Tl;dr – American Airlines updated its policy for holding award fares, decreasing the time allotted for holds from five days to 24 hours.
I’m late posting about this. My apologies; I was out traveling all last week and am now just getting the chance to catch up. About a week or so ago, American Airlines made a change to its ‘hold’ policy for when booking award flights. Travelers can now put an award flight on hold for just 24 hours. Previously, you could hold award flights for up to five days, which was incredibly clutch. In the past, I’ve used this liberal policy to stash award fares when attempting to gather enough AAdvantage miles for a redemption. I’ve even savvily held award seats on American when my goal was to book those seats through another Oneworld airline (usually Alaska), particularly when that other carrier didn’t allow any holds. As you could strategically release your hold at any time within the five-day window, at which point those seats would be returned to the partner booking pool, you could indirectly transfer American’s friendly hold policy to other Oneworld carriers.
With holds now limited to 24 hours, travelers will have less flexibility when trying to stake out award seats. I suppose you could diligently book and release fares daily until you’re ready to secure your itinerary, though that’s a pain in the ***.
