Business and first class award tickets are a great use of miles, but it’s almost impossible to actually redeem these awards. Don’t believe all of the stories you read online about being able to effortlessly redeem your miles for a luxury experience. It is sometimes possible if you really work the system, but the time and effort involved is why I have always focused on using my miles to take me to faraway and interesting places in economy class (it’s all economy seats to Ushuaia, Argentina and Adak, Alaska anyway). Unfortunately, one of the most useful options for grabbing business class award seats is, for some customers, now gone in the American Airlines Aadvantage program.
One of the particularly nice historical Aadvantage program features is the lack of change fees and the ability to make “mixed class” bookings. So, for example, if you are booking a long trip that you’d like to take in business class, but one segment is only available in economy, you can book the missing segment in economy class (while paying the business class award price) and call in later to upgrade that segment to business class if an award seat opens up. The same goes for changing award classes. If you book an award in economy class because (as is usually the case) it’s the only thing available, and you find business class space available later, you could call in, upgrade and pay only the mileage difference between the award classes. This is what I planned to do when booking an award from Kunming to Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Vancouver to New York. The difference in cost is only 20,000 miles for this itinerary, and it’s well worth it for business class on Cathay Pacific.
This has all changed if, as I do, you have an existing booking that includes a stopover in the North American gateway city. Even if you don’t change anything except the class of service, the award has to be reissued at the new mileage rates and under the new rules. This is yet another change that Aadvantage has suddenly made without prior notice or even any “grandfathering” provision for award tickets issued prior to the change. So, the precedent has now been set.
You’d have to be crazy to book a “mixed class” award now. If American changes the award chart or rules again, you will have to “buy up” to the then-current price and be subject to the then-current rules. Given that it is routinely necessary to book business class award seats 330 days in advance, booking a “mixed class” itinerary is a very risky bet.
The situation could be even worse than I have already been able to confirm. American Airlines has always been flexible with changes to dates and flights in the Aadvantage program, and charges are free as long as the origin and destination cities remain the same. It is possible in the future that changing the dates on an itinerary would also require “buying up” to the then-current price. The trigger seems to be whether the ticket is reissued or not. Changing dates while keeping everything else exactly the same does not always require reissuing the ticket. Making more substantive changes (such as switching a flight with a connection for a nonstop) may, and could cause the itinerary to re-price. It is also worth noting that US Airways, unlike American, charges $150 for every change to an award ticket and no changes are allowed once the itinerary has begun (except due to schedule changes or irregular operations). It is probably a safe bet that change fees will be introduced to Aadvantage soon, potentially creating a double whammy of increased prices and new, high change fees.
American Airlines has always had the right to change or devalue the Aadvantage program. Other airlines have also devalued their programs, but until recently, only Avianca (a Colombian airline) had suddenly devalued their LifeMiles program overnight, apparently following the example of Hugo Chavez devaluing the Venezuelan bolivar. Maybe American Airlines has been spending too much time in South America and the culture has rubbed off, but you can now add Aadvantage miles to the list of untrustworthy currencies. I personally recommend that you view the recent devaluation as a “warning shot” and empty your Aadvantage account now.