Even better!

I fly PHX-BUR or LAX a few times a year and I can usually score those for 6500 or 7000. Occasionally 6000, but I've never seen anything lower.

5k is a great deal for a decently long flight. I can often get PHX-EWR or back nonstop for 8500 miles which is not below the minimum, but still a great deal.

It seems like hub-hub flights have a 12,500 minimum built in. Even on my practically empty PHX-PHL red-eye, it never dropped below 12,500 (I assume that they don't want to compete with their own earlier flights). Same with PHX-MIA. I ended up paying for one of the round trips because the miles price was so high. $345 for basic economy round trip (definitely better than paying 25k miles) and I got upgraded in both directions. My next trip to MIA was over $300 each way though so I paid the 12.5k miles instead.

 

I booked some awards a few months ago to DOM from LAX for 10k. I am impressed. Unfortunately, I had to book another tix to position to lax to wipe up some saving.

 

I did not know AA flew to DOM. We went there maybe 15 years ago, and shortly after they suspended their service there. I imagine it has changed a lot since then. There were literally no resorts when we were there, we stayed in a treehouse!

 

I visualized that must have been a bit like this, but hopefully I'm wrong:

 

Also some deals below the minimums on international flights. Grabbed a AA flight this morning, SFO-LAX-AKL, for 72K in F/J.

Surprised the heck out of me, seeing anything like that in the height of February high season (for New Zealand).

Painful dealing with the SFO-LAX connection, but still worth it. LAX-AKL alone for the same flight was 276K.

 

Just booked 4xJ JFK-LAX-HND at 95k per person.

Not the best redemption (was waiting for 60k options to open up on JL), but I will take it.

 

It was here:

https://www.manicouriver.com/

 

Wow. Nice to book early. Looks like at 6 months out, AA has jacked all of the London awards to 30,000+ miles one way for April.

 

For partner Economy awards between the continental U.S. and Europe, AA has both peak and off-peak seasons. Partner awards are fixed-rate: off-peak Economy is always 22.5K miles; peak Economy is always 30K miles.

​​​​​​Pricing for AA metal awards is now dynamic, but it would not surprise me to find AA charging more for their own flights during peak season for partner awards than they would during off-peak season for partner awards.

 

edited

 

What I'm saying is that when I put an award on hold on October 30, pretty much all of April to LHR was wide open at about 21,000 to 25,000 miles on the April return. As soon as November 1 hit, basically all of April went to 30,000+ miles.

BA award availability is very very limited all of the sudden.

 

Ah, OK.

If you had the requisite miles in your AAdvantage account, why would you put the award on hold, instead of ticketing it immediately? All AAdvantage flight awards are now fully refundable up to departure time.

 

We put it on hold to lock in the pricing until we were certain as to the travel dates. We booked at 43,000 miles. Had we waited, it would have gone up to 51,000 miles.

 

I think the point being made was that you don't need to be sure of travel dates before you book a fully refundable ticket

 

Just letting a hold drop if deciding it is not wanted doesn't require paaying taxes and then having to claim them back