Please help me figure out how to use AAdvantage awards points

I've been playing around a lot with AA's awards charts and credit cards lately.

 

First, the cards: there is an Citi Executive Advantage card right now that has 75,000 bonus miles, but you have to spend $7,500 in the first 3 months. If I get this card I'll probably pay off the cruises I have booked to qualify for it. It has a $450 annual fee that you pay immediately, so you have to compare that $450 to what other fees/costs you will pay for a seat.

 

You get free checked luggage, too.

 

Awards: I'm seeing business awards for May 2016 for the one's I'm interested in (Hawaii).

 

I go to the AA web site, click on the AAdvantage link, click on Book Awards, click on Book Awards again. That takes you to the booking tool. Be sure to select "AA and Participating airlines" at the bottom, because that way you get all the awards for all the partner airlines. For my route I'm seeing 37,500 mile business awards in May.

 

I agree you should book one way awards, because that way you can book economy one way and business back. I did a lot of research and found out the Extra Comfort seats CAN be purchased as an upgrade when you book an economy seat with an award.

Saw that card advertised, but DH does not want to pay that fee each year for the use of the card.

Been trying for 2 days to check my May trip and keep getting this message:

System Error

This feature is currently unavailable. Please wait a few moments and try again.

If you require immediate assistance:

 

For help with an existing reservation, please call Reservations at 1-800-433-7300.

For help with a new reservation, please call AA.com Web Services at 1-800-222-2377 in the US/Canada from 6:00am - 2:00am Central time daily or 0844-499-7300 in the U.K. Mon-Fri from 7:00am-7:00pm or Sat-Sun from 8:30am-5:00pm

For help with an AAdvantage award reservation, please call the AAdvantage department at 1-800-882-8880.

I've been playing around a lot with AA's awards charts and credit cards lately.

 

First, the cards: there is an Citi Executive Advantage card right now that has 75,000 bonus miles, but you have to spend $7,500 in the first 3 months. If I get this card I'll probably pay off the cruises I have booked to qualify for it. It has a $450 annual fee that you pay immediately, so you have to compare that $450 to what other fees/costs you will pay for a seat.

 

You get free checked luggage, too.

 

Awards: I'm seeing business awards for May 2016 for the one's I'm interested in (Hawaii).

 

I go to the AA web site, click on the AAdvantage link, click on Book Awards, click on Book Awards again. That takes you to the booking tool. Be sure to select "AA and Participating airlines" at the bottom, because that way you get all the awards for all the partner airlines. For my route I'm seeing 37,500 mile business awards in May.

 

I agree you should book one way awards, because that way you can book economy one way and business back. I did a lot of research and found out the Extra Comfort seats CAN be purchased as an upgrade when you book an economy seat with an award.

I took an offer mailed to me for the Platinum Select card.

I got 50k miles with a $3000 spend, and no first-year annual fee. Not as many perks and I may not keep it next year but worth it for the miles.

:D

Then I asked about using our miles for the flights next May (which we have yet to book) and gave her the dates. We have enough points (40,000 each RT) but there is nothing available except for purchasing at 110,000 miles pp? :eek: I asked when seats might become available for the 40,000 miles and she said "one never knows...just keep checking." :rolleyes:

 

How/where do I do that? Expert Flyer? AA online? Or do I have to keep calling them? And how long do I go before we realize that we better go ahead and buy our tickets?

You may want to look at AA's partner airlines. From what I can gather from the experts here and those on Flyertalk (CruiseCritic's cousin about flying) AA is very stingy with releasing business class seats at the SAAver award level. Apparently it has been known to happen but typically only close to the flight.

I watched for SAAver award availability for flights this year for the same dates we needed for our trip in April 2016 and one seat came up a week or two before the flight departure. At that point, I realized that I had to use AAs partner airlines.

I had hoped to book with Air Berlin but the only way to do that turned out to require two connections in the US and two in Europe which was going to significantly lengthen our travel (in one case adding an overnight). We therefore decided to fly on British Air which meant we could fly non-stop to Europe and have a single connection. HOWEVER, this meant we also had to pay the dreaded British Air fuel surcharge. This added about $600 pp to our outbound flight but only $300 pp to the return.

SO, we ended up using Delta points to book business class on their partner Air France (fingers crossed that they meet their scheduled for upgrading to lie flat seats) for 62,500 points per person (Delta's version of SAAver award) and are returning on British Air. Originally had BA in business at 50,000 points each BUT after reading the reviews of their biz class, changed them to First for "only" 12,500 pp (no change in the $urcharge) so for both of us we are "spending" 250,000 points total plus about $660.

To take what Gardyloo discussed about valuing the miles, based on the cheapest fare I could find for these tickets at the time (IAH>CDG>MUC cruise BUD>LHR>IAH, our total cost would have been $24,312. So our points were "worth" 9.5 cents each after I included the cost of the BA surchage....which I think is pretty good...right Gardyloo?

If I did the math wrong..don't tell me! :rolleyes:LOL

Saw that card advertised, but DH does not want to pay that fee each year for the use of the card.

 

Been trying for 2 days to check my May trip and keep getting this message:

Hi: You don't keep the card. You get the bonus miles, book your award trip, and then cancel the card when you get back. I've done this with several cards. Most cards will not issue you another one for 18 months.

Clear out your history and internet cookies. Go to the help files in your browser if you don't know how. You should be able to go back into AA's web site after that and "ghost" book according to what I posted above. I just did, and this is the result:

From CLT to LHR next 5/16/16 it's 50,000 miles per person for a business class award one way, plus $5.60. With the Executive card you would end up with 82,500 miles (7,500 with purchases to qualify + 75,000 bonus points). It will cost you $425 to buy the additional 18,000 miles to reach 100,000 miles. This would give you enough for two one way business awards. Cost is $450 for the annual fee on the card + $425 for the extra points + $11.20 for the airline fee for the two awards = $886 for two people to fly business class to London (unless I've missed something).

I'd fly regional domestic from TRI to CLT to save money.

:D

 

You may want to look at AA's partner airlines. From what I can gather from the experts here and those on Flyertalk (CruiseCritic's cousin about flying) AA is very stingy with releasing business class seats at the SAAver award level. Apparently it has been known to happen but typically only close to the flight.

 

I watched for SAAver award availability for flights this year for the same dates we needed for our trip in April 2016 and one seat came up a week or two before the flight departure. At that point, I realized that I had to use AAs partner airlines.

 

I had hoped to book with Air Berlin but the only way to do that turned out to require two connections in the US and two in Europe which was going to significantly lengthen our travel (in one case adding an overnight). We therefore decided to fly on British Air which meant we could fly non-stop to Europe and have a single connection. HOWEVER, this meant we also had to pay the dreaded British Air fuel surcharge. This added about $600 pp to our outbound flight but only $300 pp to the return.

 

SO, we ended up using Delta points to book business class on their partner Air France (fingers crossed that they meet their scheduled for upgrading to lie flat seats) for 62,500 points per person (Delta's version of SAAver award) and are returning on British Air. Originally had BA in business at 50,000 points each BUT after reading the reviews of their biz class, changed them to First for "only" 12,500 pp (no change in the $urcharge) so for both of us we are "spending" 250,000 points total plus about $660.

 

To take what Gardyloo discussed about valuing the miles, based on the cheapest fare I could find for these tickets at the time (IAH>CDG>MUC cruise BUD>LHR>IAH, our total cost would have been $24,312. So our points were "worth" 9.5 cents each after I included the cost of the BA surchage....which I think is pretty good...right Gardyloo?

 

If I did the math wrong..don't tell me! :rolleyes:LOL

Interesting! Thank you for this. ;) We don't have nearly the amount of miles on Delta that we do on AA. Perhaps we should keep accumulating the miles for a while longer. And of course, we don't have to use them for European travel, only. Probably easier to find domestic airline seats?

Hi: You don't keep the card. You get the bonus miles, book your award trip, and then cancel the card when you get back. I've done this with several cards. Most cards will not issue you another one for 18 months.

 

Clear out your history and internet cookies. Go to the help files in your browser if you don't know how. You should be able to go back into AA's web site after that and "ghost" book according to what I posted above. I just did, and this is the result:

 

From CLT to LHR next 5/16/16 it's 50,000 miles per person for a business class award one way, plus $5.60. With the Executive card you would end up with 82,500 miles (7,500 with purchases to qualify + 75,000 bonus points). It will cost you $425 to buy the additional 18,000 miles to reach 100,000 miles. This would give you enough for two one way business awards. Cost is $450 for the annual fee on the card + $425 for the extra points + $11.20 for the airline fee for the two awards = $886 for two people to fly business class to London (unless I've missed something).

 

I'd fly regional domestic from TRI to CLT to save money.

Thank you for the cache tip and looking up the flights.;) Didn't occur to me that it would be my computer. I thought it was a AA computer problem.

As to your practice of ordering/cancelling credit cards, that's a bad practice ….. it could negatively affect your credit score.

As to your practice of ordering/cancelling credit cards, that's a bad practice ….. it could negatively affect your credit score.

I just re-did our BofA RCCL cards again (one for each of us). Our credit scores are in the high 700's. If you pay it all off every month, have no carry-over debt anywhere else except a mortgage (no car loan, etc.), and pay your mortgage on time every month, the cards have very little impact on your credit score.

Maybe a few points, but you bounce back up when you pay the new one off every month, too.

Interesting! Thank you for this. ;) We don't have nearly the amount of miles on Delta that we do on AA. Perhaps we should keep accumulating the miles for a while longer. And of course, we don't have to use them for European travel, only. Probably easier to find domestic airline seats?.

Probably but worth much more for premium seating on a long haul.

To take what Gardyloo discussed about valuing the miles, based on the cheapest fare I could find for these tickets at the time (IAH>CDG>MUC cruise BUD>LHR>IAH, our total cost would have been $24,312. So our points were "worth" 9.5 cents each after I included the cost of the BA surchage....which I think is pretty good...right Gardyloo?

 

If I did the math wrong..don't tell me! :rolleyes:LOL

Of course going too far down that road can strain credibility. Would you REALLY have paid $24,312 for those seats if you didn't have miles?

It's always a question in the world of frequent flyer wonks as to whether anybody actually pays "full fare" first class - like $10,000 or $12,000 per ticket. I presume somebody does - maybe movie stars or the like, but at some point you have to assume that people that have that kind of money probably have access to private jets. Don't know, but sure, your math is solid.

I beat this drum too much, but my own "secret" for flying cheap in business or first class is to buy a business-class round the world ticket every other year, for around $5000. That ticket is good for a year and allows up to 16 flights in business or first class, so after taxes it comes out to around $340 per flight - okay for Seattle to Chicago, dynamite for New York to Hong Kong or London to Cape Town.

But in the course of the year using the RTW ticket I manage to earn around 100,000 - 120,000 frequent flyer miles, which I use the following year for business- or first-class award travel. Those miles usually allow, say, 4-6 additional business class flights, so all in I've gotten, say, 20-22 flights in the pointy end for around $5500 out of pocket, so something like $250 - $275 per.

These can be good deals for people who cruise out of different ports over the course of a year; you can start the trip at (or near) some cruise port, do the cruise, then use the ticket to fly home and go back to work. Over the next months, use it to position for, say, a Caribbean cruise or for general personal or business travel, then use it to get to a second (third?) cruise port, do that cruise, then return to the original point of sale. (You need to finish where you started, and have crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, going in the same direction.) Here's a blurb I wrote about these tickets on TripAdvisor.

Well we have never paid money for seats in the pointy end…wait that is not true, last year after our canal cruise, it was only a $100 bucks more for first from Seattle back home to Houston to sit up front…so we did then!

I'm intrigued by the RTW and have just finished reading your TAdvisor post and all the comments. I'm going to see if I can make it work for what I hope is going to be my "I'm Retired" trip in the spring of 2018. We had planned on taking a TA to Europe and staying thru the fall and then taking one back BUT maybe instead, we will start a RTW in Europe (or Egypt so wherever is cheap) and work our way back to the US and then use the final flight to pick up the TA a year later….this is gonna be fun to figure out.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Gardyloo - that RTW idea is so cool! I'm curious though if you are buying one way tickets home in between? Are you buying 16 legs and not using them all? I've paid $4k+ for a single r/t J ticket twice now. I'm hooked on premium classes and fortunate enough to afford them, but if I can save money that's always good!

Gardyloo - that RTW idea is so cool! I'm curious though if you are buying one way tickets home in between? Are you buying 16 legs and not using them all? I've paid $4k+ for a single r/t J ticket twice now. I'm hooked on premium classes and fortunate enough to afford them, but if I can save money that's always good!

Well, because RTW tickets are so flexible (there are tens of thousands of alternative routes one can take) I hesitate to generalize, but let me use this as an example of a cruise-focused itinerary for someone based in Phoenix.

Here's a map (click on it to link to the details) so bear with me -

The trip starts in Cape Town and goes to London. After a couple of days you fly to Copenhagen for a Baltic Sea or Norwegian Fjords cruise. (This could also be Rome, Venice, Istanbul, Barcelona or Athens for Med cruises.)

After the cruise, maybe a weekend in Madrid or Rome to warm up, then home to Phoenix via London.

Later, up to Anchorage for a cruise back to Vancouver, then home, and later, maybe that winter, over to Miami for a Caribbean cruise, then back home again.

Some time before the year's up, fly to Hawaii for a quick blast of aloha, then down to Sydney and visit to that lovely city, maybe then a hop across the Tasman to New Zealand. Of course there are Australia/NZ cruise options, too. Finally you fly from Sydney back to Johannesburg, maybe followed by a second safari?

You can see that in this imaginary plan, you're constantly using home (Phoenix) as a "stopover" point during the course of much of the year, so the only flights you'd need to pay for would be the initial access trip to Africa and the return home at the end of the RTW.

The 4-continent (Africa, Europe, North America, Australia/NZ) Oneworld Explorer business class ticket bought and begun/ended in South Africa has a base price today of US$4502. Taxes and fees (depending on specific airlines and stopover points) will probably run around $1000 on top of that, so call it $5500 all in.

To get to South Africa in the first place, my recommendation would be to use frequent flyer miles, 37,500 AA miles from the US for coach, 75,000 for business class, probably via London. If you don't have that many miles, you can buy them from AA; for example at the moment there's a sale where you can buy 75,000 miles for around $1500, so $750 per person for 2 in coach.

Now you could do this trip without starting in Africa; at the moment other "cheap" (thanks to the strong US dollar) starting points are Egypt and Japan. The comparable RTW ticket bought there would have a higher base price, but your costs of getting to the start point, either using cash or miles, would be less. On our first RTW we started in Istanbul (which at the time was a cheap origin point, not now) and used the Queen Mary II to get across the Atlantic to "position" ourselves in Europe.

During the course of the trip you'd earn something like 80,000 - 100,000 miles, so at the end of the trip, just fly home on those miles. Or, if you become addicted like us, just buy another one, maybe this time including Asia or South America.

If you travel more than the 16 flights during the year, or want to use some stopover point along the route as a basis for flying "outside" the RTW ticket, no problem. But we found that a year of flying on the RTW tended to fill our immediate needs for faraway places, so typically we'd use the accumulated miles for travel in "off-years," then do a second RTW the year following, in essence leveraging the one ticket for two years' premium class travel.

Probably TMI - I warned you I'm a wonk on the subject - but that's how it's worked for us.

Later, up to Anchorage for a cruise back to Vancouver, then home, and later, maybe that winter, over to Miami for a Caribbean cruise, then back home again.

I appreciate the example. I have two (well a thousand, but two for here) about the sample.

1. I thought these RTW are one direction, so how does your sample work for the Caribbean example where I've already flown into Phx? Do I pay my way to Miami and use an Mia-Phx ticket home?

2. Do you have to use so many legs or does that just maximize it? Because at $5500, that's still cheaper than two J tickets even if I don't have as many as stopovers and do not have enough vacation time to have a ton of trips.

I appreciate the example. I have two (well a thousand, but two for here) about the sample.

1. I thought these RTW are one direction, so how does your sample work for the Caribbean example where I've already flown into Phx? Do I pay my way to Miami and use an Mia-Phx ticket home?

2. Do you have to use so many legs or does that just maximize it? Because at $5500, that's still cheaper than two J tickets even if I don't have as many as stopovers and do not have enough vacation time to have a ton of trips.

1. You have to travel in the same direction between the three "regions" of the world as carved up by the airline industry - (I) the Americas, (II) Europe and Africa, and (III) Asia and the Pacific. North America, by the way, includes the Caribbean and Central America, and Europe includes the Middle East, most of Mediterranean Africa, and Russia west of the Urals.)

But within any given continent, such as North America, you can zigzag to your heart's content - Phoenix to Anchorage to Dallas to San Juan to New York to San Francisco to Phoenix... as long as you don't fly the same segment twice (e.g. PHX-ORD) and you don't take more than one transcontinental nonstop flight (like Phoenix-Miami or New York-Vancouver.) So all the flights I showed in the map are all covered by the one ticket, no additional or one-way tickets required. Also, in North America, if business class isn't offered, a business class RTW ticket puts you in first class. (US-based airlines call it first class, the rest of the world calls it business on 2-cabin planes.)

2. You can take up to 16 flights with the one ticket, but don't have to. For what it's worth, most RTW tickets aren't sold to leisure travelers, a more typical user is a businessman/woman with offices in, say, LA, New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo, so they visit all their offices in sequence, using only five or six flights. Obviously, the cost per flight goes way up if you only fly a few segments, but it can still be a significant cost savings over "point-to-point" fares in business class.

With the Oneworld Explorer product that I used for this example, you can fly up to four flights within each continent you touch, except up to six in North America. "Surface" segments, like Anchorage to Vancouver (assuming you cruised and didn't fly) count against the maximum of 16, but not against the "continent" limit.

So sure, as a "minimal" trip for you, let's imagine you don't want to go all the way to Africa or Australia.

Map -

In this case you start in Egypt (just show up at Cairo airport and take off on the next flight if you don't want to tour Egypt beforehand). Change planes and fly to Barcelona for a cruise that ends in Rome.

Fly from Rome to JFK and on to Phoenix and back to work. Then (months?) later, off to San Juan for a Caribbean cruise, then back home. Finally (could be months later) fly to Thailand for a SE Asia cruise, or just general touring around (could be skiing in Hokkaido, overeating in Singapore, a visit to the Taj Mahal... what's on your bucket list?) then ending up back in Egypt, or in Jordan, Dubai, Israel? (For tickets started in the Middle East you can end anywhere else in the Middle East.)

But you could, say, "skip" the Caribbean cruise and just turn the trip into two, rather than three, "vacations" - one built around Europe and the other built around Asia, spread almost a year apart. Use the North American segments for a long weekend in New York City, or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or go leaf peeping in Vermont over a fall weekend, whatever.

"Where are you off to now?" they'll ask. "Calgary for the rodeo," you'll respond, or "Cherry blossoms on the Potomac," or "Anchorage for Fur Rendezvous." What's on your weekend list?

Wow. That's just amazing that it is even offered. My wife and I are going to do more research on this for a 2017 trip. If you have the inclination to take this off line, maybe email me, my CC Username @ yahoo and I would love to ask more of my questions without further derailing the thread! :-)

Wow. That's just amazing that it is even offered. My wife and I are going to do more research on this for a 2017 trip. If you have the inclination to take this off line, maybe email me, my CC Username @ yahoo and I would love to ask more of my questions without further derailing the thread! :-)

Email me with my name @ comcast dot net, or feel free to lurk on the "global alliance" boards at Flyertalk - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/global-airline-alliances-391/ - where these products are debated and parsed like the Talmud. I serve as the volunteer mod on the Oneworld board FWIW.