American slashes fares in Valentine’s Day sale

How kitschy that American Airlines and USAirways officially announced their intent to merge on Valentine’s Day!

And to celebrate the love, American Airlines slashes airfare rates to a number of popular destinations. What’s more is that the deals are valid for travel through mid-January, 2014!

Act fast on these one-way offers — they don’t come with a ticket-by date which means this could be a today-only sale.

  • $79 Little Rock, Ark.
  • $90 Colorado Springs, Colo.
  • $117 Kansas City, Mo.
  • $130 San Francisco
  • $132 Boston
  • $141 Salt Lake City, Utah
  • $160 Ontario or Orange County-Santa Ana, Calif.
  • $169 Sacramento or San Jose, Calif.
  • $182 Des Moines, Iowa
  • $183 Tucson, Ariz.
  • $209 Albuquerque, N.M.

To qualify, give at least a one-week advance notice of travel. Travel is permitted seven days a week, based on sale seat availability.

Trips must be finished on or before January 11, 2014. Several blackout dates apply: March 22-24, 28-31; June 13-17, 20-24, 27-30; July 1, 4, 6-8, 11-15, 18-22, 25-29 and Aug. 1-5, 8-12.

American serves these destinations with connecting service in either Chicago-O’Hare or Dallas-Fort Worth.

Until all regulatory, stockholders and bankruptcy court approvals are finalized on the merger (could take six months), each airline will operate independently. That means that there will be no immediate changes to currently booked reservations or flight operations/schedules.

American Airlines has set up a website page to address customer questions: http://newamericanarriving.com/customers/customer-faq

Sale airfares are always subject to change. Every seat on every flight is not offered at the lowest rate. Since only a limited supply of seats is available, act quickly to make your purchase.

I recommend starting the search for available seats at Kayak.com vs. calling an airline directly. You can also search for the sale at travel websites such as Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity, etc. Airlines can discontinue or pull a sale price without notice when the offer does not have a “ticket-by” date or when the offer is deemed “sold out.”

Clara Bosonetto is a retired travel consultant.