Ideas or options for late change of USDM / AAdvantage award to US and Europe

I am grasping at straws here I know,

Due to my father diagnosed with terminal cancer my dream holiday, which was to be 25/10 - 21/11 NYC and Europe in CX J, BA F & QF F for me and the wife, we are unable to go.

One option we are considering is to change the either the inbound or outbound to make it a 2 weeks trip to just US or UK. This is incredibly difficult with finding late notice award positions not in whY.
I am reluctant to cancel the booking given that it was using USDM and getting decent routing that is no longer available.

Does anyone have any suggestions that can make it easier to still use these awards and making it a shorter trip??

Do i have the option of changing the names on the booking to forward it to someone else?

Thanks guys

Hi Luke, you can call AA and tell them you are booked on a USDM ticket and they will transfer you to the USDM desk who will make the changes for you.\r\nBut name changes are not allowed and you cant forward the ticket to another person.\r\nThere are alternatives to CX, BA and QF. If you cant find seats on them I could recommend you also try JAL or Qatar or Malaysia Airlines or look at the One World partners list and then search for flights on those airlines and try to reroute on the available dates.

Hey Luke,

Sorry to hear about these circumstances.

Your options seem to be…

  1. Cancel the award and get a refund in AA miles, which would at least allow you to book some one ways (not sure if you can cancel only 1/2 an old USDM routing though)
  2. Work with AA to tweak the dates on the original routing, assuming it’s between the same zones (sounds like it’s not though if you’re going through the US and Europe originally).

You might want to draught in one of the award flight research and booking agencies on this one to reduce stress and time spend on the research, cancellations and rebookings.

Best of luck…