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
