American Airlines saver-level award availability has become increasingly difficult to find in the past year or two. Right now, we’re seeing better-than-usual availability on many routes in business class on American Airlines flights (and plenty of availability in economy class as well). We’ve found increased availability to Europe, Asia, and South America. Some examples follow, but there is good availability on many more routes – this is not an exhaustive list. To be clear, the flights to Europe listed below are on American Airlines metal only. None of these are British Airways flights or phantom Finnair space.
Example routes
Europe
First up is Raleigh-Durham to London. Some of these flights route through Philadelphia and others through Dallas — meaning you could also find availability from your local airport to DFW and PHL and on to London. Availability for 1 passenger is quite good for the next several months (with economy class also available on many of those flights):
Raleigh-Durham to London, 1 passenger August into September
Raleigh-Durham to London, 1 passenger, November 2017
Availability for 2 passengers isn’t quite as open, but still not bad over the winter and spring months.
Raleigh-Durham to London, 2 passengers February/March
Plenty of other routes are showing some availability also. Here’s Chicago to Paris:
Chicago to Paris, 2 passengers October to November
Charlotte to Madrid has less availability, but still better than usual.
Charlotte to Madrid, 2 passengers November to December
Asia
Looking at other regions, most of these flights from Chicago to Tokyo connect in either Los Angeles or Dallas — again meaning that availability should be good from other cities as well. This might be a little late for the cherry blossoms, but there was some earlier availability as well.
Chicago to Tokyo, 2 passengers April/May
Some of these flights between Dallas and Beijing connect in Chicago – so once again, you may check on routes and look for availability from different cities to which you can position.
Dallas to Beijing, 2 passengers, April/May
South America
If you’re interested in South America, awards between Miami and Santiago, Chile are wide open next spring.
Miami to Santiago, Chile, 2 passengers April / May
And Miami to Rio de Janeiro isn’t bad, either.
Miami to Rio de Janeiro, 2 passengers in April/May
Bottom line
The near non-existence of American award availability has been well-documented by sources like View from the Wing and One Mile at a Time. We just don’t often see great availability on American Airlines flights. If you’ve signed up for one of the AA cards with the increased offers they recently had available, you might be sitting on a pile of AA miles — in which case, there’s no time like the present to put them to use.
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[…] thousand miles for a single purchase is an outstanding offer. With increased American Airlines award availability popping up now and then in business class as of late, this offer would give you enough for a one-way business class ticket […]
I have some dates that will work with the Business Saver availability from a hub city. Unfortunately, it’s not within a reasonable drive. When I search the same dates after adding in my local connecting airport, there is no Business Saver available. If I search for only domestic routes, there is Economy Saver on one leg and Economy AAnytime one on the other (and this for June 2018). So does the domestic route need to have Economy or Business Saver availability in order to book the full Business Saver itinerary?
[…] Speaking of award availability – American has released a bunch of business class availability too! […]
When I saw this post the other day I got right to work on it. Booked Maimi to Paris on AA non stop at saver points and a couple hundred bucks in business! So excited. Going to go see the Tulips in Amsterdam next April thanks to your post. AA is a hub for me here and I have been flying them on points and paid fare for a long time, but these last couple of years…ugh…the awards have been terrible. So yeah, this is a big deal these days. Thanks!!
[…] Hat tip Frequent Miler […]
[…] Increased Biz Class Availability On AA: Here lately American Airlines has been pretty stingy on opening up award space at the saver level. Well it seems like they’ve opened up quite a few seats on many routes. If you’ve been saving up your AA miles, you might check to see if your desired routes have some seats for your to book! […]
Nothing to Argentina in January or February…
May is the first month of South America. SCL probably is the most southern point you could go and still enjoy your trip. Further down south it would be VERY COLD.
Besides it may just be LATAM space instead of AA space but it really does not matter because there is no YQ involved.
What is useful is the AA metal to Europe so you avoid the BA scam fee.
Else where who really cares when you can book JL or CX to Asia?!
Seems like the blogs have run out of meaningful material to write now churning cards are not that easy, and MS could easily trigger account closures…. There are just so much “Aspirational” things to do…
Nonnews now become news. Sad.
As noted in the comments above, LATAM space doesn’t show on AA.com. If you run a search, you’ll see that those are AA flights (if they are still available).
Thanks Nick! I just put on hold roundtrip first class from my city routing through LAX to Sydney! Awesome!
Nice! I didn’t include SYD because I didn’t find a lot of availability from LAX, but there was some there. Glad you found it!
[…] actually comes from Nick Reyes at Frequent Miler, but since he doesn’t set the award calendar display to show non-stops only some of the […]
Dick….your Rectalspective review doesn’t do your moniker justice…
Should add ‘head’ to be more descriptive, to it…
Might be a tad more impressive….
Sorry, this post is really self-serving and dishonest CRAP.
ONE seat on cherry-picked routes is not meaningful. At. All. And some of what you pointed to as some marginal improvement is on BA or is phantom. In what universe can you possibly call this “good availability” (your words, dude)?
The other blogs you cite as having “well documented” scarcity is utterly disingenuous. Those rectum-licking blogs were denying the total lack of AA saver availability for THREE FRIGGING YEARS as they continued to flog applications for City AA cards, and they denied or ignored everyone who was calling them on their BS.
Dishonest shill. Shame on you. Can you look yourself in the mirror?
While I appreciate the blog post, really. Any info on increased availability on AA is great. However…much of what I see (when I see rare space pop up for more than 1 passenger in business) is on BA or connects on BA on the TATL portion. Once in a blue moon you’ll see Finnair which I understand is mostly phantom space. Sorry to complain. It is just getting old with AA award space. I just spent hours searching for 4 business seats to Europe from any USA gateway to every Europe gateway I could think of for all next Summer to end of open schedule. I know this is a unicorn wanting to take a whole family to Europe on miles. Sad but it doesn’t exactly make me want to fly AA a bunch more on all my business travel with a fantasy that I could take my kids or friends to Europe on a vacation. I might just as well fly Spirit with the fantasy that one day I could use them to fly to the moon.
Totally understand your frustration. Note that all of the availability to Europe in this post is on AA only. That said, I know it’s not summertime and not for 4 people. That’s definitely tough w/ AA. Much easier with UA/Star Alliance.
Hey, that sounds great, but what you showed doesn’t really demonstrate that AA is making a lot more stuff available. The availability to SCL and GIG is likely almost all LATAM space, not AA. All those flights you showed ORD-TYO? On only two dates is the nonstop available.
That was dumb of me. LATAM flights don’t show up on AA.com.
Right. And I know that some of the routes I showed weren’t nonstop, but that means they are nonstop from other cities in the United States. Rather than wait and pick up each nonstop one by one, I wanted to make sure I got this posted while people on both coasts would have a chance to see it and book. American is by no means going to win my heart with their incredible availability, but this is a lot more than normal.
I only see one in October from Hawaii and one of the leg (the one from Hawaii connecting in the west coast) is in economy. hah