Update: This was briefly showing up last night, but has since been pulled. In a statement to VFTW an American Airlines representative stated:
Late yesterday, we incorrectly displayed award bookings for several of our partners on aa.com and they have since been removed. Making more award partners bookable on aa.com is something that our customers continually ask for, so please rest assured that we are working towards this.
Hopefully when this is re added, they show all partner flights and not just select bookings.
American Airlines has expanded their online award searching and booking. You can now book the following airlines online:
- Cathay Pacific
- Malaysian
- Sri Lankan
- Qatar
- LATAM
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution, some routes that are bookable by phone don’t seem to be showing up online when searching on the American Airlines website. For example non stop awards on the above four airlines doesn’t show up. It looks like maybe it’ll only show on the American Airlines if at least one leg is American Airlines or a partner that was previously bookable online (e.g British Airways). It’s also possible there is another reason these non stop flights don’t show up.
Some hardcore travel hackers will actually see this as a devaluation, as making the booking process easier means that other people are more likely to book as there is limited award space. I personally hate redeeming points & miles, mostly because I’m awful at it and don’t have the patience to deal with long phone calls and don’t really enjoy min/maxing the award booking process but each to their own.
Hat tip to blueeyes_austin
Let me translate AA’s statement: “Making more award partners bookable on aa.com is something that our customers continually ask for, so please rest assured that we HAVE BEEN SLOW-ROLLING THIS FOR YEARS AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO” lol
+1 Will. I’ve enjoyed this new hobby of earning the miles and points — and checking Doctor of Credit daily — but I cringe at the thought of all the work involved in transferring to partners and maximizing award bookings.
It took me about a month to finally pull the trigger on an AA awards flight into Rome and departing out of Venice. Between avoiding BA surcharges, finding SAAver space, researching best seats on SeatGuru and finding the shortest itinerary — whew.
Just spoke with idiots at AA , i asked them why i can’t see CX flights jfk/hkg on aa.com, she said only thru phone you can do that, she did not know what i was talking about
What a dumb ass idiot, no wonder this airline withstupid CEO parker who came from shithole airline (us air) is doing pathetic job running AA, just look at the stock price of AA compare to Delta & United
So they fixed their error. I’m sure they won’t make that mistake again.
Back to being the best loyalty program in the world and the easiest to pile up lots of points, and the worst/most difficult to actually use for anything you want. That’s a feature, not a bug. It’s by design, you suckers.
What’s the problem? Look at the BA site to look for partner flights.
Dead.
https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2018/08/15/american-briefly-showed-award-space-online-for-four-new-partners-but-theyve-pulled-it/
It’s Sri LankaN – Sri Lanka is a country, not an airline name. Just like American VS America …
Thanks, fixed.
Is there a list of where these airlines fly? Not sure what this adds to travel possibilities.
LATAM services a good portion of South America, specifically Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru.
https://www.lan.com/es_cl/sitio_empresas/nolog/volar_en_lan/experiencia_de_viaje/destinos.html
SHITAM Airlines
Lets do a “DOC” Appreciation month where everybody that uses this sites calculates all savings they made AND value of redeemed points/miles and give it to DOC. (MULTI MULTI MILLIONAIRE OVERNIGHT) 🙂
While this is minor positive news (I hate the whole calling to book bit, too as it can be very frustrating depending on the agent), it’s overshadowed for me by Ultimate Rewards losing KE as a transfer partner! The miles gods giveth and the miles gods taketh away!
“I personally hate redeeming points & miles, mostly because I’m awful at it and don’t have the patience to deal with long phone calls and don’t really enjoy min/maxing the award booking process but each to their own.” Ha! This describes me, too!
Surprised they didn’t add JAL too.