American Airlines has released award space in first class on its three-cabin 777 from Los Angeles to Miami on 18 days in April 2014 including the last 11 days. But you would never know that from searching aa.com for the award space, where no first class award space shows up on the route at all in April 2014.
What’s going on with aa.com, how can you get an accurate reading of American Airlines award space, and are any other routes affected?
Posted in AAdvantage, Avios, Award Booking, Free Oneway
Tagged aa.com, American Airlines, ba.com, phantom award space
Nearly every day between October 27, 2013 and March 31, 2014, there are seven first class seats available from Miami to Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires to Miami on American Airlines flights.
This is unusual based on my watching the route the last few months, so you should act now if you want to fly first class to South America with your American Airlines miles during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer!
I flew the route in first class four months ago and found the bed very comfortable for sleeping. My full trip report is here: Trip Report: American Airlines Flagship First from Miami to Buenos Aires.
How can you take advantage of the deal, and are there any other routes with great availability for Southern Hemisphere Summer 2014?
I recently saved a MileValue Award Booking Service client 60,000 miles on a trip to Israel by taking advantage of the best use of American Airlines miles and British Airways Avios on the same trip.
Posted in AAdvantage, Anatomy of an Award, Avios
Tagged American Airlines, Anatomy of an Award, British Airways
Two months ago, thexfactor emailed me to tell me that he’d booked something online at aa.com that was against one of the rules I laid out in The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards.
His discovery greatly increases where you can take a free oneway when booking American Airlines awards online. I’ll break down what my research has uncovered about the new possibilities and give a little background on free oneways on AA flights.
Posted in AAdvantage, Award Booking, Free Oneway
Tagged American Airlines, Free oneway
Or: A Letter to a Friend’s Mom
My friend’s mom wants to go from Los Angeles to London in early April with her American Airlines miles. This post contains all the information she needs to understand her options.
If you view the specifics of her situation as merely an example, this post should be hugely helpful to you in you want to plan an award to Europe with your American Airlines miles. This post hits on free oneways on American Airlines, fuel-surcharge avoidance, tax avoidance, when to book, specific examples of Aggravating Award Travel Fees and How to Avoid Them, and much more.
Posted in AAdvantage, Award Booking, Best Of, Free Oneway
Unfortunately, all great trips must come to an end. Three-and-a-half months before the end of my stay in Argentina, it is time to book my oneway return to the US: from Buenos Aires (EZE) to Denver (DEN).
Planning
I need to be be in Denver for a wedding at the end of July. Because of this, my travel dates are limited–I want to maximize my time in Argentina while still arriving in Denver before the wedding. This gives me about five days of wiggle room.
As this is a oneway trip, I only want to book an award with an airline that will allow me to book a oneway award for half the price of a roundtrip. Luckily, the American Airlines AAdvantage miles I currently have will allow me to do this. I got 105,000 AAdvantage miles last fall using the (now defunct) two-browser trick.
I really wanted to use these miles instead of my new United miles, which I plan on using to Europe at some point.
Searching for American Space
I began with the most simple of searches on AA.com: Buenos Aires to Denver. There was no MileSAAver (low-priced level) award space available in any class–only AAnytime (high-priced level). MileSAAver space would be 30,000 miles, and I am not going to pay double that just to sit in the back of the plane.
Rookie tip: just because my first search showed no space at the miles price doesn’t mean there is no way to find the low miles price. Many airlines’ award search engines don’t show all their partners’ award space, which always prices at the low miles price.
This is such a case. AA.com doesn’t show LAN–a South American member of oneworld–space.
Searching for LAN Space on ba.com
Knowing that American Airlines does not show the available space for all of their partner airlines, I next searched ba.com because it displays more oneworld airlines than aa.com does, and American Airlines miles can be used to book all the oneworld space found on ba.com.
My first search was for Buenos Aires to Denver. The original date I searched returned no available award space in either Economy or Business.
Something to remember when searching for partner space on ba.com is that you must use the tabs that list the surrounding dates in order to see if there is available partner space. Skipping this may result in you missing out on available space. Additionally, you have to run a new search in order to change the class that you want to search for.
Unconvinced that there was zero available award space in any class on any partner flight during the week I needed, I decided to search segment-by-segment.
Rookie tip: award search engines often miss possible itineraries that have connections because of flaws in their computer programming. You can search possible routes segment-by-segment to construct awards yourself that you will later call the airline whose miles you are using to book.
I used Wikipedia to see what US destinations LAN flies to out of Buenos Aires.
So this time instead of searching Buenos Aires to Denver on aa.com, I searched Buenos Aires to Miami. A quick search showed me that there in fact was business class space on a number of LAN flights that week!
They weren’t the direct flight I wanted, but I could handle a stop in Santiago. And they weren’t in economy class, but I was willing to spend 50,000 miles for a business class award. That sure beats the 60,000 aa.com wanted for an economy ticket.
I had found my way to Miami! Now I just needed to find space on a flight from Miami to Denver. Because I was flying international business, I would be allowed to fly domestic first.
Rookie tip: On international business class awards, your domestic portions can be in economy or first class on planes with only two cabins.
I ran a search on aa.com looking for first class award space from Miami to Denver, and found that there was availability on the day that I needed.
Unfortunately, the only direct availability comes with a 12 hour layover in Miami. Any suggestions on ways to pass the time?
I can live with this three flight business class award with a 12 hour layover in Miami to get to Denver when I want to and for a good price.
Booking
Knowing I would be unable to book this award online, and that I was booking with American miles, I called American Airlines at 800-882-8880 to make the reservation. I gave the agent my account information, and the flight numbers I had picked out. I requested to hold the reservation for a few days before ticketing. The agent complied, telling me that they would hold the award for five days–standard operating procedure for American Airlines. Two days later, I received a rather cryptic email from American:
When I called the number, I was told by the American agent that they were not supposed to hold reservations for seats on LAN flights, and that I would need to ticket the reservation immediately. By politely explaining that I had to confirm a detail before ticketing, the agent allowed me to hold the reservation for a few more days before purchasing the ticket.
Here is my complete itinerary:
This complete itinerary cost my 50,000 miles and $102.30 in taxes including that unavoidable $25 American Airlines Telephone Ticketing Services fee.
At least I’ll be getting 5,000 miles back because I have an American Airlines credit card. And I’ll have a chance to enjoy lie flat business class on the LAN segments, which is something I haven’t yet experienced.
What I Could Have Done
I could have booked a free stopover in Miami if I had more flexibility in my travel dates. Since Miami is my international gateway city, it is the only place on the itinerary that I would have been able to book a free stopover.
I could have had a shorter layover in Florida. When I searched aa.com for availability from Miami to Denver, I saw a few routes that would allow me to leave Florida hours earlier by flying out of Ft. Lauderdale (FLL). I could have had a three hour layover–rather than a twelve hour one– by taking a taxi to and flying out of Ft. Lauderdale instead of Miami on my last leg.
I could have rolled the dice: after not finding any space on American for a date remotely close to the one I needed, I consulted Scott. He told me that American rarely opens up last second award space, but United open up a ton. If I wanted to use my United miles and book in the last week, I could probably have snagged an easy Buenos Aires to Houston to Denver itinerary.
Here’s what Buenos Aires to Denver looks like for this week for instance.
EZE-DEN for this month. Pretty good space is open at the last minute.
In terms of getting the best deal, this may have been the way to go–simply wait until mid-July and start searching for available space on United. I could have potentially saved 20k miles by flying economy. However, I am extremely risk averse and would prefer to have my flight locked in more than a week or two prior to departure. Plus I really would prefer to use American miles instead of United miles for this trip.
Recap
This award is a relatively simple one, but it highlights some good rookie tips too.
If you are searching for a route and keep coming up with zero availability, that does not necessarily mean that you will have to adjust your dates. Use Wikipedia to see where your airline flies to from your origin airport, and then do your search. This often yields hidden space that did not show up before.
Know where to search for each partner. In this case I searched for LAN space at ba.com and American space at aa.com then combined them by calling American.
Don’t forget that you can fly domestic first class on international business awards.
Every airline has different stopover rules on awards. American’s rule allowed a stopover in Miami that I won’t be using, but it’s nice to know the option.
Some airlines open last second space, and some don’t. Even if you think you have the miles to get space at the last minute, you might prefer to lock in your award in advance to save yourself the stress.
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Posted in AAdvantage, Anatomy of an Award, LAN, Rookie Alli
Tagged American Airlines, Anatomy of an Award, LAN, Rookie Alli
I love stats, so the 2012 AAdvantage stats at the top of the AAdvantage FAQ caught my eye.
For all of 2012, there were 7,426,930 redemptions of American Airlines miles.
Over 700,000 were for “merchandise” including vacations, which I don’t consider merchandise. Let’s say the vast majority of these redemptions were awful values. Not all non-airfare redemptions are awful–Mommy Points found a good deal for Cubs tickets and experiences with Starpoints–but I rarely see values of even one cent per mile on these types of redemptions.
Over half a million were for upgrades. Upgrades must have been a good deal at some point in history because I am frequently asked about helping people with upgrades. Upgrades are currently an awful deal on American Airlines and on most of its competitors.
Look at this upgrade chart:
Price for one way upgrade from the types of tickets I buy to the next class of service.
There isn’t one upgrade on that chart that would give me more than one cent worth of value per mile. For instance, I would not pay $600 to upgrade a flight to Europe in one direction to business class. At 25,000 miles plus $350, $600 is the price even valuing the miles at one cent each. And of course I value American miles much higher than one cent.
That’s 1.25 million awful redemptions, and we haven’t gotten to the biggest category: AAdvantage MileSAAver and AAnytime awards, of which there were over 5 million awards. I wish these were separated because they are very different. In my life, I have booked two high-miles-price awards (what American calls AAnytime) out of the hundreds of awards I’ve booked. In both cases, I did a cost/benefit analysis and determined that the award was worth paying miles through the nose because the flights were needed, and the cash price was through the roof.
But in the vast majority of cases, high-miles-price awards are an awful deal. MileSAAver awards–low-mile-price awards–will often be a good deal, but not always. I would imagine that a very high percentage of the awards booked were domestic awards and economy awards. Both of those types of awards will struggle to reach the values of international premium awards.
For more info on low-mile-price and high-miles-price awards, check out Rookie Alli’s Do I Have Enough Miles? A Beginner’s Guide to Navigating Award Charts.
The last category, with 1.2 million redemptions is almost certainly the category with the highest value redemptions: Special Mileage Awards / Other Airlines Awards / Other.
This category would include awards on the incredible-value Explorer Award Chart. It would also include any partner awards. Partner awards are always at the low-miles-price, so they’re efficient in that sense. Partner awards–other than some on Hawaiian and Alaska–are also international awards, another type of award that tends to have higher value.
I bet the vast majority of these awards are awards that got fair or excellent value for miles, while the vast minority of other awards got fair or excellent value for miles.
Why does this matter?
Miles are weird. They take some skill, persistence, and creativity to use well. Cash back cards are easy. They take no skill to redeem for maximum value.
If you have international, luxury tastes and the necessary skill, persistence, and creativity, miles are for you, and you’ll be constantly redeeming for 2 cents or more of value per mile.
If you have simpler tastes in travel, or you don’t apply yourself, you’ll get 1 cent of value per mile or less.
There are a lot of people in that second category who are collecting miles on credit cards through every day spending. They shouldn’t be. They should just get a cash back card that earns them 2% or more on all their spending.
Best and Worst of 2012 Awards
My favorite award of 2012 was an award I booked for myself that includes 40 hours of flat-bed business class, four continents, helped me crack free oneways on US Airways, and cost only 100k US Airways miles. See South America, Africa, Europe, and North America in Biz for 100k Miles.
My least favorite award was the Million Mile Award that blew about $20,000 worth of points for one roundtrip in business class.
How do you think AAdvantage members did in 2012? What was your best or worst award of the year?
I recently booked a family of four an economy award from Miami to Buenos Aires with their Membership Rewards. It was an interesting award that I think demonstrates the complexities and fun of booking with American Express points.
I won’t talk about that award specifically, but I’ll use it as a jumping off point for discussion since it illustrates a typical Memberhip Rewards situation. Imagine you have a family of four trying for an economy roundtrip from Miami to Buenos Aires for two weeks in October with 300k Membership Rewards.
Membership Rewards are awesome because they can be transferred to any of the three airline alliances, so you can use them to book on almost any airline in the world.
But Membership Rewards are frustrating because they transfer to programs with which you may be unfamiliar like ANA or programs with major drawbacks like British Airways’ fuel surcharges.
I would approach an award like this looking first at the flying options, then at the transfer options. I know if I could find award space, I can probably find a transfer partner with access to that space. And if I find several ways to get to Buenos Aires, I cancompare the transfer options to see which is the best deal with Membership Rewards.
From checking the Buenos Aires international airport’s (EZE) wikipedia page, I know there are direct flights to/from Miami on American, LAN, and Aerolineas Argentinas. Of course, United and Delta also fly to Buenos Aires from their hubs.
Aerolineas Argentinas
Aerolineas Argentinas is the state-owned flag carrier of Argentina. I haven’t heard too many kind words about it, but it does have a direct flight from Miami to Buenos Aires. The best way to search for the space is on ExpertFlyer.
ExpertFlyer only displays economy award space on the airline. The space that Aerolineas’ SkyTeam partners like Delta have access to is T class space.
Aerolineas Argentinas flies twice daily between Miami and Buenos Aires–its only US route–once in the morning and one redeye. Up to seven seats are widely available on each!
The return is also wide open.
This was a promising start!
American
American has direct flights from Miami to Buenos Aires also. The best place to check for space on those flights is aa.com.
I can look at the whole month of October in just a few seconds with AA’s awesome calendar view. Unfortunately there is no MileSAAver outbound space–the low-miles-price space open to partners– in October, though there is some space on return flights.
Outbound: No Saver Space
Return: Some Saver Space
LAN
LAN is another oneworld airline with direct flights from Miami to Buenos Aires. I go to ba.com to check for LAN space to Buenos Aires, since aa.com doesn’t display LAN space.
I ca’t find any LAN space on ba.com, though it did pick up the same American Airlines space I’d seen on aa.com.
ba.com not finding any LAN space
…but it did find the same space on American Airlines
Delta
Yes, it seemed like a complete longshot that Delta would have space for four from Miami to Atlanta to Buenos Aires at the low-miles-price because Delta has putrid availability to South America, but I checked anyway.
Green shows low-miles-price itineraries. There actually are some returns possible.
While oneway tickets with Delta miles are a huge mistake since Delta charges the roundtrip price for all awards even oneways, I kept the returns in mind because AMEX has some transfer partners like Flying Blue that can be used to book oneway Delta awards reasonably.
United, TACA, Copa
The final place I checked was united.com to see what United, Copa, or TACA award space there was that I could snag with a transfer to a Star Alliance partner.
Green and yellow days have an award with four economy seats.
I found a few more possible awards to add to the bounty.
Search Results
I found space in both direction on Aerolineas Argentinas’ two daily flights. I found space in both directions on connecting United and Copa (via Panama) flights. I found return space on American Airlines and Delta, but no outbound space. I found no space on LAN.
Transfer Options
Delta
We can transfer Membership Rewards to Delta to book the Aerolineas Argentinas space and/or the Delta space. Delta charges 60,000 miles roundtrip to Argentina in economy class whether you fly it or one of its SkyTeam partners like Aerolineas Argentinas.
Although Delta does charge fuel surcharges for awards on a lot of its partners, it does not collect fuel surcharges on Aerolineas redemptions.
That means a transfer to Delta would mean the transfer of 240,000 Membership Rewards to 240,000 Delta miles. American Express charges $7 per 10,000 miles transferred to US-based airlines, with a maximum charge of $99, This transfer would incur that $99 charge. The award itself would have government taxes of around $75 per person, meaning a total cost of 240,000 Membership Rewards and approximately $400 for four people.
In return for that outlay, the family could get direct flights in each direction or could sub a one-stop itinerary on Delta on the return if they really didn’t want to fly Aerolineas Argentinas.
Flying Blue
Air France’s frequent flyer program, Flying Blue, is not always the best option because it levies heavy surcharges on several partners. But it doesn’t levy surcharges on Delta or Aerolineas Argentinas. And it’s price from the US to Argentina is 25,000 miles each way.
I’m not sure why the taxes collected exceed those collected by Delta by $15 per person, but that’s a minor concern. Flying Blue costs 25,000 miles each way, and it can be used to book oneways, which is a far better deal than Delta’s 60k miles roundtrip, which is the price whether you book oneways or roundtrips.
That means for 200k Membership Rewards and $360, a family of four could get on the same flights as with Delta miles: Delta and Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
British Airways
We can transfer Membership Rewards to British Airways Avios, but that would only enable booking the return leg in this case. Avios can be used to book American or LAN flights. We found only space on American, and only on the return.
The good news is that it’s only 25,000 Avios from Buenos Aires to Miami.
That means the return would be 100k Membership Rewards and $300.
ANA
I recently sang the praises of All Nippon Airways as a Membership Rewards transfer partner. ANA has a distance based award chart. You add up the distance of all the segments and see how many miles that trip will cost. Here is the economy chart.
Miami to Houston to Buenos Aires roundtrip is just over 12,000 miles. That works out 60,000 ANA miles (60,000 Membership Rewards) roundtrip. That’s not fantastic or awful.
But Miami to Panama to Buenos Aires is under 9,000 miles, meaning it is only 43,000 ANA miles roundtrip. That’s the lowest miles total we’ve seen.
image from gcmap.com
In neither case would there be fuel surcharges. ANA never charges fuel surcharges on United or US Airways flights, and Copa doesn’t collect fuel surcharges on this routing.
No fuel surcharges on Copa from Miami to Buenos Aires, so ANA won’t collect any.
That means ANA miles used to fly Copa would be 172k Membership Rewards and about $480 in taxes.
Transfer Options Summary
To summarize:
If you really value direct flights, take the Aerolineas Argentinas flight one direction for 25k Flying Blue miles and return on the American Airlines flight for 25k Avios.
If you really value the cheapest flights or want a free stopover in Panama, look for Copa flights for 43k ANA miles.
Recap
Membership Rewards have awesome versatility, which also means it’s more work to figure out the best deal. For a simple Miami to Buenos Aires roundtrip, all three alliances are possibilities.
Because some transfer partners have region-based charts, some have distance-based charts, some charge fuel surcharges sometimes, and some never do, you have to investigate every option for the best deal.
For Buenos Aires to Miami roundtrip, the best deals are with ANA miles on Copa to take advantage of the distance-based chart of a combination of Flying Blue miles and Avios to take advantage of their partners’ direct flights.
Posted in AAdvantage, Aerolineas Argentinas, Air France, American Express, ANA, Avios, Award Booking, Best Of, Delta, ExpertFlyer, Flying Blue, LAN, Membership Rewards
Tagged Aerolineas Argentinas, American Airlines, ANA, Avios, Delta, Flying Blue, LAN, Memberhsip Rewards
Not sure where your miles can take you? Not sure if you have enough miles to contact the MileValue Award Booking Service or whether you’d be better off getting a Free Credit Card Consultation first?
In order to determine if you have enough miles to take that trip you’re planning, look at the award chart for the program where you have your miles. Don’t worry what partner you want to fly. Look at the chart that corresponds to the airline with which you have a miles balance.
Here are the award charts for the four major US carriers:
American Airlines Partners Award Chart
United Airlines Interactive Travel Destinations Award Chart
Delta Award Travel Mileage Chart (travel from the US)
US Airways Partner Award Travel Chart
All four of the legacy carriers have region-to-region miles. Their award charts group travel destinations into regions, and set a fixed number of miles needed to travel from one region to another.
That means it doesn’t matter whether you are going Los Angeles to Paris or New York to London–both are North America to Europe and cost the same number of miles.
You will have to determine what region your departure and arrival cities are located in by using the chart’s region legend. Then you’ll read the miles price off the chart, which varies based on three factors:
American Airlines
The award chart used by American Airlines is a good place to start. American splits the world into nine zones. Find out what zone your departure and arrival cities are in by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking on the Zone Definitions.
Clicking one of the regions brings up a pop up with the countries in that region. Here is Asia 1:
There are two things to keep in mind when looking at American’s award chart: all of these miles prices are for oneway travel, and this chart shows the miles prices for all of American Airlines’ flights as well as their partner airlines.
The main part of American’s award chart is at the bottom. You find your origin city’s zone along the top of the chart and your destination city’s zone along the lefthand column.
You’ll notice that each square has three or four different values. These are the miles prices available for each class of travel: Economy Off Peak, Economy, Business, First. The miles price you see is how many miles, in thousands, you will need for that trip each way.
The rightmost column breaks down which classes are available for travel between those two zones. The breakdown of peak dates and off peak dates, which are different for each region, is in the Economy Off Peak Season Dates box on the bottom left of the chart.
Let’s look at a specific example.
If I wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile in Business class, I would first determine which zone those two cities are in–North America and South America Zone 2 in this case. I would then find both zones on the chart and line up which class I want from the righthand column. As you can see, this award would cost me 50,000 miles each way.
So far I’ve ignored the top section of the chart. Let’s talk about it. The top section of the chart is for those traveling within one zone or specified group of countries:
These zones are listed along the top, and the options for what class you can travel in are listed in the lefthand column. Simply line up which zone and class you want, and the chart tells you how many miles, in thousands, you will need for that trip each way.
Sometimes award charts will also let you in on certain rules related to award travel. Look at the top left of the American chart.
These symbols show up throughout American’s chart. They all relate to American’s unique rule that, except in special cases, you cannot transit a third region on an award from one region to a second region. See The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Rules.
If you have ever booked an award on American, you may have noticed that it offers MileSAAver and AAnytime award seats, its names for low- and high-miles-price seats. But on this chart, this distinction is not found. That is because this chart is the partner chart, and partner space is always bookable at the MileSAAver (low) level. Here’s American’s chart for awards on American flights; you’ll notice the MileSAAver/AAnytime distinction.
United Airlines
United publishes a PDF of their award chart that you read just like American’s, but they also have an interactive award chart that lets you visually select your origin and destination.
Below you can see that I selected an award originating in the Mainland US, Alaska & Canada region of the North America zone with a destination in the Southern South America region of the Latin America and Caribbean zone.
Once you have made your selections, a box will pop up below the map detailing how many miles your award will cost you. As you can see, United lists both the oneway and roundtrip prices for Saver and Standard–their names for low- and high-miles-price–award space in economy, business, and first class. United allows you to book a oneway for half the price of a roundtrip.
My economy roundtrip Saver Award from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires will price out to 60,000 miles.
United’s is my favorite chart to use because it is so easy and straightforward. However, it’s tough to compare prices between zones. Sometimes it’s nice to see how much more or less one trip is compared to another.
If you like to compare this way, United also provides a PDF of its award chart in the more traditional spreadsheet layout. The PDF also includes the Star Alliance award chart. This is exactly like American’s partner award chart. It makes no distinction between Saver and Standard awards because all partner space is low-miles-price space.
Delta
Delta has a fairly straightforward award chart as well. Below is the chart for travel originating in the US (excluding Hawaii.) Find what region your destination city is in using their definitions and find that region in the lefthand column of the award chart. Simply read across to determine how much your award will be, based on what class you want to fly in. The first three miles prices are for Economy Low/Medium/High–Delta’s three-tiered version of Saver and Standard award space–and the last three miles prices are for First or Business Class Low/Medium/High.
Delta charges you the roundtrip price whether you book oneway or roundtrip, so obviously we only book roundtrip Delta awards. But the award chart is listing oneway prices based on a roundtrip purchase. Basically, if you only book a oneway ticket, you will be charged double what is listed here.
If I were flying Economy from Chicago to Istanbul (in the Europe region), it would cost me 30,o00 miles each way, for a total of 60,000 miles.
If you are traveling from an origin city outside of the US, you can find the rest of Delta’s award charts here.
US Airways
US Airways has a very straightforward partner award chart. You select your origin and destination regions along the sides of the chart based on their definitions at the bottom of the page. There are three roundtrip miles prices listed, in thousands of miles: one each for Economy, Business, and First class.
The US Airways partner chart only shows low-miles-price awards, just like the American partner chart and United’s Star Alliance chart. This is because all partner space is always bookable at the low-miles price.
You can see the different levels of award space available on US Airways flights by looking at the US Airways award chart. Like Delta, US Airways has a three-tiered version of Saver and Standard award space: Low, Medium, and High.
US Airways offers some off-peak dates for travel on their own flights. Here are US Airways Off Peak dates, which are a fantastic value to Europe and South America.
Recap
Miles are an arbitrary currency, so you can’t intuit how many you need for a trip. You need to know how to check the sometimes intimidating charts with their low/medium/high priced awards, off peak dates, different cabins, and different charts for partner travel.
Posted in AAdvantage, Delta, United, US Airways
Tagged American Airlines, Delta, United, US Airways
Business ExtrAA is an American Airlines program designed for small businesses to be rewarded for their loyalty to American, and it’s a great way for you to double dip your rewards on American flights, earning more free awards faster!
Right now, people who sign up for Business ExtrAA and meet minimum use requirements–more on those below–can earn 5,000 AAdvantage miles and 2,000 Business ExtrAA points. The offer page says the offer is targeted, so check your inbox for an email–mine came March 22–or try to sign up anyway.
You’re probably familiar with AAdvantage miles, and I would value 5,000 near $90. But 2,000 Business ExtrAA points are the real headline, since 2,000 Business ExtrAA points are enough for a roundtrip economy award within the USA (excluding Hawaii), Canada, and Mexico.
What is Business ExtrAA?
Business ExtrAA is a double-dipping program for businesses from American Airlines. It is a chance to double dip because the flyer of a paid fare still earns his elite qualifying miles and status miles like on any flight. And in addition, if a Business ExtrAA number is added to the reservation, the business earns Business ExtrAA points.
When you’re purchasing a ticket from aa.com, at the bottom, there is space to enter your Business ExtrAA number.
The last thing you do on the personal information page is enter the Business ExtrAA number.
Business ExtrAA participation is open to companies–not individuals–with two or more travelers. There are a lot more Terms & Conditions to wade through too.
The ordinary earning rate of Business ExtrAA points is “2 points per $10″ spent on American Airlines flights; American Eagle flights; and British Airways, Iberia, Japan Airlines, and Qantas flights with an American Airlines codeshare number.
With such a tough earning structure, one point per $5, it’s easy to see why the award chart is so incredible! Roundtrips to Asia start at 4,400 points, and first class is only 10,000 points.
North America to Korea, Japan, China roundtrip award chart
The full award chart is here if you’re signed into Business ExtrAA. The chart shows only regions where American Airlines flies since redemptions have to be on American metal, so no Australia, Africa, or Southeast Asia.
Beyond flight awards, other redemption options include an Admirals Club Day Pass for 300 points, AAdvantage Gold Status for 2,400 points, and flight upgrades.
A quick comparison between the flight award prices in Business ExtrAA points and AAdvantage miles shows that awards with AAdvantage miles cost at least 12 times more than awards with Business ExtrAA points.
For instance, a roundtrip from Chicago to Los Angeles in economy class is 25,000 AAdvantage miles or 2,000 Business ExtrAA points. A roundtrip in business from New York to Seoul is 100k AAdvantage miles or 7,200 Business ExtrAA points.
Let’s conservatively value one Business ExtrAA point at 12 AAdvantage miles. Twelve AAdvantage miles are worth 21.24 cents, which is the value I’ll assign to Business ExtrAA points.
That means this 2,000 point sign up bonus for Business ExtrAA is worth $424.80!
It also means that at the ordinary earning rate of one point per five dollars spent, Business ExtrAA is like a 4.2% rebate. And that’s on top of the miles earned by flying, the status earned by flying, and the credit card points earned by booking a flight.
Earning the Sign Up Bonus
Unfortunately earning the headline 5,000 AAdvantage mile sign up bonus and 2,000 Business ExtrAA points bonus isn’t so easy. Here’s what to do according to the offer page.
Even if you can’t reach the 2,000 Business ExtrAA points threshold, the 5,000 AAdvantage miles should be very easy to unlock.
And long term being enrolled in the Business ExtrAA program is free money, to the tune of 4.2% of your American Airlines (and select partner) tickets.
I’ll be adding MileValue’s Business ExtrAA number to my future paid flights on American.
Have you signed up for Business ExtrAA? What experiences have you had?
I have earned millions of points, primarily though credit cards, to travel the world in first class for pennies. This blog will show you how to earn and redeem points to do the same!