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American Airlines was one of six carriers that, last week, got the green light from the US Department of Transport to commence service to various regional cities in Cuba – the decisions on flights to Havana are not expected for a few more weeks.
American has now scheduled all of its flights from Miami to Cuba’s regional cities and tickets and awards are now available for those who want to visit (and meet the ridiculous travel requirements).
American Airlines Flights To Cuba
Miami – Cienfuegos
Daily service from 7 September 2016 using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
AA903 MIA 10:00 – 11:24 CFG
AA1096 CFG 12:30 – 13:45 MIA
Miami – Holguin
Twice daily service from 7 September 2016 using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
AA1041 MIA 10:15 – 11:55 HOG
AA1359 MIA 15:00 – 16:40 HOG
AA1482 HOG 13:09 – 14:49 MIA
AA1208 HOG 17:44 – 19:20 MIA
Miami – Camaguey
Daily service from 9 September 2016 using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
AA2745 MIA 14:40 – 16:01 CMW
AA1356 CMW 17:23 – 18:45 MIA
Miami – Santa Clara
Twice daily service from 9 September 2016 using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
AA1379 MIA 10:05 – 11:24 SNU
AA2751 MIA 16:00 – 17:08 SNU
AA1444 SNU 12:29 – 13:45 MIA
AA2750 SNU 18:24 – 19:40 MIA
Miami – Varadero
Once daily service from 11 September 2016 increasing to twice daily from 3 November 2016 using Airbus A319 aircraft.
AA2741 MIA 10:05 – 11:22 VRA
AA2749 MIA 20:00 – 21:17 VRA – from 3 November
AA2744 VRA 07:37 – 08:45 MIA – from 3 November
AA2742 VRA 12:24 – 13:32 MIA
Pricing
To say that American is charging a lot for these fares would be quite the understatement. For a random short trip in October, Economy Class fares to Santa Clara are coming out to over $600 roundtrip:
That’s for a trip of just 457 miles in total.
I thought I’d try another city pair and, this time, I decided to try some dates in 2017 in case the high October fares were due to initial exuberance and high demand.
Things were a bit better (relatively speaking)…..
…but $437 is still a heck of a lot to pay for an Economy Class seat for such a short trip.
It’s quite comical when I can book a roundtrip from Europe to Miami for less than some of the Miami – Cuba fares:
Yes, I know that this all has to do with supply and demand and the nature of the routes (please don’t send emails) but it’s still good to highlight just how nonsensical airline pricing can be sometimes.
Booking Flights To Cuba
As I mentioned in my last post about flights to Cuba, there are some pretty ridiculous restrictions in place on who can and cannot fly to Cuba and, when you go to book on American Airlines’ web page, you’re presented with a list of “acceptable travel reasons” and you have to confirm that you fall into one of those categories:
Some of these categories are so broad it makes the whole process nonsensical.
You could easily make an argument that you were going to provide “Support for the Cuban people” just by flying to Cuba – I’m pretty sure that spending your USD in Cuba would be considered very supportive by a lot of the locals.
I’m my case I could probably argue that this blog counts as “journalistic activities”….and anyone wanting to write a piece for this blog could probably claim the same.
How about “religious activities”? Cuba must be full of beautiful old churches….someone could probably claim that visiting them is reason enough to be allowed to travel.
The sooner the government realises just how utterly pointless these categories are the better.
Award Travel
If you search AA.com for award availability this is the message you’re most likely to see:
But that’s just plain wrong.
Awards are available for travel on American Airlines to Cuba….you just wouldn’t know it if you go looking on AA.com.
American Airlines has now updated it’s website to show its policy for award travel to/from Cuba:
Yes, you have to call American Airlines if you want to book award flights to Cuba and you can’t even search for availability on AA.com.
If you have a subscription to ExpertFlyer you can still search for award availability on there (that’s a big bonus)……
…..but, otherwise, you’re going to have to spend time on the phone with a reservations agent figuring out when the airline has availability.
On the good news front American hasn’t decided to give Cuba it’s own award category and it classifies the island as being part of the Caribbean (always good when an airline get’s its geography right) so one-way Miles SAAver seats in Coach will cost from 12,500 AAdvantage miles…..
….and those who can’t handle Coach for 250 miles will have to splash out 25,000 AAdvantage miles:
Bottom Line
It’s great that we’re finally getting to a point where we can have regular scheduled services between the US and Cuba as I’m sure there’s a lot of demand to visit…in both directions. But proper competition on these routes can’t come soon enough – with American’s stranglehold on the Miami market being what it is, they’re going to be in a position to set prices at just about whatever level they want to set them for some time….so don’t expect cheap fares any time soon.
I’m hoping that, at some point soon, American will at least make awards searchable on AA.com even through a phone call will still have to be made to book the flights – hold times to the regular American Airlines reservations line can be bad enough already so it would be helpful if agents’ time didn’t have to be taken up with needless award searches that could be done online.
Featured image: Nick Kenrick via Flickr
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[…] American AAdvantage Cuba awards require roundtrip travel, maximum stay of 90 days, and must be booked by phone […]