but no awards for the next 12 months, that's a joke.

 

[levelnine]

Not one? Seriously.

It's a glitch. Plenty of saver award availability. Just not displaying on qantas.com. Seems like you can get it by calling. Either that or wait for the glitch to be fixed.

 

[serfty]

But is there a way to tell with the AA site at all which is which?

Standard points costs for AA oneway MilesAAver awards can be found here:

Flight award chart − AAdvantage program − American Airlines

www.aa.com

e.g. HNL to/from Contiguous 48 states is 22,500 AAdvantage Miles in economy.

 

[levelnine]

Standard points costs for AA oneway MilesAAver awards can be found here:

Flight award chart − AAdvantage program − American Airlines

www.aa.com

e.g. HNL to/from Contigous 48 states is 22,500 AAdvantage Miles

This shows the price, but it does not show you availability.

aa.com does not show saver availability if the web special price is cheaper.

Eg on the example I posted above, there was saver availability. It does not show saver availability, only web special availability, because the web special price is the cheapest.

 

[serfty]

This shows the price, but it does not show you availability.

Correct, but if a search for award availability on AA.com shows a cost that is matching or less than that for a route in say, economy then it is a MileSAAver award booking and may be bookable as an award by other AA partner airlines. Any points cost greater than that in the table do not represent award availability.

 

[levelnine]

Any points cost greater than that in the table do not represent award availability.

This part is incorrect, and is what I'm trying to emphasise.

Take my example above of DFW-CLT on 4 October.

There are 7 award tickets available on the 7am flight.

They do not show on aa.com and the price cannot be used to determine their availability because the price on aa.com is below the MilesAAver price of 12.5K:



And it's not even the case that the cheapest flight on aa.com corresponds with award flight availability.

Take this example from JFK to LAX on 4 October.

This is what shows on ba.com


This is what shows on aa.com

 

[adenda]

You need to click on the "Details" link at the bottom of each flight listing - economy award seats are Booking Code T and business are U. I've found you will usually find these flights on the QFF website - at least until this glitch appeared.

 

[levelnine]

View from the Wing reports that AA's plan to move to fully dynamic pricing will be implemented in the coming weeks.

This will eliminate MilesAAver awards, which are the awards that are currently redeemable on Qantas points and points from other partner airlines.

VftW notes it is unclear what is going to happen to partner award availability.

Anyone have any thoughts on what that means for QF redemptions on AA flights moving forward? Do you think they'll set a particular price level at which flights will be made available to partners? Will there be a hidden fare bucket that is available for partners? Or will partners get almost nothing (like Delta)?

 

[snabbu]

Could explain why earlier this week (or maybe last week) AA domestic awards via QF vanished completely.

 

[kamchatsky]

Last year when I booked Y MIA-LAX on AAward, I already noticed that most of their awards are dynamic anyway. In fact, in some cases, the dynamic pricing was cheaper than the standard MilesAAver fares.

So I think this will impact their partners more than AA members. We just don't know how many partner seats will be released.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Anyone have any thoughts on what that means for QF redemptions on AA flights moving forward? Do you think they'll set a particular price level at which flights will be made available to partners? Will there be a hidden fare bucket that is available for partners? Or will partners get almost nothing (like Delta)?

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-flight-rewards/tables.html#partner

AA not listed in partner classic rewards table. Do not have this page, from say 3 months ago, but would expect AA was listed.

Partner Classic Flight Reward table​

For Partner Classic Flight Rewards with Air France, Alaska Airlines, Bangkok Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, EL AL, Emirates, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, SriLankan Airlines and WestJet

But is in https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-flight-rewards/tables.html#qantas

Qantas Classic Flight Reward table​

For Classic Flight Rewards with Qantas, Jetstar*, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, and American Airlines®.

 

[kamchatsky]

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-flight-rewards/tables.html#partner

AA no longer listed in partner awards. Do not have this page from say 3 months ago, but would expect AA was listed

AA table is aligned with the QF table:

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-flight-rewards/tables.html#qantas

 

[aus_flyer]

Wouldn't AA just stop allowing AAdvantage redemptions using award buckets (Z, U, X, T) but still allow seats in these classes for partners to use?

 

[SYD]

Could explain why earlier this week (or maybe last week) AA domestic awards via QF vanished completely.

It was the week before. I managed to one reward booking in and then it just started erroring out…

Australian Frequent Flyer

Tips, Tricks & Chat for the Australian Frequent Flyer

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

QF didn’t say anything about AA redemptions being pulled when they called me back.

 

[Lynda2475]

Called QF this morning and agent couldn't see a single award flight in any class on any of the AA domestic routes I asked her to investigate in any class (all routes with multiple flights per day where previously been easy to get a reward flight).

And I wasn't offered a single AA routing option for any flight into or out of the USA (had to go BA and AY).

I wonder if Qantas IT failed implement a necessary change to continue to see swards post this change. Seems off that a OW carrier would offer zero domestic flights to partners, especially because of the hub system in USA makes it necessary to have one or two domestic flights on most international itineraries.

My OW has a hole in it, looks like I will need to buy a cash fare east coast to west; when should have been able to add to the OWA and just pay the taxes.

Surely AA members try for OWAs too?

 

[aus_flyer]

My OW has a hole in it, looks like I will need to buy a cash fare east coast to west; when should have been able to add to the OWA and just pay the taxes.

Don’t forget Alaska!

 

[Lynda2475]

Don’t forget Alaska!

I didnt but no Alaska flights have shown up on any route i searched, seem to only be able to get West Jet and they are not one world so cant be used on a OWA.

 

[kamchatsky]

I didnt but no Alaska flights have shown up on any route i searched, seem to only be able to get West Jet and they are not one world so cant be used on a OWA.

Maybe QF broke AS availability as well?

 

[SYD]

Maybe QF broke AS availability as well?

No, AS is still there. Tends to be mainly west coast origin/destinations however. Not nearly as useful as AA….

Funny thing, I searched for something else yesterday and an AA flight appeared but a connection from WS out of YVR.