Canceling an AA Award Flight

shoppergirl

Level 2 Member
Can I cancel an AA award flight and get the points deposited back in my AA account? I don't have any status with them. I have the Citi Executive AA card, that's it. I booked one way first class award seats with them. Does it make a difference if it's first class vs. coach?

Now that Southwest opened up their flight schedule, my family can fly for half with them.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Yep but you'll have to pay an annoyingly high fee. I believe it's $150
 

RRD

Level 2 Member
Yep. Paid 2 x150 to redeposit coach miles when I cancelled a couple of tickets just a few months ago.
 

shoppergirl

Level 2 Member
I was hoping there wasn't. On the website, it said $150. Just hoping I read it wrong. I jumped the gun and booked flights on SW on points. I know I get the points back, but do they refund the fees?
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
No, no refund on the fees either. :(
WN? Thought they were good for that...

Shopper- you can change dates with aa for free- any possibility of pushing that and going twice, or not a good idea?
 

shoppergirl

Level 2 Member
Hmm, I didn't think about changing the dates, that could work. The dates are for prime travel, Easter week. I found SW one ways for about 13,000 points and impulsively booked the flights, but I had booked AA first class on 25,000 points from two different accounts. I really didn't need first class, but it ended up being cheaper on points. So, I'll either change my dates with AA or just keep the flight. Thanks.
 

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
Hmm, I didn't think about changing the dates, that could work. The dates are for prime travel, Easter week. I found SW one ways for about 13,000 points and impulsively booked the flights, but I had booked AA first class on 25,000 points from two different accounts. I really didn't need first class, but it ended up being cheaper on points. So, I'll either change my dates with AA or just keep the flight. Thanks.
You should be able to get everything back on WN except if you paid for Early Bird CheckIn. That is nonrefundable. Not much risk booking paid or award reservations with them. You can cancel right up until 10 minutes before departure day of flight and still get a refund if the ticket has no restrictions.
 

shoppergirl

Level 2 Member
Yeah. Southwest is great. It's American Airlines that I'd like to cancel. For right now, I have two sets of tickets booked for my family on points.
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
AA is $150 for the first ticket, $25 per additional on the PNR. At least, that's what the change fee is, assuming redeposit is the same. However, AA will let you change anything except the origin or destination airports, or going between OW and non-OW partners, without incurring a change fee. If you move the trip up to within 21 days of the day of the change, they'll charge the $75 close-in fee, though. If you think you'll take your trip, just push the dates out.

One more good thing about AA awards - they treat at least JFK and LGA (not sure about EWR) as co-terminals. That means that if you're changing dates just to push without incurring a fee and XXX-JFK-YYY isn't available on AA, you can book XXX-LGA (break) JFK-YYY with the first segment on US, for instance. I actually did just that on our BOS-YVR trip. I have zero intention of flying BOS-LGA and cabbing to JFK, but the JFK-YVR segment on CX was there on a better date so I took it to preserve the origin and will wait for BOS-JFK to open. If BOS-JFK never opens, I'll drop the segment and fly PWM-JFK on B6. AA also doesn't charge change fees to drop segments, even if it changes the origin.

I hope that helps with what AA doesn't charge for. AA is incredibly flexible.
 

bayguy

Level 2 Member
I would advice you to wait as your travel is next April. Flights change schedules all the time and if your flight changes time even by 10 minutes, you can call and cancel for free
 

glader

Level 2 Member
I had an award trip booked on 2 separate PNR's that I needed to cancel. I called AA and made a free change to an itinerary that would have a higher likelihood of a schedule change (many segments etc)

Fortunately, a few months later, I had a full 24 hour schedule change on one of my segments. I called right away and gave them both my outbound AND return PNR's on the hope they would let me cancel everything for no charge even though they didn't have to as it was booked separately. Fortunately, they did and it just took a bit of time on hold to square everything away. The strategy saved me a total of $350 in mile redeposit fees.
 

shoppergirl

Level 2 Member
My return trip's flight has already been changed. If I can't cancel, should I be able to reschedule for a later flight that day or one the next day for no additional charge?
 

saianel

Level 2 Member
AA allowed you to resxhedule award ticket at no cost aa long as The original and destination doesn't change; routing can change. You must complete the trip 365 days from the original booking.
 

glader

Level 2 Member
As long as the origin/destination don't change you can make any change for free up until 1 year from date of original ticket issuance. (You may have to pay extra airport taxes/fees) You will only incur extra expense from AA if your scheduled flight is within 21 days. I have been told by AA that they will allow free cancellation of award tickets due to schedule change if the change is more than 2 hours.
 

Mountain Trader

Level 2 Member
Yes, provided your new itinerary doesn't violate AA Award rules (e.g. Limit on stopovers). However, if it is AA that changed flight times, you might get a waiver to keep your trip intact. In my experience, once AA starts changing a confirmed award trip, they are often quite accomodating to let you stay on track. If not, HUCA.
 
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