So, months ago I asked this on FT and they convinced me to wait, and to sign up on Expert Flyer so it will watch for me. I did both. I'm here now because my patience is waivering, and I need help wth a sanity check. Any opinions here?
Originally I picked the AA flight I wanted (4/1/2015 - no joke!) and booked the SINGLE Business class (one way) award that was available ... on the BA site with Avios. It wasn't the score of a lifetime at 40k avios, but I had 259k while other buckets were not as high, so no big deal. But I only found 1, and I needed 2. Plenty of time to wait, which is what I've been doing.
I was close to 65k in my AA account, so I topped it off with some MS, in case I needed to use these to get an AAnytime award seat on this flight. I mean, my wife would be really mad at me if she didn't have a ticket . These are still there ...
I'm now approaching 5 months out and neither Expert Flyer or my own periodic manual checks I did, just to be safe, have shown any movement. However, while I was originally the only seat showing as assigned in F/B, about 1/3 of the seats are now assigned. Perhaps even more have sold.
I know I still have 5 months, but I'm not much of a gambler. Still, 65k is a boatload of miles, although I realized I'd get 6.5k back for having the right CC. So 59k. That's made me even more anxious. But I do still have 159k at BA (after hop-skipping flights all over SA. What a great program for SA travel).
What are the chances of an award flight opening up? Are there any common patterns (time periods to watch for)? Might the AAnytime price go up if I wait too long? Or do I simply buy some piece of mind for 59k miles? All our other flights are booked ... except for our RT to Galapagos; just sent a few SPG miles to top off my LAN account to acquire those flights. I just need to get my wife to Peru with me!
Thanks in advance. Sorry for the length.
Originally I picked the AA flight I wanted (4/1/2015 - no joke!) and booked the SINGLE Business class (one way) award that was available ... on the BA site with Avios. It wasn't the score of a lifetime at 40k avios, but I had 259k while other buckets were not as high, so no big deal. But I only found 1, and I needed 2. Plenty of time to wait, which is what I've been doing.
I was close to 65k in my AA account, so I topped it off with some MS, in case I needed to use these to get an AAnytime award seat on this flight. I mean, my wife would be really mad at me if she didn't have a ticket . These are still there ...
I'm now approaching 5 months out and neither Expert Flyer or my own periodic manual checks I did, just to be safe, have shown any movement. However, while I was originally the only seat showing as assigned in F/B, about 1/3 of the seats are now assigned. Perhaps even more have sold.
I know I still have 5 months, but I'm not much of a gambler. Still, 65k is a boatload of miles, although I realized I'd get 6.5k back for having the right CC. So 59k. That's made me even more anxious. But I do still have 159k at BA (after hop-skipping flights all over SA. What a great program for SA travel).
What are the chances of an award flight opening up? Are there any common patterns (time periods to watch for)? Might the AAnytime price go up if I wait too long? Or do I simply buy some piece of mind for 59k miles? All our other flights are booked ... except for our RT to Galapagos; just sent a few SPG miles to top off my LAN account to acquire those flights. I just need to get my wife to Peru with me!
Thanks in advance. Sorry for the length.