The Basics

How to Access the “Old” American Airlines Award Calendar and Search Function

5 years ago
3 Comments
by Charlie
regular american express card offers
Written by Charlie

Are you frustrated with the new American Airlines award engine? Find out how you can access the old American Airlines award calendar and search engine to get a better experience.

Earlier this year, American Airlines released their new award search engine and it was met with some mixed responses. After a while, AA made it be a default search instead of an option and I saw many people expressing frustration with the new search engine.

How to Access the “Old” American Airlines Award Calendar and Search Function

Link: Foreign AA Website for Old Calendar Access

The Old American Airlines Award Calendar vs the New Calendar/Search Engine

Part of the frustration stemmed from a lack of award calendar (the new AA site just says “coming soon”). I kept seeing all of this frustration but I was a little puzzled as I actually did not experience this new calendar myself as a default option.

The Simple “Trick” Link to Access the Old American Airlines Award Engine
old american airlines award engine

By visiting a foreign version of the AA website, you get a back door to the old American Airlines award engine

After doing more searching on AA for some awards, I figured out why I wasn’t seeing the new, default search engine and (lack of) calendar. In case you are one of those people that are not happy with the new award engine yet, here is how you can simply access the old one, and with it the classic award calendar.

how to old american airlines award engine

The reason I was not seeing the new page was that the AA site was defaulting to the version in Greece because that is where I was. However, you don’t have to change the locale. Instead, once you tick the box for booking an award ticket, it informs you that you will be transferred to the US site. But, when that transfer occurs, it brings you to the old award searching page, complete with calendar option, instead.

This should work with any foreign locale as AA has not updated those foreign versions of their website – yet. That means, for now, you can access the old (and better!) AA award calendar and search function. I use this all the time and if I had to use the new one, I would definitely go a bit crazy!

Summary

When AA finally decides they actually want to move the new award engine from an apparent beta to real-time usefulness, I will be ready to give up the old one. For now, the old one is the best one.

Some of the links on Running with Miles are affiliate links that pay a commission if a purchase is made. Running with Miles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

You may also like

About the author

Charlie

Charlie has been an avid traveler and runner for many years. He has run in marathons around the world for less than it would cost to travel to the next town - all as a result of collecting and using miles and points. Over the years, he has flown hundreds of thousands of miles and collected millions of miles and points.
Now he uses this experience and knowledge to help others through Running with Miles.

View all posts

3 Comments

  • I was searching the ‘new’ award booking page trying to book AA premium econ MIA-GRU. It said 40k seats available but when I clicked through it only allowed me to select from regular economy seats… wouldn’t even show prem econ seat map (but still wanted to charge 40k miles). Do you have to call to book those?

  • […] !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '127864301139397'); // Insert your pixel ID here. fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link […]

  • It is laughable how long the new, dysfunctional award search site has existed. One would think that AA would take it offline or do some major repair to the site. Tech fail.