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To Suzanne Rubin, head of American Airlines AAdvantage,
In April 2014, American Airlines eliminated the possibility of stopovers on award tickets with no notice.
Previously, one stopover was allowed on one way awards–two on roundtrip awards–at the North American International Gateway City.
That rule gave folks who lived where there were no international flights on American Airlines partners the chance to enjoy their awards more with stopovers in major international cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. And it allowed people who lived in this long list of cities with international flights on American Airlines partners to enjoy two free one ways per roundtrip international award.

I think that was the problem. American Airlines didn’t like that a small fraction of the awards its members were booking including extra segments on American Airlines flights. That’s the only reason I can think of that would make you eliminate stopovers on American Airlines awards.
- Why do I think American Airlines eliminated free stopovers to curb free one ways?
- How do I suggest American Airlines reinstate free stopovers in a way that benefits us while still prohibiting free one ways?
You didn’t eliminate the stopovers to align your program with US Airways Dividend Miles. Your airlines merged in late 2013 and you’ve been working to align your offerings before final integration in 2015. Eliminating stopovers is a step backwards on that front since US Airways does offer a stopover on award tickets (to say nothing of your competitors United, Delta, and British Airways, which all allow free stopovers on awards.)
You didn’t eliminate the stopovers to save money on en route stopovers. My understanding is that you pay your partners for each flight that AAdvantage members book. En route stopovers don’t add flights to a trip. Stopovers that set up a free one way do add flights to a trip.
Consider someone who lives in New York City who wants to take a trip to Naples. If he were allowed an en route stopover in Berlin, that doesn’t add any extra segments. It just separates the segments in time by a few days, which doesn’t cost American Airlines any more money.
Allowing a free one way does cost American Airlines something. If that same flyer could add a flight from Miami to New York for no extra miles, that would cost American Airlines a little bit to let him fly the flight (though not much of course because MileSAAver award space is only for “distressed” seats that American Airlines doesn’t expect to sell.)
If I’m right that stopovers on American Airlines awards were eliminated to stop free one ways, I have a solution.
Reinstate stopovers, but with the Lufthansa rule.
On awards between two regions, the Lufthansa Miles & More program allows one stopover per direction anywhere outside your home region. That means stopovers in Berlin would be allowed on trips between New York and Naples. It also means that stopovers in New York would not be allowed on awards beginning in Miami since Miami and New York are in the same region, which means no free one ways for New Yorkers (or anyone else.)
Adopting the Lufthansa rules is a win-win.
You win because it’s an easy rule for your agents to enforce that doesn’t incentivize folks to add costly extra legs. Plus it aligns you with US Airways awards, which do allow stopovers and keeps you from falling behind your competitors which all allow stopovers on awards.
We win because we get a stopover, which means we can stop in twice as many places on our international awards and the value of our miles goes up. We’ll be happier, more engaged AAdvantage members, which is, of course, another win for you.
Sincerely,
Scott Grimmer, founder MileValue.com, and avid AAdvantage proponent
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LOL!
They just saved a bunch of money eliminating free flights operated by the their own AA fleet and now you are asking for free flights operated by partners which they would actually have to reimburse a third party?
Wait….you are not serious…
I Lol’d as well. He cannot be serious
I’m not sure I get the commenters’ point. If I’m reading Scott correctly, he’s saying that these stopovers are in cases where they would simply break up legs already part of an itinerary . In his case, for example, there really isn’t any way to get from New York to Naples on AA miles without changing planes someplace (Berlin in the example). He’s simply proposing to allow a stopover in that connection city; thus there would be no extra payment involved as compared to a flight that must be taken to the same destination immediately.
But this always would have been a relatively easy thing to do, and since American chose instead the draconian no-notice elimination of all stopovers, I have to assume that particular decision was intentional. Diabolical too, and a good reason not to trust American in the future.
Anything can happen remember MOST people who have points spend lots of money to get them. So AA better please them or they will not fly AA also a few years ago they made over a Billion dollars off the program.. It’s kind of like SSD or food stamps anyone can get them if you know how..
Oh, the colon!! As in, the punctuation mark ‘:’
At first glance I didn’t notice the colon in the title. “American Airlines Give Us Back Our Free Stopover”. My initial reaction was, “Hallelujah!”, and then there was the colon.
Please advise and follow up with us when you hear back from AA. 😉
If only NYC-HNL-SYD route worked.
Stop overs with limits would have been a reasonable compromise (e.g: take the next flight within 14 days). There are however some cost implications of allowing stop overs – the customer has to go through the whole check in and security process again which I suspect is more expensive than a connecting customer in terms of staff needed to support that.
Don’t customers already pay that as part of taxes and fees? Shouldn’t make a difference to the airline…
The greatest devaluation, of all, if I may call it that, was losing the stopovers. I appreciate the time youve put into writing to the airlines. As an avid reader of your blog, I throw my support behind this post, and kindly ask AA to reconsider.
The problem with all the problems for us with the airlines taking away all the great perks…….the big problem is you and your cheesy web site explaining to them how to fix their problems…..you are the worst enemy trying to make a few bucks with your cheap web site…..why don’t you go out and get a real job bone head.
The free stopover was common knowledge among experts, but this blog was one of the first, if not the first, to widely publicize it. I don’t think Suzanne is going to take you very seriously, Scott!
@jer What exactly constitutes a real job? I am a SAHM and people either ridicule that career or glorify it. Anyway, I like Scott’s posts although many are too technical for me to take advantage of. Unfortunately for me, I’m always late to a party and I (x5) am flying on AA miles in December. I was so proud of myself to remember I could book a free stopover (thanks to Scott) and the deal had just died as I booked my flights in May.
By eliminating the stop over and Explorer award w/o any notice, AAdisavantage lost the trust, loyalty from its frequent flyers and longterm revenue stream due to S. Rubin (it doesn’t surprise us with a name like that)…
I agree with the original post requesting to follow the Lufthansa rule for stop overs. The case is this:
You go from New York Barcelona (via Iberia Madrid). You are requesting a stopover in Madrid (part of your itinerary, to leave 2 or 3 days later to Barcelona. No changes in airlines, no changes in departure or cities and I consider this situation needs to be allowed. I find that this kind of control is not fair and it will definitely make ma avoid using AA in the future.
That kind of stopover hasn’t been allowed for a few years with AA. Before all stopovers were eliminated, they were only allowed at North American Gateway City, JFK, in your example.
Delta also doesn’t allow stopovers, and United only allows them on roundtrip awards, so AA is hardly alone.