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:

 

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

 

 

Here’s a close up:

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):

 

 

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:

 

 

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

 

 

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.

 

 

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:

 

 

And here’s a look at the fees:

 

 

$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!