New American Airlines ‘buy miles’ bonus – up to 40%

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• Amo says:

  3 Apr3 April 06:42

  As someone who is super new to frequent flier clubs, and miles redemption tickets (I’ve still never actually redeemed a ticket / upgrade against my miles) I’m really wondering if these ‘deals’ are too good to be true.

  Am I right in thinking that for flying to the middle east, first class I could just buy 80,000 miles and then get a ticket using my miles rather than just paying the £5k or whatever it may be for a first class ticket?

  Surely there must be more to it than that, otherwise why would anyone ever buy a first class ticket using a regular fare price? As I said, I’m very new to this so perhaps there’s a beginners guide that I could be directed to if my understanding of how this works is way off.

  • darrenf says:

    3 Apr3 April 06:46

    it is true. last year I bought 80k AA miles and spent them plus £44 on a one way QF F flight from Sydney to London. but note you can only buy this amount (bonus notwithstanding) in total over the calendar year, so I couldn’t buy enough for a return trip!

    • Rob says:

      3 Apr3 April 07:33

      Although, presumably, you could have bought some via an account in someone elses name (although I think accounts must be open 2 weeks before they can buy miles) and redeemed them for yourself.

  • Rob says:

    3 Apr3 April 07:35

    No, that is how it works (albeit with a couple of hundred quid of tax on Etihad). You are restricted to dates and flights that Etihad make First Class seats available, though, and AA has annual limits on buying miles. Etihad also refuses to release more than 2 seats per flight in First or Business, so its useless for a family.

    Note also that AA is unusual in letting you buy lots of miles. BA has a cap of 27,000 per year and charges more per mile for them, although there are easy ways of getting around the limit.

  • Amo says:

    3 Apr3 April 10:31

    Incredible! Superb buying advise here. I’d never pay for a first class ticket myself, but thinking somewhat medium term, flights for a honeymoon to somewhere nice would be made even better flying first class and this seems like a great way to do it.

    Even for regular travel, these kinds of ‘tricks’ would allow me to reduce my spending or bump to business class.

    Thanks everyone!

• Col A-B says:

  3 Apr3 April 08:29

  Oh this reminds me of an email received yesterday from Melia Hotels offering up to 35% bonus when buying their points.

  • Rob says:

    3 Apr3 April 09:21

    Yes I got this. I had a look at the airline conversion rates and there was no arbitrage in buying points for airline conversion.

    What I did find odd is being able to convert into Wyndham Rewards!

• Roger says:

  3 Apr3 April 09:29

  You rightly mention South Africa as a useful redemption opportunity using AA miles.

  Getting nowhere with BA Avios for F or J awards to Cape Town next year, I was hoping to use AA miles on Qatar flights LON-DOH-CPT. QR flies DOH-CPT 3x weekly in a 787 and ba.com shows award availability. QR is of course a OneWorld member.

  QR awards cannot be booked at aa.com, just by phone. I called yesterday and was told that LON-DOH-CPT was not an authorised route. Can this be true? Mind you, the lady didn’t have a clue where Doha was, so perhaps it’s just a case of hang up and call again.

  • Juan says:

    3 Apr3 April 11:54

    It’s because of the transmitting through regions rule. Doha is in Middle East region and therefore it’s not permitted to fly europe -Africa via Middle East.

    • Roger says:

      3 Apr3 April 11:56

      Thanks. 🙂

  • littlefish says:

    3 Apr3 April 13:01

    Wow. Did not know of this restriction.
    Please can someone provide a more detailed explanation that Juan has posted.
    Is this an AAdvantage rule (forbidding LHR-DOH-JNB/CPT)? or would it also apply using BAEC, or AS Mileage Plan? or even Qmiles?
    Would this also rule out LHR-AUH-JNB on Etihad, using AAdvantage? (in spite of Raffles saying you can!)
    Confused!!

    • Rob says:

      3 Apr3 April 13:08

      It is not a problem with BA, since BA prices by segment so does not have rules like this.

      You can do Cape Town via Doha or Abu Dhabi, but AA may want to price it as two separate awards rather than the direct price. I am not an expert on AA routing rules to be honest, which in any event tend to depend on the agent you deal with.

    • Louie says:

      3 Apr3 April 13:21

      AAdvantage have specific routing rules for travel between different regions. For example, I believe that for travel from Europe to South Pacific you can only go via SIN, BKK, HKG, NRT, KIX, so not via the Middle East (so no Qatar or Etihad), not via other SE Asian countries (so no Malaysian), nor via the USA. To be charitable, it may be that they have not updated their rules for new entrants to OneWorld or new partner airlines, but whatever the reason, it is a pain and can make award travel a lot more expensive if you have to use two awards instead, Roger’s route being a good example. Hopefully this will change if and when other changes are made to their scheme as a result of the US Airways merger.

      It would not be relevant to BAEC as they price per leg. I don’t know about the other schemes you mention.

      • Juan says:

        3 Apr3 April 13:59

        Actually, you can route through the Middle East. You Certainly can flying qantas as I have done the exact thing – SYD-DXB-LHR for a total of $44(approx) in tax flying business. I assume you can do the same via AUH or DOH but not tried. The beauty of doing it on qantas is that it can be booked online so no need to call the less the helpful AA call centre!!

        • Juan says:

          3 Apr3 April 14:06

          ……actually, thinking back, it may well have been a multi stop booking. Ready to be corrected.

        • M says:

          3 Apr3 April 15:42

          Award travel between Europe and the South Pacific will allow for connections in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Narita, Osaka or Singapore only. Source: FT

      • pauldb says:

        3 Apr3 April 15:23

        I’ve have been caught out by the same thing: SYD-AUH-LHR on EY prices as 2 awards. QF is an exception via DXB as it’s a direct flight (aa.com always shows the journey as two flights when BA/QF.com have it as one flight).
        However I am holding a 60k booking BNE-KUL-LHR so within Asia they appear to be flexible: the written rules seem to be out of date.

        • Juan says:

          3 Apr3 April 17:51

          Just been having a play on the AA website and it is definitely showing availability for Melbourne – Heathrow via Dubai as a viable option for a 60,000 miles business redemption.

        • louie-m says:

          3 Apr3 April 20:01

          Excellent news.

        • Louie says:

          4 Apr4 April 13:42

          I’ve been thinking about this a bit more and wonder if I’ve been blinded by the Amex 2-4-1. My focus is on UK to Australia and vv for the two of us as we are (semi-)emigrating next year. Using AA it seems I can get a return in business for 2 x 2 x 60,000 = 240,000 AAdvantage miles + not much in taxes or 2 x 2 x 80,000 = 320,000 in first. Availability on QF via Doha seems reasonable from a quick look and we should be able to be flexible.

          Or I can use the Amex 2-4-1 on BA. It’ll probably cost 220,000 Avios return in business or 330,000 in first as availability on the through flight is virtually non-existent (of course, finding anything at all is still a challenge). Plus much, much higher taxes and surcharges. Even with a 2-4-1, you are effectively paying more and you have to deal with the stress of obtaining the flights.

          I appreciate Avios are a lot easier to find from non-flying activities if you are in the UK (e.g. Tesco and last year’s Lloyds Avios card bonanza) but I am right in thinking that for someone with my focus, I should really be concentrating on AA (once I have a 2-4-1 as I need to use my Avios somehow!)?

• Jy says:

  4 Apr4 April 00:49

  Hi
  Raffles mentioned that in order to get more than the annual 80 000 miles we can purchase the extra with someone else’s account . Is there a charge to then merge the miles together? I was hoping to purchase a return business Lon to Melbourne for 2 but didn’t have enough miles. Thanks!

  • Rob says:

    4 Apr4 April 09:19

    You cannot merge them. You would book a one way from one account and the return from the other account, ticketed in your name. Don’t think AA has any odd rules on oneway tickets but do read their rules first.

    • Col A-B says:

      4 Apr4 April 10:07

      Is it cost effective to do this? ie: buy sufficient miles in the promo instead of just buying a revenue ticket?

      • Rob says:

        4 Apr4 April 10:14

        You can usually get business class to Oz from somewhere in Europe, often Cairo, for £2000. Horses for courses.

        • flieduk says:

          4 Apr4 April 13:47

          Cairo? I should brush up on my geography 😛

• James says:

  14 Apr14 April 15:50

  I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to tell the Egyptians they’re Europeans now !

• James says:

  14 Apr14 April 15:55

  Anyway I can transfer my 350,000 Avios (BA Exec) points to the AA scheme ? 120,000 for business class LHR-SYD is pretty badass. 160K for first is just ridiculously good value !!

  • Rob says:

    14 Apr14 April 17:15

    No, sorry!

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