American Airlines and its partners fly to over 900 destinations worldwide, which means you’ll be able to travel nearly everywhere using your American Airlines miles. Because it still maintains an award chart, figuring out how many miles you’ll need for an award is easy. Let’s take a look at how it works.
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Understanding the American Airlines award chart: The basics
Although American Airlines has an award chart, figuring out how it works can still be a little complicated. There are three main things to consider, including price ranges, partner award charts, and web specials.
Price ranges
The first thing you’ll want to note is that the American Airlines award chart offers different pricing levels. Although the award chart will offer a set price, the price you’ll actually pay will fluctuate based on demand and availability.
American Airlines versus partner flights
The second thing you’ll want to be aware of is that American Airlines maintains two different award charts: One for the flights it operates and one for flights operated by its partners. This makes sense; American only operates flights to or from the United States, so if you need to get somewhere else, you’ll need to fly one of American’s partners. These include members of Oneworld as well as independent partnerships.
Specially priced flights
American Airlines advertises that flights start at a certain price based on their award charts, but you can also find flights that cost less. While these used to be called Web Special awards, they’re no longer officially named. Sometimes, you’ll just find lower-priced awards available for flights, so it’s good to keep an eye out!
Note that American also offers off-peak pricing for partner award flights to Europe, which can drop the price to as low as 22,500 miles one-way.
How many miles you’ll need for a flight on American Airlines
The number of miles you’ll need for a flight on American Airlines is going to depend on where you’re going and your class of service. Here’s what you can expect to pay in economy class:
- Within the contiguous U.S. and Canada: 7,500 miles
- Mexico, Caribbean, and Central America: 10,000 miles
- Short-haul in South America: 15,000 miles
- Hawaii and Alaska: 20,000 miles
- Europe: 25,000 miles
- Long-haul South America: 30,000 miles
- Asia, Middle East, and South Pacific: 35,000 miles
Note again that these are the starting prices for flights, and costs can range upward depending on availability.
Here’s what you can expect to pay for business or first class:
- Within the contiguous U.S. and Canada: 15,000 miles
- Mexico, Caribbean, and Central America: 20,000 miles
- Short-haul in South America: 30,000 miles
- Hawaii and Alaska: 60,000 miles
- Europe: 75,000 miles
- Long-haul South America: 90,000 miles
- Asia, Middle East, and South Pacific: 95,000 miles
Your best value for flights on American Airlines will be on domestic flights. This is true for both economy and first class since you’re able to fly across the country at the same price as a short hop between cities.
How many miles you’ll need for a partner flight using AAdvantage miles
American’s partner award chart is more generous (and more complicated) than the award chart it uses for its own flights. Generally speaking, however, you’ll find better value when using your American Airlines miles for partner award flights.
This is especially true for flights to Europe. You’ll pay just 22,500 miles for an economy class ticket or 57,500 miles for business class to Europe. Both of those are cheaper than flying American Airlines.
Another good deal is to fly from the United States to the Middle East in business class, which will cost you just 70,000 miles on a partner versus 95,000 miles with American Airlines.
Tips for using the American Airlines award chart to determine the cost of your flight
American’s award chart is fairly clear as far as letting you know the lowest prices you can expect to pay. To get a good idea of what you’ll be paying, consider the following:
Demand
American’s award chart specifies the lowest prices you’ll need to pay for a flight. However, that doesn’t mean that this is what the actual cost of your ticket will be when redeeming miles. American only offers a certain number of seats on each flight at that lowest fare. When those are gone, prices increase. This means that when demand is high, you’ll often find much more expensive (non-saver) tickets.
Flights operated by American Airlines
American’s website offers a drop-down menu for figuring out costs on award flights, but they also have an easy-to-reference table that will show you exactly how much you’ll need to pay for an American Airlines flight.
Flights operated by partners
The same is true for partner flights:
The American Airlines award chart: Within the United States
Flying within the United States and Canada is going to be a good use of your AAdvantage miles, especially if you can find saver-level awards. Because all of the mainland U.S. and Canada are considered one region, you can get from one end of the country (or all the way into Canada) for relatively few miles.
American Airlines routing rules to consider
Understanding how pricing works for American’s award chart means you also need to understand how the airline defines regions. This is because the number of miles you’ll need to redeem for a flight will depend on the region you’re traveling to and from.
Region definitions for American Airlines
There are just a few region definitions you’ll need to know when flying American Airlines:
Caribbean: includes Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands
South America – Short Haul: Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru
South America – Long Haul: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay
The others are pretty self-explanatory and include:
Contiguous 48 U.S. states + Canada
Hawaii + Alaska
Europe
Asia + Middle East + South Pacific
Mexico + Caribbean + Central America
Region definitions for partners
With so many partners and so many destinations, region definitions are incredibly important for partner awards:
Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama
Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands
South America Region 1: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Manaus (Brazil), Peru, Suriname
South America Region 2: Argentina, Brazil (excluding Manaus), Chile, Falkland Islands, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela
Europe: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Middle East: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
Indian Subcontinent: Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Africa: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Melilla, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Asia Region 1: Japan and Korea
Asia Region 2: Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
South Pacific: American Samoa and Samoa, Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu
Summary
American Airlines maintains two separate award charts for mileage redemptions depending on whether you’re flying American or a partner carrier. It’s important to keep in mind that while the award chart shows you the lowest minimum miles you’ll need to pay, factors such as demand and availability can end up changing the number actual amount required for a flight.
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