American Award-Value?

HanoiIG

Silver Member
Quick query. I am giving my niece and her fiance their round trip airfare for Asian honeymoon. I just found AA JFK-DFW-NRT which I can hold for 5 days for 60K AA miles plus really low fees. NRT not as good as HND and perhaps I can find something better between now and their departure in mid-November. If push came to shove I would(reluctantly) just buy a ticket but I'm wondering if this won't be as good as it gets.
 

knick1959

Level 2 Member
I just rechecked and the saver awards are already gone. Just 120K so there's that.
You have AA miles and want to fly them there on those? And you are looking at AA's search tool to find your flights?

Use British Airways search tool. Or Alaska Airlines. They will show Cathay Pacific award flights, if any. If they are there and you find something you like, you can get them with AA miles, but you actually have to call in to AA to make the reservations. It's pretty easy ... I did this not long ago (thanks to others here who suggested this!).
 

HanoiIG

Silver Member
You have AA miles and want to fly them there on those? And you are looking at AA's search tool to find your flights?

Use British Airways search tool. Or Alaska Airlines. They will show Cathay Pacific award flights, if any. If they are there and you find something you like, you can get them with AA miles, but you actually have to call in to AA to make the reservations. It's pretty easy ... I did this not long ago (thanks to others here who suggested this!).
I've been searching for a while. I try Alaska every day. My question is: with several months to go and a mid-November departure, am I likely to find a better deal than this? 60K is pretty low and the reviews of AA 777-200 biz are pretty good. I'm giving my niece and fiance their flights NYC-TYO and BKK-NYC as a wedding gift. I would prefer ANA or JAL of course and non-stop to one stop and HND to NRT. With the limited availability of upper class awards, I'd hate to pay 120K each for same flights. Also AA fees are negligible.
 

HanoiIG

Silver Member
I've been searching for a while. I try Alaska every day. My question is: with several months to go and a mid-November departure, am I likely to find a better deal than this? 60K is pretty low and the reviews of AA 777-200 biz are pretty good. I'm giving my niece and fiance their flights NYC-TYO and BKK-NYC as a wedding gift. I would prefer ANA or JAL of course and non-stop to one stop and HND to NRT. With the limited availability of upper class awards, I'd hate to pay 120K each for same flights. Also AA fees are negligible.
I've also been using Award Nexus but many of the awards it shows don't show up on other websites. KE has Business JFK-ICN and Economy ICN-HND which would be fine but nobody's site shows it! Not AS, not AA, not BA
 

Cmonman76

Level 2 Member
I usually only find JAL flights 300+ days out. I think you are getting too close to find anything better, unless you want to take the chance of something opening up with about a week before the flights. I would grab the AA 777 flights as long as you can find return. I've also had pretty good luck finding flights on Singapore (if you have points you can transfer) out of NRT and then booked a separate domestic flight to get home from whichever city I ended up in.
 

HanoiIG

Silver Member
I usually only find JAL flights 300+ days out. I think you are getting too close to find anything better, unless you want to take the chance of something opening up with about a week before the flights. I would grab the AA 777 flights as long as you can find return. I've also had pretty good luck finding flights on Singapore (if you have points you can transfer) out of NRT and then booked a separate domestic flight to get home from whichever city I ended up in.
If it were for me, I’d play with it, but for a gift, I want to make it easier. If only Avianca hadn’t screwed up their site. I’ve always done well there but now you have to call or email. It takes forever and results are not good.

They’ll be returning from BKK so I’m working on that. If all else fails, I’ll just buy them two seats and take the 5X on AX Platinum.

I have a ton of Life Miles so trying to spend them down. I had a decent AC flight but they were never able to complete it.
 

HanoiIG

Silver Member
I found JAL Premium Economy but it might not be as good as AA Business. Or is it? I also found KE Business for 105K AS miles but was thinking those miles may be more valuable than some others because there is no easy way to get them. I suppose we could churn the cards but there aren't any transfer partners like Avios which I can get a 30% premium for transferring to that program.
 
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