Upgraded: AA.com – You can book more AAdvantage Partner Awards Online

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Back in November of last year, American improved the award booking process by enabling you to use aa.com to book AAdvantage award travel on partner carrier Alaska Airlines.

They’ve said several times since, that it’s their goal to make it possible for AAdvantage members to book more partner awards online.  And back in January at the oneworld MegaDo the the American and AAdvantage teams gave an outline of some of the improvements they were working on, which included:

• By end of 1Q, customers will be able to book routes continuing BA flights using AAdvantage award miles on AA.com.

• Alaska already participating.
Other carriers on deck:
Qantas
Royal Jordanian
Finnair

Over the weekend, the web ninjas at AA.com deployed an update to the site and now you can search for AAdvantage Awards space on British Airway and hawaiian airlines!

Here’s a look of the list of participating Award Carriers:

 

List of airlines you can book at aa.com

Now when you search for an award, you’ll see the option to search AA and Partners:

 

Detail from AA.com: oneword and partner booking available

 

Here’s a close up:

Search AA HA and AS for award inventory

Here’s a look at the search results for a round-trip, DFW to London award, it includes flights on American Airlines (AA) and British Airways (BA):

 

AA and BA Results

 

As an aside, there’s lot of availability on British Airways, but then that might be a result of the hefty fees that attach to award tickets.

Here’s a look at the fees for round-trip flights on British Airways, between Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) and London (LHR), in economy:

 

Screenshot of BA flight with $630 in fees

 

Now here’s a look the fees for a similar, round-trip economy class award ticket between DFW and LHR on American Airlines:

 

Screenshot of AA flight $180 in fees

 

I might consider paying the fee for a premium class ticket on their 747 from DFW to London, but not on any other aircraft and certainly not in coach. When you have a choice between American or British Airways, you’ll get much more value from your miles if you choose to redeem them on AA flights instead of BA.

Despite my grumbling about BA’s fees, it’s nice to be able to search their inventory for award space. My brother and I have been kicking around the idea of a trip to Istanbul and have had to use KVS Tools and the Qantas website to search for availability.

 

DFW to IST

 

This makes it as easy as looking up a flight to Indianapolis.

Searching for flights to on Hawaiian Airlines is pretty easy too, here’s a search between Dallas and Honolulu:

 

Displaying Hawaiian Airlines at AA.com

 

And here’s a look at the fees:

 

DFW-HNL on HA and AA Metal small fee

 

$10 to Hawaii – what a bargain!

This is a great improvement. AAdvantage already offers more ways to use your miles and they continue to make it easier. A big high five to Team AAdvantage and the IT team at AA.com!

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4 Comments

  1. @ The Weekly Flyer – I just looked and you’re in the lead, just ahead of the Frugal Travel Guy – could be a photo finish!

    @ RTC – I know what you mean…too bad that the competition will have zero effect at delta.com.

  2. Really excited about the addition of partners. BA obviously has fuel surcharge issues, but Hawaiian opens up a few fun destinations like Tahiti, American Samoa, and Osaka. With AA’s North American gateway rules, stopping over in HNL on the way too and from those sights is just icing on the cake!

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