new AA buy miles promotion

[diningdecadence]

for those who are purchasing for no specific reason are you accounting for a potential devaluation of the award chart? I assume one would come but I have no idea how it may play out.

for me, if the A$ was back at parity i would be speculatively purchasing but with the 20% drop in the dollar it makes me re-consider more carefully. with friends visiting from US next year even a Y redemption looks like it would save a couple hundred US$ so may just pull the trigger.

 

[burmans]

I'm holding under 500k across accounts and in no real rush to buy more, especially with the dollar.

I'm not buying either though on the contra-argument there were a fair few on here arguing against people buying/sharing USDM miles about a year - 18 months ago where there was much better value than this AND the dollar buys a fair bit more than today. In retrospect it was probably a mistake to take that advice.

Personally I think everyone should be making their own assessment on a) their personal needs, b) whether the dollar has further to fall (and many suspect it has considerable potential to fall significantly more) and c) whether AA will continue to have such buy opportunities.

Edit: oh and d) whether AA will devalue.

 

[VAG newbie]

I'm not buying either though on the contra-argument there were a fair few on here arguing against people buying/sharing USDM miles about a year - 18 months ago where there was much better value than this AND the dollar buys a fair bit more than today. In retrospect it was probably a mistake to take that advice.

Personally I think everyone should be making their own assessment on a) their personal needs, b) whether the dollar has further to fall (and many suspect it has considerable potential to fall significantly more) and c) whether AA will continue to have such buy opportunities.

Edit: oh and d) whether AA will devalue.

It's a gamble. One of the biggest reason I held out from buying USDM with 100% bonus (as you said, now a big mistake in retrospect) was that most "experts" were expecting devaluation post merger. Well, who would've known that they didn't devalue and AUD dropped by 20%.

 

[Alanslegal]

It's a gamble. One of the biggest reason I held out from buying USDM with 100% bonus (as you said, now a big mistake in retrospect) was that most "experts" were expecting devaluation post merger. Well, who would've known that they didn't devalue and AUD dropped by 20%.

Life is a calculated gamble though, there is never anything which is risk free.

Some awards did devalue though (and some are now better off).

Australia to Europe is now 160K round trip in F, whilst it was previously 150K

Australia to USA is now 125K round trip in J and you can hardly get a seat, when it use to be 110K and quite achievable routing through Asia.

Some other awards are better off, like Australia to Asia which is now 70K return instead of 90K.

 

[boomy]

Even after any future devaluation it will still most likely be cheaper then paying for J/F tickets so for me the dilemma is quite simple: if I have plans to use the points in the next 12 months I would buy now because it's a good promo, if not, then better to keep the money.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

It's still a ****load less than discount business/first...

What threads like this highlight is that a heap of people 'trade up' in classes - thus the airline makes more $$ than they otherwise would because you would have normally bought an EY seat.

 

[burmans]

It's still a ****load less than discount business/first...

Totally agree, maybe not as good as some previous options but still pretty pretty damn good.

 

[Mary Carol Kelly]

Does anyone know if you purchase the maximum 100,000 miles plus get bonus 60,000 - can you use immediately about 150,000 of them on an award flight held ?

 

[Hvr]

Mine posted to my account within 60 seconds so I don't see why not.

 

[anat0l]

Does anyone know if you purchase the maximum 100,000 miles plus get bonus 60,000 - can you use immediately about 150,000 of them on an award flight held ?

You can use the points as soon as you see them reflected in your account balance.

For many people, this is nearly instantaneous to a few hours. You'd be a bit unlucky if it was slightly longer; very unlucky if it takes more than a few days.

 

[geordieladinoz]

Can anyone arrange for the US $ to collapse this week?!

Not quite a collapse but the US $ is slowly heading in the right direction over the last 48 hours. Another 48 hours then I'm pulling the trigger!

It was 0.7825 over the weekend, now sat at 0.7940.

 

[VAG newbie]

Not quite a collapse but the US $ is slowly heading in the right direction over the last 48 hours. Another 48 hours then I'm pulling the trigger!

It was 0.7825 over the weekend, now sat at 0.7940.

Still going strong, last time I checked it's 0.7954! This makes the full 160k purchase almost $200 cheaper compare to 2 weeks ago.

Ugrrrrrr......decisions decisions! I was gonna sit on it this time but the rising AUD is tempting! Very very tempting!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Still going strong, last time I checked it's 0.7954! This makes the full 160k purchase almost $200 cheaper compare to 2 weeks ago.

Ugrrrrrr......decisions decisions! I was gonna sit on it this time but the rising AUD is tempting! Very very tempting!

yeah - but thinking about having to find actual availability kinda takes the gloss off it.

 

[Alanslegal]

If the dollar hits 0.83 I will buy 100k + 60k So come on - you have around 40 hours from now to do so

 

[Mary Carol Kelly]

Well I took the plunge after reserving two business class seats with Etihad from Perth to Europe in sept /oct but here is a cautionary tale ! My husband and I were both AA members so I bought 100000 points plus bonus 60000 for us both . When I rang to confirm the bookings and finalise things they needed to take the required points 300000( plus A $448) out of one account so told me I have to move (share) them from one to the other - something I presumed was easy and free to do ( like most FF schemes) .
But you find you can only move 50,000 at a time at a cost of around $600 plus US !
I had to find the service centre (4th time) to see what I could do to address this . Fortunately I got a helpful staff member from the Caribbean who managed to split the booking and take points from both accounts. I can see the bookings now in Etihads system but not which seats and it won't let me select them ( anyone help here ?) . I'm now hoping Etihad are ok as there are mixed reviews on several sites giving passenger feedback. Does anyone know if award bookings are able to be cancelled / changed for any reasons ?

 

[Alanslegal]

Well I took the plunge after reserving two business class seats with Etihad from Perth to Europe in sept /oct but here is a cautionary tale ! My husband and I were both AA members so I bought 100000 points plus bonus 60000 for us both . When I rang to confirm the bookings and finalise things they needed to take the required points 300000( plus A $448) out of one account so told me I have to move (share) them from one to the other - something I presumed was easy and free to do ( like most FF schemes) .
But you find you can only move 50,000 at a time at a cost of around $600 plus US !
I had to find the service centre (4th time) to see what I could do to address this . Fortunately I got a helpful staff member from the Caribbean who managed to split the booking and take points from both accounts. I can see the bookings now in Etihads system but not which seats and it won't let me select them ( anyone help here ?) . I'm now hoping Etihad are ok as there are mixed reviews on several sites giving passenger feedback. Does anyone know if award bookings are able to be cancelled / changed for any reasons ?

When you rang up initially to book the seats you had to tell the agent that you were booking for two people but the points were coming out of different frequent flyer accounts. That is when they would make two separate bookings so that each person can use their points and not encounter the issue that you did when you went to pay for it. It is quite common knowledge and mentioned several, if not tens of, times in the discussion threads.

Award bookings can be cancelled/changed for any reason you want, you just have to pay the monetary fee, which is a tiny amount in comparison to the total cost of the whole holiday.

With seat selection; http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/01/18/select-etihad-seats-online/

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Well I took the plunge after reserving two business class seats with Etihad from Perth to Europe in sept /oct but here is a cautionary tale ! My husband and I were both AA members so I bought 100000 points plus bonus 60000 for us both . When I rang to confirm the bookings and finalise things they needed to take the required points 300000( plus A $448) out of one account so told me I have to move (share) them from one to the other - something I presumed was easy and free to do ( like most FF schemes) .
But you find you can only move 50,000 at a time at a cost of around $600 plus US !
I had to find the service centre (4th time) to see what I could do to address this . Fortunately I got a helpful staff member from the Caribbean who managed to split the booking and take points from both accounts. I can see the bookings now in Etihads system but not which seats and it won't let me select them ( anyone help here ?) . I'm now hoping Etihad are ok as there are mixed reviews on several sites giving passenger feedback. Does anyone know if award bookings are able to be cancelled / changed for any reasons ?

Splitting a booking was something USDM was very comfortable with, so I'm surprised AA wasn't up to speed on that.. or maybe they don't do it that often? Anyway - good outcome because transferring points would have been costly.

Award bookings are the same as any revenue booking. So yes there is a chance they could be cancelled or changed because of a schedule change, or flight cancellation etc etc. But you have no concerns that either of those will happen solely because they are awards.

edited - just read Alanslegal's response - not sure if you mean can awards be cancelled by the passenger or the airline? If you mean passenger - the answer is of course 'yes'. And changes are free of charge provided the origin and destination stay the same.

 

[N860CR]

Regarding the free changes, is there a "fair play" policy with this or are they fairly relaxed?

I have a SYD-BNE-HKG-HAN and PNH-HKG-SYD booked for a few months and it looks like I'm not going to be able to go.

If I called and tried to move it to a SYD-HAN / PNH-SYD about 6 months later, are they likely to put up a protest?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Regarding the free changes, is there a "fair play" policy with this or are they fairly relaxed?

I have a SYD-BNE-HKG-HAN and PNH-HKG-SYD booked for a few months and it looks like I'm not going to be able to go.

If I called and tried to move it to a SYD-HAN / PNH-SYD about 6 months later, are they likely to put up a protest?

changes are free of charge, knock yourself out

 

[TheEmu]

Well I took the plunge after reserving two business class seats with Etihad from Perth to Europe in sept /oct but here is a cautionary tale ! My husband and I were both AA members so I bought 100000 points plus bonus 60000 for us both . When I rang to confirm the bookings and finalise things they needed to take the required points 300000( plus A $448) out of one account so told me I have to move (share) them from one to the other - something I presumed was easy and free to do ( like most FF schemes) .
But you find you can only move 50,000 at a time at a cost of around $600 plus US !
I had to find the service centre (4th time) to see what I could do to address this . Fortunately I got a helpful staff member from the Caribbean who managed to split the booking and take points from both accounts. I can see the bookings now in Etihads system but not which seats and it won't let me select them ( anyone help here ?) . I'm now hoping Etihad are ok as there are mixed reviews on several sites giving passenger feedback. Does anyone know if award bookings are able to be cancelled / changed for any reasons ?

Aus (South Pacific) - Europe in J is 60k Miles pp each way, so 240,000 total. Seems like very poor advice from a customer perspective to be told to share at customer cost rather than splitting the bookings into one-ways and paying from different accounts.
This week I booked BNE-ZHR and return Oct/Nov in J (2 pax) as 2 one-ways and the total taxes were around $340 AUD.
Miles were taken from different accounts even though it was put on hold as one booking. No problem splitting it once I got through to AAdvantage rather than AA Reservations.
aa.com had been showing zero J availability but 3rd time lucky calling, I found a brilliant agent - Carol - who was happy for me to feed her the CX flights I found on AM and hold them for me.
When calling back to confirm and pay, I called the Aus reservations number so the taxes were charged in AUD, a potential saving if your card charges an fx fee.