On April 30, 2025, American Airlines (AA) changed its policy for holding award ticket bookings. Travelers can now place an award ticket on hold for only 24 hours, whereas previously the maximum hold time was up to 5 days. This has a major impact on both ticketing and award holds. There are two key implications:
- Previously, you could use AA to hold partner award tickets within the oneworld alliance (other airlines generally do not offer this feature), then transfer points, cancel the held ticket on one side, and rebook on the other side to complete the booking. Now that the hold is limited to 24 hours, there may not be enough time for points to transfer. This is especially true for some Asian airlines, which are often slow.
- Previously, you could place an award on hold with AA first, then transfer Marriott points to AA and ticket it. Now, 24 hours is basically not enough time.
Of course, there is also one upside: some ticket brokers used these methods to tie up award space. With this change, it becomes harder to block seats for an extended period.
For reference, here were the previous hold rules: if departure was 14 days away or more, you could hold an award for 5 days; within 14 days of departure, the hold was 1 day.
- If you held a ticket 14 or more days before departure, you could hold an award for up to five days
- If you held a ticket within 14 days of departure, you can hold an award for up to one day