American Airlines making big changes to award ticket hold times

Let's start with the good news: American Airlines will continue to allow users to put award tickets on hold.

However, its policy is getting more restrictive.

As first flagged by Ben Schlappig at One Mile at a Time, American Airlines is reducing award ticket hold times to 24 hours. Previously, members of the AAdvantage program were allowed to hold award tickets for as long as five days if they were booking at least two weeks in advance. If they were booking less than two weeks out, they could hold tickets for 24 hours.

As shown in the screenshot below, you can now only hold award tickets for 24 hours, no matter how far out you are booking.

This long hold time had been a fairly generous tool on American's part: it was the only U.S. airline to allow holds that long. In fact, American is one of just a handful of airlines in the world that still allows award holds at all. I've used the tool myself several times over the years when trying to decide on a trip or waiting on approval for a time-off request.

The great thing about an award ticket hold is that it lets you reserve award space before actually booking, giving you time to firm up plans or coordinate with other people (or find awards on other airlines). It also gives you extra time to transfer points from a credit card, for example. In the case of American, it can be especially useful for booking partner awards on airlines like Japan Airlines.

We should note, American does still allow members to cancel an award ticket without any fee, and will refund both the miles and taxes and fees paid by the customer.

Still, some TPG staffers were disappointed to see the hold period for award tickets shrink.

"This was a nice benefit AAdvantage offered its members and it's frustrating when any benefit is removed from a program," TPG director of content operations Andrea M. Rotondo said. "Holding an award, instead of booking it and canceling later, meant that I didn't have to check my credit card statement to confirm that the taxes and fees paid were refunded."

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But fewer and fewer airlines are allowing this, despite how customer-friendly it is. Some other airlines allow holds on award tickets, such as Lufthansa's Miles & More and Air France-KLM's Flying Blue, but they have become far less common overall.

Related: How American Airlines sucked me back into AAdvantage with Loyalty Points

In any case, the lengthy hold option was fun while it lasted, and I'm glad American will continue allowing holds even in this reduced capacity.

We reached out to American Airlines for comment and will update this story if we get more information.

Related reading:

• Best credit cards for American Airlines flyers
• American Airlines elite status: What it is and how to earn it
• Maximize your airfare: The best credit cards for booking flights
• The best credit cards to reach elite status
• American Airlines basic economy: What you need to know about bags, seats, boarding and more