First and foremost:
American Airlines now includes US Airways. The two have merged legally and have combined their loyalty programs. If you had miles in either one or the other, or both, you should check to make sure that all your miles have now been transferred to American. It's an easy process. If you have an existing US account but not an AA account, they will create one for you.
American is great because they have not devalued their award charts for years. United and Delta greatly increased the miles price of premium cabin awards in 2014, but at least for bookings through late 2015, you can lock in American Airlines’ very low prices for business and first class awards, compared to its American competitors.
In this post, we'll answer the following questions:
- What are the basics of the AAdvantage Program?
- What airlines can you fly with AA miles?
- What are some of the routing rules you can use when booking award tickets?
- What are some special features of the AAdvantage program?
- How do you book award travel?
What are the basics of the AAdvantage program?
American Airlines miles are region-based miles. Meaning, the price is determined by an award chart that quantifies redemption price based on three factors:
- The cabin you want to fly: economy, business, or first
- Whether you found Saver (cheapest level) award space or not
- The departure region and arrival region. The cities you fly into/out of don’t matter. Just the regions. Think North America and Europe.
A region to region chart just means that instead of having to calculate the number of miles you need from Los Angeles to Tokyo, you merely figure out how many miles it takes to get from North America to Asia Region 1.
Economy / Main Cabin chart, when traveling from the lower 48:
This may look confusing because there are FOUR levels of economy pricing. For simplicity's sake, here is the breakdown.
- Mile SAAver Off Peak awards are available between the US and some, but not all regions. Look for the dates that off peak awards are available as these present a great bargain for economy travel. I'll cover more in the last section titled "special features."
- The rest of the year, Mile SAAver awards are the cheapest awards. When searching on the AA website, these will show up in lime green on the calendar, along with the off peak awards. These represent the cheapest level you can pay.
- For the most part, ignore the last two columns. Level 1 is standard, and Level 2 is for peak standard like weekends or holidays. These are the extremely expensive awards for booking trips, and they are always available on every flight. That's why they're called AAnytime. We avoid booking these because we want to maximize our BIG travel for SMALL money!
We use the Business / First chart on planes that only have two cabins. We use the First chart only for first class travel when the plane has three cabins: economy, business, and first. These are primarily for international flights. Most of American Airlines' operated flights follow a two cabin model, so in this case, we will mostly refer to the Business/First chart, and not the First chart.
What airlines can you fly with American Airlines miles?
American Airlines is a member of the oneworld alliance. That means you can use its miles on all these oneworld airlines:
- American Airlines
- US Airways
- airberlin
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)
- Finnair
- Iberia (Spain)
- Japan Airlines
- LAN (Chile and Peru)
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas (Australia)
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Jordanian
- S7 Airlines (Russia)
- SriLankan Airlines
- TAM Airlines (Brazil)
American also has several partners that not a part of the oneworld alliance. You can also redeem miles to fly these airlines:
- Air Tahiti Nui
- Alaska Airlines/Horizon Airlines
- El Al (Israel)
- Etihad (Abu Dhabi)
- Fiji Airways
- Gulf Air (Bahrain)
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Jet Airways (India)
- Seaborne Airlines (Caribbean)
Subject to other routing rules, which I’ll explain below, you can freely combine American Airlines flights, oneworld partner flights, and other partner flights onto a single award.
To have a multi-segment (meaning, Miami to JFK to Rome) award, and show the MileSAAver price, every segment in that direction must have MileSAAver space.
This is the award chart for oneworld partner airlines:
What are some of the routing rules you can use when booking award tickets?
American allows you to book one way award tickets for half the price of a round trip award.
However, American has some complicated routing rules that no other carrier does.
The airline that flies the flight that connects you from one region to another, must have a published fare all the way from your origin to your destination.
When you fly from one region to another on the award chart, you cannot connect in a third region or your trip will price as two separate awards. Here is a list of exceptions based on experience. American doesn't publish this information publicly.
You, as a newbie don't really need to know these two rules as most of your awards will likely be pretty simple and convenient for the reservation system. But if you think you had a good award and an American Airlines agent prices it higher than you were expecting, you probably violated one of these two rules.
You can check whether your region-connecting airline has a published fare from your origin to your destination by using Expert Flyer. This is a paid service I will detail in a later post.. Note that “having a published fare” and flying the whole route are two totally different things.
Stopovers
Not allowed. You cannot stop for longer than 4 hours on a domestic ticket, or 24 hours on an international award.Open Jaws
Since you can book one way awards, you can obviously book as many open jaws as you like.Keep in mind that an open jaw is not a hole in the middle of a single one way award. Those are prohibited. See my explanation for open jaw, here.
Free One Ways
Free one ways require a stopover at your home airport. American Airlines awards can’t have free stopovers. Therefore American Airlines awards cannot have free one ways.What are some special features of the AAdvantage program?
The main special feature of the program is the ability to redeem for incredibly cheap economy awards during off peak months. For many regions, the off peak dates include some great times to visit. They often coincide with the shoulder season... before or after most of the tourists show up.
Off peak awards are available on American Airlines awards, regardless of which partners you fly, to the following regions on the following dates:
If you are flying only American or US Airways planes, you have even more off peak options:
While other airlines offer off peak awards occasionally, American offers them on the most dates to the most places with the most partners. For people who don’t need to travel to Europe at the height of summer, this is a major plus of the American Airlines program. Dale and I just returned from a trip to France where the total cost was only $80.70 in taxes!!!
Speaking of taxes.... are there any additional fees or surcharges?
Taxes
You are required to pay the government taxes associated with your itinerary.These start at $5.60 each direction for domestic tickets, and go up to $300ish roundtrip if you fly to Britain in a premium cabin. As a rule of thumb, most international routes range from $50-150.
Fees
There is no booking fee for awards made on aa.com. There is no fee for booking an award over the phone that you cannot book online. However, if you make a booking over the phone that is searchable on aa.com, you will be charged $25, unless you are an Executive Platinum member with American.There is a $75 charge to book tickets within 21 days of departure. This is waived if you have any elite status with American.
Changing the date and/or time of travel is free unless you change it to within 21 days. Then they charge you $75. Again, free if you have status.
There is a $150 charge if you want to change the origin or destination airport, plus an additional $25 for each additional ticket under the same reservation. This is free for Executive Platinum.
They also charge $150 to cancel an award ticket, and to redeposit the miles into your account. Same $25 charge for additional tickets on the same reservation. Again, waived for Executive Platinum.
Fuel Surcharges
American does not charge fuel surcharges on awards, except when booking flights on British Airways or Iberia. British Airways charges can be exorbitant when booking flights in premium cabins, and moderately prohibitive even in economy, so you will want to avoid using your American miles on a British Airways flight.Iberia's are cheaper still, but they're still a nuisance, and best avoided.
How do you book award travel?
The following airlines are visible on searches and bookable using aa.com:
- American
- US Airways
- airberlin
- British Airways
- Qantas
- Finnair
- Alaska / Horizon
- Royal Jordanian
- Hawaiian
I recommend that you search for available space on other airlines before calling because AA customer service agents might not necessarily find you the best space for your needs.The best bet is to use the British Airways website to search for award space, because they can see all the other oneworld carriers that AA cannot.
IN CONCLUSION....
American Airlines AAdvantage is an awesome program if you want to travel internationally in ultra luxury, like Cathay Pacific First Class, or Qantas First Class.
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| Cathay Pacific First Class! |
American has fantastic availability domestically, and many of its partners have great availability too. Availability is a big strength of this program in all classes of service. Notice a simple search on aa.com from JFK to LAX:
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| All days in lime green represent award space at the cheapest level. |
American has some lame award routing rules, but most reasonable awards comply with the rules naturally. They are also flexible for one way travel, but unfortunately you cannot add stopovers to the awards.
Lastly, there should never be a fee to book an American Airlines award more than 21 days before departure because the phone booking fee is waived if your award cannot be booked online.
If you can’t seem to find the award you want for your trip, please feel free to consult me, and I can search and book your American Airlines awards for a small fee. I have the expertise to search every American Airlines partner to maximize convenience and luxury while minimizing your out-of-pocket cost.
That's about all I can think of right now. If you have any additional questions, or if you think I may have missed something, please feel free to leave me a comment or any feedback!
Peace, love, and an extra pack of peanuts,
LC
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