I know a few people that are working on end of the year mileage runs in order to take advantage of American’s Double Elite Qualifying Miles and Points offer.

Some good advice for anyone looking for a great mileage run deal is to follow The Flight Deal online, on Twitter, and to subscribe to their Daily Digest of curated flight offers (they look for value rather than just a cheap fare, and they only publish a deal if it’s less than 6 cent per mile).

Now that we’re down to just a little over a month left in the year, something else I think might be especially helpful for someone looking to score a really great mileage run fare is to actively monitor The Flight Deal on Twitter each evening.

Recently, American and the other airlines (but we don’t care about them) have been loading crazy cheap fares in the evening and then pulling them a few hours later.

Here are a few of the amazing deals that have expired but were available for those that were quick enough to get them:

;

Now here’s a great fare from The Flight Deal that hasn’t expired: American: San Francisco – New York (and vice versa) $288. Roundtrip, including all Taxes

Anyway, if you’re looking for some great mileage run fares before the end of the year, it’s a good idea to check in on @TheFlightDeal in the evenings. You never know what insanely cheap airfare the airlines might post, but if it’s a really great deal I’m sure The Flight Deal will Tweet it!

Apple’s new Passbook is an iOS 6 app that lets you save all kinds of things like loyalty cards, movie tickets, gift cards, and boarding passes to your iPhone or iPad.   American was one of the first airlines to support this new feature.

I’ve used it a few times and it works really well, though at first it wasn’t obvious to me how to use it.

I wasted some time trying to figure out how to enter my AAdvantage number in Passbook in order to retrieve a ticket; you actually have to check-in using American’s mobile app, and from there save your boarding pass to Passbook. Thankfully, a Google search helped my solve the problem.

Anyway, American posted a very short tutorial on Youtube yesterday explaining how to save your boarding pass to Passbook.  Here’s a look at at the video.

Last year Google completed their purchase of ITA Software, the powerful pricing, searching and inventory technology behind several airline and online travel sites.  In September they introduced Google Flight Search to a few US cities.  Last week they reached another milestone with Google.com/flights  which will be helpful when you’re trying to plan a mileage run (from their Google ITA Software blog):

…we’ll begin showing flight information right in your Google search results on certain flight related searches. For example, if you search for [flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices.

Over the next couple days, you’ll start to see the flight results appear for searches whose origins and destinations are currently supported by our Flight Search feature. In the short term, those results are limited to domestic US flights. The flight schedule feature will continue to provide information about nonstop routes around the world and across 11 languages.

You can filter results by airlines and number of stops, and do some other cool things like search for destinations by time and budget, see how prices change depending upon the days you travel, and view the calendar to see which days that offer the lowest fares.

Here’s a video tour from Google:

Google Flight Search

While we’re on the topic of Google, here’s something I first read about over at the American Way Magazine blog: Google Maps Goes Indoors at Airports.  

Here’s a look: 

Google Maps the Indoors

Google Maps for Android now offers indoor maps of several US airports, shopping malls, and big box retailers.  Fewer than 20 airports are mapped so far, and it’s only available on Android devices.   You can read more at the Official Google Blog – A new frontier for Google Maps: mapping the indoors.

Yesterday I wrote about the 50% reduced mileage awards from San Francisco and Vancouver to Tokyo.  This is a really great offer.   Especially the Business class redemptions: It’s just 50,000 AAdvantage Miles  round-trip to Tokyo!

You can fly round-trip from San Francisco or Vancouver to Tokyo in Japan Airlines Business class for 50,000 miles instead of the usual 100,00 miles.   To explain what a great value this is for your miles,  50,000 miles normally gets you a round-trip ticket in coach.  

Speaking of  coach, you can fly round-trip in Economy class for just 30,000 miles (that’s only 5,000 more miles than you’d usually spend on a one-way ticket to Tokyo).

Here’s the link to the San Francisco to Tokyo Haneda reduced mileage promotion.
Here’s the link to the Vancouver to Tokyo Narita reduced mileage promotion.

If you’r trying to find availability on Japan Airlines, besides calling American to book the award, here are a few other ways to find award inventory on Japan Airlines:

KVS Tool

For a price, you can purchase and download KVS which will allow you search timetables, fares and award inventory for just about any airline. It’s an amazing piece of software, unfortunately, it only works on Windows. If you have a Mac, you’ll need to to either have a version of Windows running on your computer, or you’ll need to use something like Crossover (a paid app) to get it to work (you can also try Wine, the free opensource alternative to Crossover, but the last time I tried using it with KVS it was really buggy).

Use the British Airways site

It’s free but it does require a little more effort. If you’re not already a member of the British Airways frequent flyer program, Executive Club, you’ll need to join.

After you join, sign in go to the Executive Club tab and select “Spending your BA Miles”.

From there you’ll see a “Make a booking” link. You’ll have to first try a search from this page. You’ll get a message that British Airways doesn’t fly that route, but you’ll also get a link that will allow you to search partner airlines. Select this link.

After you’re directed to this new page, you’ll have to enter your search again, and once more you’ll get an error telling you that British Airways doesn’t fly between these two cities (they must really want their frequent flyers to try BA first), but at this point you’ll see a red “Include Partner Results” button that you can (finally) select to perform your search.

It’s a hacked way of looking for inventory, but it works and it’s free.

Award Nexus

If you’re a member of FlyerTalk, you can use their Award Nexus tool to search for award seats. The basic service will give you enough points that you’lll be able perform several searches, if you run out of points, you can make a donation and receive more points. You have to be a member of FlyerTalk to use this.

Another option is to pay someone else to do it.  If you’re trying to book an $8,000 Business class award for just 50,000 miles, despite the small cost, it’s still a great value.

Points Pros
Lucky over at One Mile at Time is an expert and he has a service that will take care of it for you:

Can’t find any award space?
Do you have to be flexible by a month?
Having trouble booking the award seats you might find with the airline?

Let us use our expertise to assist you throughout the booking process. We’ll find you seats when the airlines say nothing is available while making sure you get the most value out of your miles and points.

The Cranky Concierge
Brett Snyder is the man behind The Cranky Flier. He too has a service that will take care of it for you:

Cranky Concierge is the unique air travel assistance service started by the founder of The Cranky Flier (winner of 10+ travel blog awards since 2007).

Sign up and our staff of airline dorks will personally monitor your flights, watching for problems like delayed airplanes and weather at your destination. Cancellation or missed connection? Your concierge is already researching alternatives and can help you get rebooked.

We also have a full range of services to help you plan trips and we can even book flights, hotels and car rentals.

What doesn’t work

Expert Flyer

I’m a subscriber and a fan of Expert Flyer, but unfortunately their online tool doesn’t search Japan Airlines awards and upgrades.

Qantas website

You can often use the Qantas award booking tool to find award seats on oneworld member airlines. I’ve tried, but I can’t get it to display Japan Airlines awards.

If you know of any other way to look up award inventory on Japan Airlines, please share you tips in the comments section.

Update: As of Sunday night, it’s finally working.  

I’ve been using a Mac since the mid-80s, so I’m excited to see that American has finally released a version of their DealFinder software that works with a Mac. Haven’t tried it yet, but here’s how it’s described in the FAQ on their site:

DealFinder is a downloadable desktop tool offered by American Airlines which allows you to receive automatic, personalized fare alerts and other information via your computer desktop. Once you download the tool and set your travel preferences, DealFinder will alert you about deals to your favorite destinations. By creating searches for your upcoming trips, DealFinder will also show you the current lowest prices and alert you when the price is at or belowyour target price. The application can also help you stay up to date with news, information and promotions from American Airlines.

Go here to download and test it yourself. Feel free to share your thoughts, review or experience in the comments section.

Have a great weekend!

(Editor’s Note:  I forgot to mention it, but American also released an update to their AA.com iPhone app and added this cool, new feature: “If an upgrade was requested and not yet confirmed at check-in, you now have the ability to put yourself on the upgrade standby list”. Go here for details.)

Photo credit: Jose Antonio Gelado on Flickr

American Airlines just released versions of their mobile app for Blackberry and Windows mobile devices in addition to the five other versions they’ve already released.

APPS AVAILABLE, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANY DEVICE.
We are excited to announce our app is now available for BlackBerry smartphones and Windows Phone. Now no matter whether you’re using an iPhone, iPad, Android, Barnes & Noble Nook Color or want to download via Amazon App Store for Android, you’re covered.

So unless you’re one of the few people left not using one of these platforms, you can go here to download a version for your phone.

(Hope we’ll see another Mobile Million sweepstakes!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znKX-5fdhwk

Video tour of the new American Airlines Android App

American released a version of their travel app for Android. From the press release:

“With the popularity of American’s first app for iPhone, many customers have asked for an American app for Android. In fact, one in four smartphone owners are now using an Android device,” said Rick Elieson, Managing Director – American Airlines Interactive Marketing. “Not only does this meet the needs of many of our customers while they’re on the move, it also paves the way for innovation on other devices that use the Android platform.”

They worked to achieve cross-platform feature parity with both the iOS platform from Apple and Google’s Android mobile platform.

Much like its iPhone app predecessor, the American Airlines Android app allows customers to check in for flights; receive gate, seat and flight status information; view terminal maps; and provides a number of other functions, including the ability to:

• Enter log in and password only once – allowing the application proactively to push upcoming flight details to the home screen automatically
• Set a parking reminder
• Monitor the standby list
• Track elite status progress
• Access Mobile Boarding Pass – the application saves the boarding pass, so it’s always easy to find
• Use GPS to locate the nearest airport served by American
• Play Sudoku

The app also provides direct and easy access to a variety of other tools that help customers manage, plan and further enjoy each trip on American Airlines, including the ability to:

• Create Flight Status Notifications
• Enroll in the American Airlines AAdvantage program
• Access AAdvantage account information
• Access contact information

Go here to download a copy for your phone.

American Airlines Google Gadget on my iGoogle page. Photo credit AAdvantageGeek on Flickr

Something I recently discovered is the American Airlines Google Gadget which allows you to search for fares on AA.com from your iGoogle homepage.  You can even embed it on your own website or blog if you’re so inclined.

Use it with the American Airlines Cents-Per-Mile Google Chrome Extension by Kyle Duarte and look for great fares and mileage runs.

Right now it’s 32 degrees in Dallas, I need a cheap fare to someplace warm.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d have to go to Atlanta first, that I don’t earn any AAdvantage Miles, and I’m already going on a short vacation soon, I’d be pretty tempted to take advantage (insert obvious pun here) of the really great fares that Delta is offering to Honolulu.

Go here to get the AA Google gadget.

Screen shot of the AA CPM Google Chrome Extension photo credit AAdvantageGeek on Flickr

Here’s a really cool Google Chrome extension that helps you maximize the number of AAdvantage Miles you earn for your dollar when you’re making your travel plans on AA.com.

Here’s the information from the Google Chrome Extension Gallery:

Cents per mile (CPM) is a common indicator of good value for the frequent flier community when purchasing airline tickets. This extension will compute the CPM for the cheapest economy fares listed on American Airlines’ Price & Schedule matrix at aa.com.

It’s not from American Airlines. It was developed by travel enthusiast Kyle Duarte and more information is available on his Flyer Tool site, where you’ll also find his oneworld Lounge Access Wizard, a great online tool to help you determine if you qualify for access to the Admirals Club or a oneworld partner lounge when traveling on American or one of the other oneworld carriers.

iPad in case – photo credit Blake Patterson on Flickr

Now you can look up your AAdvantage balance, make reservations, purchase travel and more using American’s new high-definition iPad App.

From their release:

American Airlines introduces travel applications that understand who you are and where you’re going. Beginning with the iPhone application launched this summer, we now bring you a travel app for your iPad in High Definition! From your mobile boarding pass, to where you’re departing from and from what gate, to where you’ll sit and even where you are on the standby list, we have you covered. Simply swipe and tap your way through your personalized American Airlines travel information that’s perfect for flying through airports.
Download our iPhone and iPad apps now at the iTunes app store!
Plus, gain access to a variety of other tools to help you manage, plan and further enjoy each trip you take on American Airlines:

• Track your Elite Status progress
• View terminal maps
• Play Sudoku
• Book Flights
• Check In For Flights
• Create Flight Status Notifications
• Check Flight Status & Schedules
• Access your AAdvantage account
• Enroll in the AAdvantage program

Go here to download.