new AA buy miles promotion

[anat0l]

Yes AA bookings can be held online. 5 days if 15-330 days prior to departure.

Be careful as some carriers require almost immediate ticketing or have a window shorter than the 5 day hold. This can cause your itinerary to invalidate (or at least for you to lose those sectors) if you don't ticket within about 24 hours.

Always best to try and avoid a hold, in my opinion, although I am aware people have a great comfort cushion in being able to hold then purchase the necessary points before ticketing / confirmation.

On the other hand, unlike USDM, if an AAgent puts a booking on hold, 99% of the time it will ticket as held.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Be careful as some carriers require almost immediate ticketing or have a window shorter than the 5 day hold. This can cause your itinerary to invalidate (or at least for you to lose those sectors) if you don't ticket within about 24 hours.

Always best to try and avoid a hold, in my opinion, although I am aware people have a great comfort cushion in being able to hold then purchase the necessary points before ticketing / confirmation.

On the other hand, unlike USDM, if an AAgent puts a booking on hold, 99% of the time it will ticket as held.

Never had a problem with online holds on QF/BA/AA Awards and I usually leave the ticketing pretty late.

 

[Nizar]

Never had a problem with online holds on QF/BA/AA Awards and I usually leave the ticketing pretty late.

My experience is the same as yours and you can add EY to that list too.

 

[anat0l]

Never had a problem with online holds on QF/BA/AA Awards and I usually leave the ticketing pretty late.

I think possibly it's MH or JL which may have these problems. It might have been ironed out and/or I could be wrong (so happy to be corrected), but historically there have been cases where people have lost their held reservations (or sectors of it) because ticketing was supposed to be immediate or shorter than 5 days.

It might be worth mentioning as well that you can only have one reservation on hold at a time. I know this from discussing it with an agent.

Also, the expedited ticketing fee applies for all tickets issued within 21 days of departure. This means if, for example, you hold a reservation at 24 days before departure, but then ticket it more than 3 days later, you will be charged the expedited ticketing fee.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I think possibly it's MH or JL which may have these problems. It might have been ironed out and/or I could be wrong (so happy to be corrected), but historically there have been cases where people have lost their held reservations (or sectors of it) because ticketing was supposed to be immediate or shorter than 5 days.

It might be worth mentioning as well that you can only have one reservation on hold at a time. I know this from discussing it with an agent.

Also, the expedited ticketing fee applies for all tickets issued within 21 days of departure. This means if, for example, you hold a reservation at 24 days before departure, but then ticket it more than 3 days later, you will be charged the expedited ticketing fee.

I've also held multiple bookings online using the same account so not sure where the Agent got that info. Perhaps telephone holds are only for one reservation at a time ?

 

[anat0l]

I've also held multiple bookings online using the same account so not sure where the Agent got that info. Perhaps telephone holds are only for one reservation at a time ?

Good thought! I tried to put a second booking on hold one time whilst talking on the phone with the agent. They saw I already had another booking on hold so they refused. They were both oneworld partner award bookings.

I thought I could see where they were coming from in a way, otherwise you'd have people simply frivolously holding valuable seats left, right and centre without consequence. It's "bad enough" (not really, but anyway) with things like the Avios trick.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Good thought! I tried to put a second booking on hold one time whilst talking on the phone with the agent. They saw I already had another booking on hold so they refused. They were both oneworld partner award bookings.

I thought I could see where they were coming from in a way, otherwise you'd have people simply frivolously holding valuable seats left, right and centre without consequence. It's "bad enough" (not really, but anyway) with things like the Avios trick.

I agree that holding seats you have no intention of purchasing is poor form. It shouldn't really be up to AA Agents to police Award holds though. Seems a bit heavy handed IMO.

My reasons for holding Awards are usually a belt and braces approach - they are my second choice but I'm waiting on my first choice to get released etc.

 

[anat0l]

I agree that holding seats you have no intention of purchasing is poor form. It shouldn't really be up to AA Agents to police Award holds though. Seems a bit heavy handed IMO.

My reasons for holding Awards are usually a belt and braces approach - they are my second choice but I'm waiting on my first choice to get released etc.

Oh I agree that AAgents shouldn't be the "police" in this way (though who cares - it's their programme); she didn't tell me this was the reason for refusing, but I just thought it was the standard procedure.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

for those who want to top up their account starwood preferred guests is running a promo on buying spg points through to the end of may

• Get 10% off 5,000–9,500 Starpoints
• Get 15% off 10,000–14,500 Starpoints
• Get 20% off 15,000–19,500 Starpoints
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif]• Get 25% off 20,000 Starpoints[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif]if you buy 20K that will cost 525 USD which you can then transfer to AAdvantage and get a bonus 5000 miles ie $525 USD will get you 25K AA miles.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif]That works out to a similar price as if buying the 100K miles, and certainly a lot cheaper than if buying 25K miles under the current AA promotion.[/FONT]

 

[geordieladinoz]

Just studied the last 17 pages with interest. Thanks very much for this info and all other AA posts.

We are going to pull the trigger on the 100k AA miles offer this week. Both SWMBO and I have had AA accounts for a few years now with very little interest with all our focus on QF FF Points. We are circa 1M QF FF points between us and going to retain those for mainly Asia and America trips in the coming years.

We are going to go for 320k AA miles as we have a couple of UK trips in 12 - 18 months time so we will either do an F return on one trip or do a couple of F one way and J the other using a mix of AA miles and FF points.

This could also be an avenue into J trips for my parents to from the UK in the future so will be signing them up for AA accounts very soon!

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

 

[serfty]

Be careful as some carriers require almost immediate ticketing or have a window shorter than the 5 day hold. This can cause your itinerary to invalidate (or at least for you to lose those sectors) if you don't ticket within about 24 hours.

Always best to try and avoid a hold, in my opinion, although I am aware people have a great comfort cushion in being able to hold then purchase the necessary points before ticketing / confirmation.

On the other hand, unlike USDM, if an AAgent puts a booking on hold, 99% of the time it will ticket as held.

This is indeed true, generally the holds remain ... but ... sometimes they don't - especially when with travel on OA's.

See this FT thread: Does AA's 5 Day Award Hold Policy Apply to Partner Segments?

So, unless you have a specific reason for a hold, it is generally safer to finalise outright when you can.

 

[VAG newbie]

With only 4 days left for this promotion, and AUD currently is probably as high as it can be before the promotion ends, I am so tempted to dive in and get it. However, I already have all my trips until Feb next year (7 of them!) ticketed so I have no immediate use in mind. At the moment I still have over 150k LM (which is effectively 300-375k miles as you can do flexi pay), ~100k QFF points, 140k VA points and over 560k altitude reward points (with the latter 3 still going up from daily spending, ongoing taxes and fees), so I should have enough points to cover me for the next 5-6 trips.

How many people here buy AA miles just to stock up without a specific redemption in mind? If you do, what is your reason to stock up? I appreciate your comments so I can make a better decision. Thanks in advance.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

With only 4 days left for this promotion, and AUD currently is probably as high as it can be before the promotion ends, I am so tempted to dive in and get it. However, I already have all my trips until Feb next year (7 of them!) ticketed so I have no immediate use in mind. At the moment I still have over 150k LM (which is effectively 300-375k miles as you can do flexi pay), ~100k QFF points, 140k VA points and over 560k altitude reward points (with the latter 3 still going up from daily spending, ongoing taxes and fees), so I should have enough points to cover me for the next 5-6 trips.

How many people here buy AA miles just to stock up without a specific redemption in mind? If you do, what is your reason to stock up? I appreciate your comments so I can make a better decision. Thanks in advance.

given your circumstances I would not buy AA miles. There will likely be another AA promotion this year.

 

[hummel]

given your circumstances I would not buy AA miles. There will likely be another AA promotion this year.

My thoughts as well. That's a lot of miles to be holding and with this game you never know what can happen.

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

 

[VAG newbie]

My thoughts as well. That's a lot of miles to be holding and with this game you never know what can happen.

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

Thanks. that's reassuring. I have skipped the last Alaska sale and am about to skip this one as well. But I always have this little feeling within saying "oh..did I just missed a good deal...." feeling.

OK, will skip this one, although I still welcome any devil's advocate.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks. that's reassuring. I have skipped the last Alaska sale and am about to skip this one as well. But I always have this little feeling within saying "oh..did I just missed a good deal...." feeling.

OK, will skip this one, although I still welcome any devil's advocate.

the only reason I can see for AA points in addition to the points you already have would be for Etihad First class to AUH. It's a sweet spot in the redemption table. But availability can be flaky with EY (comes and goes).

 

[hummel]

the only reason I can see for AA points in addition to the points you already have would be for Etihad First class to AUH. It's a sweet spot in the redemption table. But availability can be flaky with EY (comes and goes).

That's something I need to investigate a bit more for EY F....

 

[ChasingDaylight]

I stock up at various times thoughout the year during the good sales without a redemtion in mind - as I then use the points for J travel DRW-SYD-AKL/WLG and return, with the occasional (like next week!!) trip in F to Europe..

 

[Hvr]

Have just purchased 160,000 points (inc bonus) and whilst I don't know where I'll travel to next year I do know I will go somewhere.

With a bit of planning and flexibility you can have some great trips like my MEL-LAX-JFK-HKG-BKK redemption in Oct all in J. Am so looking forward to doing JFK-HKG on CX in one flight.

 

[Alanslegal]

I have 320K sitting here from one of the former USDM share promotion. I will use those points when we get back from our July/Aug RTW F trip to book for flights in June/July 2016. I am tempted to buy 320K worth (over me and my partners account) but that means spending $8K or thereabouts for points that I probably won't utilise until mid 2017. Decisions decision however I might sit it out this time, like the multiple promotions that I have sat out recently. My last points promo was the share promotion as mentioned above.