Reader question:

I've got to book a one way flight from Los Angeles to Newark with American miles next month. Is there any way to get extra value from the award?

Answer:

Sure. How about adding a one way flight to anywhere in Europe for 7,500 miles!

It's all about perspective, and this question gave me a new perspective on free oneways. Hopefully everyone reading this has already read about adding Free Oneways to American Airlines awards.

Award travel reservations can usually be made up to eleven months in advance. Often, but not always, eleven months out has the best availability. Eleven Months Out is my new series looking at what you can book today for travel in eleven months.

Thanksgiving is in less than 11 months. Turkey, pie, potatoes, family, and giving thanks may be your highlights, but travel doesn't have to be a lowlight.

American Airlines Buy Miles Promotion

American Airlines is offering bonus miles on all AAdvantage miles purchases through January 31. As with past promotions, the bonus miles awarded are scaled. Buying 40,000 (or more) miles will yield a 15k bonus. Buying lesser quantities will result in fewer bonus miles being awarded.

The full promotion chart can be found below.

American seems to be running these deals fairly regularly.

I started this series of posts about booking your trip to Europe for summer 2013 with a post about booking business class. This post will focus on booking an economy class award.

If you want to fly economy class this summer, I recommend getting some American Airlines miles. There are two main reasons:

All the legacy carriers--American, Delta, United, US Airways--charge 60k miles roundtrip to Europe in economy class. But I've outlined a trick that I'll repeat here to get your AA award for 50k miles.

American Airlines business class used to stink.

According to this thread on FlyerTalk, Hawaiian Airlines will be adding an interesting new route to their network in July of 2013. Hawaiian will add nonstop service between Honolulu and Taipei, Taiwan three times weekly. They will be flying this route with their 294 seat A330-200 aircraft.

Scott actually just wrote a mini review of Hawaiian's A330 product in economy.  You can read it in this post, 20k Points Roundtrip to Hawaii, 45k Roundtrip to Asia, 55k Roundtrip to Australia. The economy seat looks really solid with personal TVs and decent food offerings.

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I made a YouTube video called How to Add Free Oneways to American Airlines Awards to include in my Los Angeles Frequent Traveler University Presentation.

The video goes through using aa.com to perform award searches, how to use the multi-city booking tool, and other pertinent info for booking these awards online or by phone.

The video is a companion to Master Thread: Free Oneways on American Airlines Awards.

It is included in my slide show about booking free oneways that has been downloaded over 10,000 times.

Yesterday I posted about flying to Europe for 20,000 American Airlines miles year round--even during peak summer time--by adding a free oneway to your award that falls between October 15 and May 15. See 20k Miles to All of Europe All Summer.

Gary Leff commented on the post:
This is a glitch in how the website prices the award, rather than AA policy.

Update 5/26/14: This deal is dead since American Airlines eliminated free stopovers.

Or: Save 10k Miles by Adding a Free Oneway

Summer airfare to Europe often tops $1,000 in economy class roundtrip. But you can get to Europe this summer for only 20k miles.

All the legacy carriers--American, Delta, United, US Airways--charge 60k miles roundtrip to Europe in economy class. That's where the European award similarities end.

American and United let you go oneway for 30k miles.

Update from Scott: I'm finding $382 all in roundtrip now too:

According to this thread in the ever popular Mileage Run forum on FlyerTalk, Hawaiian Airlines is running a fare sale from New York  to Honolulu. Hawaiian Airlines operates a direct flight from JFK to Honolulu, and we are seeing fares for as low as $435 for this direct flight.

There appears to be only one stretch of days in early December and great availability in January and February.

What's the best way to hunt for eligible dates?

I always use the ITA Software Matrix.