How to redeem miles with the American Airlines AAdvantage program

2 weeks ago 7

Although the American Airlines AAdvantage program has experienced devaluations in recent years and moved to dynamic pricing, you can still find plenty of sweet spots. American offers an extensive network of domestic and international routes. It is also a part of the Oneworld alliance and has more than 20 airline partners, many of which offer some of the most coveted experiences in the skies. It's also the only Big Three U.S. airline that hasn't fully eliminated award charts — at least not yet.

Because of this, your AAdvantage miles are extremely flexible. You can even use them for aspirational luxury on Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines and other airlines with stellar hard products, both in economy and premium classes.

In this article, we'll go over how you can redeem AAdvantage miles for both American and partner-operated flights. We'll also review alternate ways to redeem your miles and whether or not they're worth using.

Redeem miles for American Airlines flights

One of the most straightforward ways to redeem AAdvantage miles is on American-operated flights.

The program now uses dynamic pricing for its own award seats, though it hasn't yet removed its partner award chart. (We'll get to that later.) This means that for American flights, the price in miles can vary drastically depending on the route, day, demand and other factors.

American launched Economy Web Specials in 2018, and it has quickly expanded to other regions and premium cabins. These awards start at just 5,000 miles for one-way short-haul domestic flights. In the past, we've even seen American offer economy tickets to Mexico and the Caribbean for as few as 5,000 miles each way and Flagship First Class seats from Los Angeles to London for just 110,000 AAdvantage miles each way.

Redeeming AAdvantage miles for American flights is simple: Head to the American Airlines website and search for your flight, making sure to check the "Redeem miles" box. American isn't known for having plentiful award availability, but you can find good deals when searching for awards far in advance. When the search results appear, click "Calendar" to compare prices across an entire month; the best deals will be highlighted in green.

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Redeem miles for partner flights

You'll notice some differences when booking American Airlines partners, one of which is consistency in price. For example, you can expect to pay 57,500 miles when flying to Europe in business class — no amazing deals, but no 200,000-mile pricing, either. That's because AAdvantage still uses an award chart for partner redemptions. Head to this link to enter your origin and destination regions and see how much your ticket will cost.

Also, watch for carrier-imposed fees and surcharges. British Airways is infamous for routinely tacking on hundreds of dollars in surcharges to Europe-bound flights. These are passed on to AAdvantage members in addition to the miles they'll spend.

That's not to say there are no good AAdvantage partner redemptions — it's actually quite the opposite. As discussed earlier, American Airlines partners with many world-renowned airlines that offer stellar business- and first-class products with reasonable carrier-imposed fees.

Here's a list of all of American's current partners:

Oneworld airline partners:

Alaska Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Airlines
Malaysia Airlines
Qantas
Qatar Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Royal Jordanian Airlines
SriLankan Airlines

Nonalliance airline partners:

Aer Lingus
Air Tahiti Nui
Cape Air
China Southern Airlines
Etihad Airways
Fiji Airways
Gol Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines
IndiGo
JetSmart
Silver Airways

You can book most of these partners online through American's website, but some may require you to call. In that case, you can search for award seats on the airline's own site and then call American to book with AAdvantage miles. You shouldn't encounter this problem often, as the main players are bookable online.

When you call American, the phone agent will give you a quote for both mileage and taxes and fees. These taxes and fees are usually the same as quoted on the partner airline's website, but they may vary depending on the award.

Make sure you note specific flight numbers when you locate an available partner award seat. Instead of saying, "I'm hoping to use my miles to fly from New York to Abu Dhabi," and then relying on the agent to find the award space, say something like, "I've found award space on Etihad flight X, departing on date Y, but I can't book it online. Can you please help?"

Redeem miles for travel add-ons

You can also redeem your miles for various add-ons, such as seat upgrades and Admirals Club lounge access.

Upgrading your seat with miles is only available on flights operated by American and three of its partners: British Airways, Iberia and Qantas. Check out this page to see how many AAdvantage miles you'll need to upgrade your next flight.

Unfortunately, you'll have to pay a hefty co-pay (starting at $75) on most American fares. For upgrades on American's partners, you won't have a co-pay, but the mileage rates are much higher.

When you book a Main Cabin Extra seat with miles, the cost correlates to the cash price at a rate of roughly 1 cent per mile. In this case, you can use 3,500 miles for a Main Cabin Extra seat that would normally cost $37. Similarly, an Admirals Club day pass will set you back $79 or 7,900 miles.

Both of these options give you a value of around 1 cent per mile, far below TPG's November 2024 valuation of American miles (1.6 cents each). That's why we advise avoiding them, especially if your AAdvantage elite status provides Main Cabin Extra seating as a benefit or if you have the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (see rates and fees), which entitles you to Admirals Club access.

If you have Executive Platinum or Platinum Pro status, you also have the option to redeem 20,000 or 24,000 miles, respectively, for an entry pass to the exclusive Flagship First dining facility.

Redeem miles for rental cars, hotels or activities

The AAdvantage website offers several more avenues for redeeming your miles, including:

Hotel stays and vacation packages
Rental cars booked through the new AAdvantage Cars platform
Concert, theater and sporting event tickets through the new AAdvantage Events platform
Donations to Miles for Heroes and Miles for Social Good
Luxury travel experiences, which include things like lounge access and airport transfers

The above list gives you plenty of options, especially if you have a big stash of miles that you can't use anytime soon. However, these redemptions will almost always provide a poor value.

For example, we priced out a one-day midsize car rental through AAdvantage Cars and were quoted 15,557 miles. The same rental costs just $87 when booked directly through Thrifty, giving you a value of 0.56 cents per mile; that's far less than half of our November 2024 valuation of 1.6 cents apiece for AAdvantage miles. Some AAdvantage elite members and cobranded cardholders will get a small discount on the price in miles, but not enough to bring that value up significantly.

Of course, value is in the eye of the beholder, and only you can decide how best to use your miles. But in general, redeeming AAdvantage miles for award flights will give you the most bang for your mile, especially when you can find aspirational partner awards.

Bottom line

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to redeeming AAdvantage miles.

Make sure to do your research and find the best routes for your redemption, and don't rely solely on American's website for award availability. After all, the best option for your next trip may not be on American but on one of its many alliance or nonalliance partners. Just be sure to watch out for pesky fuel surcharges.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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