American AAdvantage isn’t known as the most generous frequent flyer program out there, but one of its perks has been the ability to put awards on hold for multiple days.
Until recently, you could place a five-day hold on awards for flights that were a minimum of 14 days pre-departure. For flights closer than 14 days from departure, you could only place a one-day hold. This allowed folks to effectively reserve the seat without actually having to finish the booking or have the miles deducted from their account.
About a week ago, AA changed this policy, and it’s now only possible to put an award on hold for twenty-four hours, regardless of when the flight departs.
Quick Thoughts
I’m actually of two minds on this change. I don’t think that it will affect the vast majority of customers, since AA doesn’t charge any change or cancellation fees on award tickets. If you want to grab a seat and aren’t sure that you’re going to travel, there’s little downside to booking and then cancelling if you’re not going to use it…although itineraries with multiple people can take quite a bite out of your mileage balance that you then can’t use for other flights.
However, the award-hold policy has been used for years by mileage brokers to hold high-demand first and business class seats. How big an impact this had on award availability is anyone’s guess, but the upside of this change could be better availability, since brokers won’t be able to speculatively hold large swathes of award space for days at a time. If people who actually want to use that space now have an easy time finding it, it could be a win.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
