Chicago to Florida airfare help..

[noah32]

I'm looking to book a flight from ord to mia from dec 20 early morning, returning dec 22 early evening. 4 passengers (2 adults, 2 children - age 3 and 5)

so far i've found that AA has the flights i want but the cost is over 3 grand!!! insane...

i have enough starwood points to use miles for AA but it says the transfer can take 2-4 weeks and it may not be enough time. (plus AA says if you don't book within 21 days they charge 50-100 per ticket)

what do i do?

[Yordai Dooma]

if there is enough availability on the AA flights, there's a trick that Ive used and can confirm works. (you can check availability by trying to book 4 or 5 award seats for those days and times and see if it allows you to)

Once you make the ticket with AA using miles, it is free to change the dates and and times of the ticket as long as the airports and passenger names stay the same. So what i do is book a ticket for the airports i want for any day greater than 21 days. Then once the tickets are "ticketed" (you will get an email) call AA and change the tickets to the dates you want for free (even to today's date!) that would save you the fees for less than 21 days.

As far as Starwood transfer times, Ive never transferred to AA...sorry

[noah32]

wow. that is a great trick. genius!

only problem is still with the transfer...

anyone have AA miles they would trade me for the equivalent in starpoints (80,000)? or lend me until i get my transfer complete?

i need 100,000 miles.

[Dan]

The trick does work, you just need to wait until it says "ticketed" which can take between 12-48 hours.

Send me an email (its listed in the right sidebar on the main site) and I'll help you find a solution for the transfer issue.

[Charles The Govenor]

Well I don't know if it is any cheaper but try MKE a lot of times its much cheaper its is 66 miles from ord and takes about an hour 10 and you can get parking for 5 dollars a day.