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Let’s be completely honest. The new AA award search function is downright terrible. Up until a couple weeks ago, I’d been accessing the old AA award calendar by setting my country to Canada ( Thanks Matthew ). Then that stopped working for me. Sometimes it would still populate, but most often it did not. I then gathered some more recon and discovered that 2 other methods had been blogged about. I thought it could be useful to consolidate to aid in your calendar search functions.
Let’s use the example of LAX to LHR in December. Here’s what you’re probably seeing when you search:
And then when you actually want to see what the space looks like on the 30th…it looks like this.
I find it incredibly difficult to sort and extract information that aids in booking. Is it purposeful? Who knows… but it certainly diminishes the chances you’ll find higher value redemptions for your points.
Let’s look at how you can work around this.
3 ways to access the Old AA Award Calendar
Setting AA to another country
This has been my go-to method for the last several months, but as I said in my intro – it doesn’t always work. But, here’s what you’d do. It’s very simple. Go to the top, click on the calendar, and voila – everything converts to what you’d see searching in Canada.
The same search now yields this:
Which when you dig into a date, you can easily sort and find what’s actually populating at those levels:
Using the Plan Travel tab at the top
This was a method that I read about on VFTW and it seems to work consistently as well.
Once you drop down the Plan Travel menu, simply click flights and you’ll get this page. Click redeem miles and you’re off and running
Running the same search, you’ll get this:
The final way I’ve seen to populate the Old AA Award calendar is via Advanced Search
Milevalue had a great tip here. Super easy, but simply click advance search on the home page.
You’ll actually populate the same page as via Plan Travel with one less move.
You’ll then get these results
Overall
While I’m not about to accuse AA of deliberately making their engine worse, they certainly haven’t made it better. Trying to sift through inventory with the new system is exhausting, and hopefully this eases things up for you. In fact, this is how I found space to upgrade my upcoming BA flight from business to first class. I’ll be flying the 747 again later this month and am certainly looking forward to it! You can read my prior review here
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card went through a major refresh in 2026 adding new bonus categories, travel protections, statement credits, and remains one of the best travel starter cards in the market. It earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott. Note that Hyatt is now a 4:3 transfer partner
Welcome Offer
Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Earn
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on gas and EV charging
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on vacation homes at top brands
- Cardmembers will earn 3x points on vacation homes at these top brands: Airbnb, Vrbo, Plu Guide, HomeAway, Homestay.com and Vacasa.
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 2x on all other travel
- 1x on everyday purchases
- 5x points on Lyft rides Earn 5x total points on eligible Lyft rides including ride share, bike and scooter rides and subscription and membership products through September 30, 2027.
- 5x total points on Peloton equipment Earn 5x total points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150 through December 31, 2027.
Benefits and Credits
- $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- NEW: $120 Global Entry, TSA PreCheck or NEXUS fee credit Cardmembers will receive one statement credit of up to $120 every four years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to the card.
- NEW: Complimentary Apple TV subscription for one year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is great starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Chase Ink Business Cash® , Chase Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into the Sapphire Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee remains quite low at $95 a year and if you use the $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠ you’ll wipe out that annual fee every year. It has great bonus categories and other useful statement credits to enhance your travel.
One thing that is a bummer is Chase lowered the transfer ratio to World of Hyatt from 1:1 to 4:3.
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