Devaluation of AA Points Already Hit?

[Longrass]

Searching through options for a mid-year trip 2015, contemplating Israel, Croatia, USA... Something like that.

Jumped on AA.com and found zero availability return TLV-DRW/CNS/SYD/BNE/MLB all year... Literally none!

Then started checking other options and managed to find a maximum of 1 seat in F/J to most of the even not so popular destinations.

My question to you all... Has devaluation occurred, or is this simply a blackout period due Christmas and AA/OW trying to clamp down on a mad influx of points bookings for the upcoming year?

Thanks

 

[TheBOSman]

This is due partly the direction you are coming from, and the vagaries and relationships that TLV has with the larger airlines in its immediate area that partner with AA. All but one of the airlines that AA partners with that serve TLV fly into TLV from Europe (or US from the USA), and AA won't let you connect to the Middle East via Europe from South Pacific. So, all of those, BA, IB, AB, AY, US, are all out. CX does not serve TLV. Of course, QR, EY, and GF don't serve TLV. LY never showed online anyway, but you can't book award tickets with them anymore using AA miles.

The one AA partner serving TLV that is a legal connection from South Pacific is Royal Jordanian. RJ doesn't fly anywhere near Australia, so you'll have to fly another airline to an RJ departure point, then connect from that point through AMM to get to TLV. There are a couple of one-way awards showing on AA.com TLV-AMM-DXB-SYD, this is the only possible routing that will show online (assumingly MEL would also work and connections within Australia possibly as well). So, you need award availability to line up on all three of those segments, which is not that easy. It isn't a blackout, or devaluation, it is simply a limitation of TLV not having many flights from the east of it, and AA not partnering with most of those airlines, and the one airline that it does partner with not releasing a large amount of award space, and having to route in a very particular way in order to book the award you desire.

 

[dalereardon]

Also the search engine on AA does not show many airlines - eg CX, MH, QR etc. You should get a free BA exec club account and search using that. Or use a website like awardnexus.com even which is my preferred site.

Dale.

 

[drron]

As I have been saying for some time there has been a devaluation of AA miles for at least 6 months.sAAver awards in premium cabins on AA longhaul have basically disappeared but may appear 1-2 weeks out.This is very different from availability we have enjoyed for the last 7 years.
However in this instance TLV is not served by an airline that can be found on aa.com so you need to look at other ways to search for availability then must ring to book.SAAver awards on partner airlines are available but how long will this continue when their frequent flyers cant access cheap AA awards.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

If you want to fly TLV-DRW, availability on the specific route may be limited but if you search for availability on trunk routes like LHR-SYD/MEL and then buy revenue tickets to connect you at each end, that can work. There is generally better availability on the trunk routes.