How to hold a reservation for free on AA.com for 48 hours, and not 24 hours

AA.com allows a free 24 hour hold on tickets, which is nice since it doesn’t require a credit card, and allows you to contemplate your plans before actually ticketing. Recently, AA.com introduced a fee-based schedule to hold reservations for more than 24 hours, however there is a really easy way to hold reservations on AA.com for free, and for 48 hours.

AA.com markets their hold policy as only 24 hours, but the workaround to this is all based on the time you decide to hold the reservation.

This morning, I held a reservation from DCA to DFW at 12:01am EST.

 

Looking at the reservation itself, it’s held until 11:59pm EST on December 25th.

So, by placing the reservation on hold at 12:01am on December 24th, I’m essentially getting a 48 hour hold until 11:59 on the 25th, therefore maximizing my free time to decide on my reservation.

There’s no tricks involved with this – it’s simply a matter of when you decide to place the reservation on hold online. So, if it’s close to being the next day, wait until the clock goes past midnight, that way you can gain an extra 24 hours on your hold.