Need some AA advice/help

[CaliDave]

I got the AA credit card offer for 25K points for myself and my DW.

We each already had 5K, I was looking at the award chart. How easy is it to get a round trip with 30K points?

How hard is it to get the Mile SAAver rates?

Also,
It appears I can travel from LAX to the Carribbean or Cancun for 30K miles, but from LAX to Hawaii it's 35K? That doesnt make sense?

And someone from Florida would be in the opposite situation?

Hawaiian has a different rate for West Coast to Hawaii

Any help would be appreciated

Dave

[Pat H]

Originally Posted by CaliDave

I got the AA credit card offer for 25K points for myself and my DW.

We each already had 5K, I was looking at the award chart. How easy is it to get a round trip with 30K points?

How hard is it to get the Mile SAAver rates?

Also,
It appears I can travel from LAX to the Carribbean or Cancun for 30K miles, but from LAX to Hawaii it's 35K? That doesnt make sense?

And someone from Florida would be in the opposite situation?

Hawaiian has a different rate for West Coast to Hawaii

Any help would be appreciated

Dave

The amount of AA miles needed to go to Hawaii or the Caribbean are the same for someone who lives in FL as they are for someone who lives in CA. I have always found AA the easiest to get FF tickets on.

[lvhmbh]

I find that the earlier you go for your FF tickets the better. I know that sounds a little obvious but, for instance, I just booked our Business Class FF tickets to Aruba for late February and was told by the agent (I called and spent the extra money as I had to transfer some miles) that I got the last two FF seats. She was actually surprised that they were available. Last year I booked upgrades in July and was glad to be able to get them. As the above poster said, AA is pretty good with FF miles. We were going to LA (from So. FL) for a wedding and tried to book Delta but they said "we do not allow FF miles on direct flights, only connections". On the other hand, AA gave us seats on a direct flight. If you know when you are going a year ahead I believe you can book 330 days out. Linda

[vettebuf]

I like AA too for frequent flyer seats. Since we usually book our timeshare trades about a year or more ahead of time, I play the "330 days before" game for airline tickets. In the last three years, we've used them for Cancun a couple of times, Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, and Grand Cayman (We're near Philadelphia).
We cancelled Nantucket with RCI two months ago and traded for Las Vegas for the end of September without any problem.

We haven't been successful with last minute seats though. We had to spend in the $350 range for tickets from PHL to Richmond for a funeral in March.

[scotlass]

The nice thing about AA is that you can check FF availability on the website before booking. We book January in the Caribbean 330 days out, and check one-way flights for availability, then call to hold the outbound flight and do the same for returning. I learned about this from an AA agent.