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According to this thread on FlyerTalk, American Airlines is holding a holiday special on all purchased miles. Bonus miles are awarded depending on the amount of miles purchased. In similar fashion to previous American Airlines miles specials, there is a tiered bonus structure. The more miles you purchase, the more bonus miles you receive.
To purchase points and see the terms and conditions, go to American’s Buy Miles page here.
What is the maximum number of miles I can purchase with this promotion?
You can purchase up to 60,000 miles. Doing so will yield the maximum bonus of 30,000 miles. You will pay $1,808.75 for 90,000 total miles, or 2.00 cents per mile.
Per the terms and conditions, American has raised the annual limit of purchasing miles per account from 40,000 to 60,000.
How long does it take for the miles to post?
The purchased points should hit your AAdvantage account almost instantly. According to the terms and conditions, it will take up to five days for the bonus miles to be credited to your account.
I have a Citi AAdvantage credit card. Will I earn double miles on this transaction?
No. Points.com will process your order, not American Airlines directly. This purchase will most likely not code as a direct American purchase.
Didn’t American just run a bonus promotion on purchased miles? Which is the better deal?
As I wrote in an article earlier this month, Forum Buzz: American Airlines Buy Miles Bonus, American just wrapped up a fall bonus on AAdvantage miles. With that fall promotion, miles could be purchased at 2.29 cents if you bought the maximum amount. The current holiday bonus promotion mentioned above blows that out of the water. Rarely are American miles priced lower than 2.29 cents. At 2.00 cents per mile, hopefully you sat out the previous deal.
Is this a good deal?
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend buying miles speculatively through this promotion.
Using the Mile Value Leaderboard, you can see that Scott values American miles at 1.77 cents. AAdvantage has solid online award availability (including partners British, Hawaiian, Qantas, airberlin, and Alaska) and also allows free oneways on award travel. For more information, make sure to check out his full posts, Master Thread: Free Oneways on American Airlines Awards.
Even with the bonus, American is still selling miles at more than we value them. If you have a specific redemption in mind and lack the miles needed to book, I suggest you verify award availability and purchase through this promotion.
Any awards that stand out on the AAdvantage chart?
Scott recently posted on four new routes that American would be flying in 2013. The Dallas <-> Seoul and Dallas <-> Lima routes showed some fantastic premium cabin availability. To read more about those redemptions, check out his post, Award Space on American Airlines’ Brand New Routes.
I value AAdvantage miles because of American’s MileSAAver Off Peak awards. American has the most generous definition of what constitutes an off peak award. Check out the list of eligible dates below and their full award chart here.
If I purchased the full 90,000 miles through the holiday bonus promotion, I could fly three roundtrips in economy between the US and Central America or Northern South America during off-peak times.
I checked out flights from Miami <-> Lima for sAAver availability. Space was sparse, but there were some available flights.
Central America isn’t the only place to stretch your AAdvantage miles with off peak awards.I could also fly roundtrip between the US and Europe twice with 10,000 miles remaining. For those situated on the West Coast, this could actually be a very good value. For example, I looked at flights from Los Angeles to Madrid in April. Almost every day of the week had off peak award space for two people!
I also checked out Seattle <-> Paris and found almost equally great availability.
Last, but not least, I checked out Dallas <-> Honolulu in August and September, another off peak award that would only be 35,000 miles roundtrip. There was nonstop economy award space for two on quite a few dates.
I’m not cherry picking, either. I have always found American to be extremely generous with their MileSAAver award space.
Last week I touted US Airways for their off peak award chart in this post. However, American really blows them out of the water with more eligible dates and better availability on most routes. And US Airways off peak awards require you to fly US Airways metal. American’s off peak awards can be flown on any partner.
Recap
The American Airlines buy miles promotion is probably American’s most generous offer for purchasing American miles that I’ve ever seen. Yet miles purchased through this promo are still more expensive than we value them. They should not be bought speculatively. However, there are some specific redemptions that would deliver maximum value.
Flying business or first on the new Dallas routes to Seoul/Lima or exploiting American’s fantanstic off peak award chart are just some of the many great uses for AAdvantage miles.
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