American Airlines Bait and Switch

Anybody else notice American playing a tiny bait and switch with both dollar fares and miles fares?

About amonth ago both Kayak and AA.com showed $620 fares roundtrip with many flight combo choices. Each time you pick the cheapest outbound and returns and hit continue one invariably came back saying one segment was unavailable leaving you with a $900+ combo. This went on for days and eventually the $620 was gone. I never called hoping the ether gods would eventually allow purchase. We decided not to come this month.

Fast forward to now looking for new years with points. Lot of 80k point each way tickets but some 15k each way segments. At the time i started the other day i had 59,675 for what was shown to be two roundtrips at 30k each. I Incould wait until next months credit card cycle and get those 325 points from credit card but risk the award going up.
So, i decide to buy a 1000 miles for what totals $60 to complete the redemption and get booked.

Next day I look at online activity and notice i still have 6000+ points left. After the fact they reduced the total award ticket redmption to 54000 miles for 2 tickets. Why didnt they do that before i blew 60 bucks for 325 points.

On the positive side for American, their points seem to have much more value than Delta where the tickets would have been 50k miles each for a 1 stop each way itinerary.

Just wish the numbers that came up at american were easily and always executable as they pop up. Dont tease me.

It is called supply and demand. Just like with hotel rooms, car rentals and airlines.

Fares can change multiple times a day as can rates, points, miles, etc. It is nothing new.

But the same 620 kept coming for days and was never buyable.

I feel your pain, Pelican! Hard to know what to do. Regarding Delta and FF tickets, I have ALWAYS seen huge numbers for them, but we were talking to someone the other day, who said that he got FF tickets on Delta for 30,000 from Florida, so we will start looking at them again.

AA/USAir used to give you a discount of $5000 if you used their credit card to book. Then it was you get miles back into your account 3 months AFTER travel. Not sure what they are doing now but would be upset to purchase miles and then not need them. We actually just got flights down for 15,000/each. (Actually sort of surprised as I figured the low mile segments would already be gone by now.Yep, only a certain number of seats at that rate as we all know. ) Surprisingly, we only have 1 stop thru CLT. I will believe it when I see it though as AA totally changes flights (not just the little your flight is leaving 20min later kind of thing). Our one stop could potentially end up being an overnight thru Miami as has happened in the past. We are in the process of just trying to use up miles instead of accumulating any more of them. We have also experienced the low fare trick , when you try to actually buy the fare it is not available. That is wrong.

A $5000 discount?

What we have found on AA is that you can never get two tickets at the lower miles number at the same time; they only release one ticket at a time at the lower miles. Generally we'll buy a ticket for one of us, and use miles for the other.

Sorry, meant to say 5,000 miles

Georgia- I was able to "buy" 2 tickets using miles. Easier to have us both on the same itinerary in case I need to make changes. The biggest glitch was using hubby's acct. as the name on the CC has to match the name on the AA acct. He used Jeffrey for that but Jeff for CC applications- not sure why? Got it to work

We have usually been able to get two tickets without any issues, doing the nonstop from Miami on AA. They usually have a reduced mileage award available in the fall. We are hoping to be able to book those for next fall, if we are lucky.

Pelican,
I share your pain....
Two suggestions:
I find Google Flight search engine is accurate and will link you to the airline's booking site for the itinerary that was searched. [www.google.com/flights]
Better yet, use the AA.com search engine to find the flights using the pay with cash or miles options.

As to your use of Advantage Miles for a flight award, if you have an AA sponsored credit card, you will receive a 10% rebate for flights using AAdvantage Miles. Unfortunately, you must first put up the base Miles required for the flight award.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-...DirectURL&title=reducedmileageawards I hope this helps.

You know we have NEVER gotten that 10% rebate of miles. It may depend on what type of card you have, or your status with AA.

My AA card (Barclay's) gives 10% of the miles back, up to 10,000 miles per year, after you book. That would lower your miles actually used by 6,000 as you stated has happened.

Mike

We have always bought 2 tickets on AA at the same transaction. Never had a problem doing so. Just have to make sure when you look at the itinerary that they don't say "one ticket left".

AA give you back 10% up to 10,000 miles a calendar year if you book using an approved AA credit card. It will show after you have used your miles booking your ticket. That is why you still have 6,000 miles showing.

How odd. Ours is Barclay also....

Both my Barclay and Citi Bank cards give the 10% back.

only the Barclays fee AA Aviator cards give the 10% back, their free Aviator card does not

That may well be the case. We have annual fees with our AA credit cards. One is Aviator and the other Barclays. We do get the miles back into our account.

That must be what happened as i paid the taxes to go with the miles using the AA Mastercard plus bought the 1000 miles with the card.

no biggie. Were booked and content. Have to overnight in Philly on way down and go all the way home via philly in one day.

Couldn't get a Miami sameday or overnight offered with miles at all which we would have taken.

Charlotte was available at more than double the miles.

Will take an Uber to get Philly Cheesesteaks.

I feel bad for those that have no options but american. In my opinion this airline is not reliable and has not been. Thank god we have an opportunity to use jet blue. they have not ever played the games that american is playing. We used american for many years untill they merged, and knew they could not be reliable. We are not close to jfk, but at least we know we can get there non stop and at a great rate. I see the horror of others and feel bad. It takes us at least 3 hours to drive to jfk, but jet blue has come through. And by the way. we know a pilot that works for american, and has stated that the airline has gone down and has become faulty with regards to certain destination. He did not mention St.M. but I got the drift.