American AAdvantage constantly has promotions on purchased miles. The airline has just published their latest promotion, which follows one of their most lucrative promos in quite a while — last week the airline was selling miles for as little as 1.78 cents each.
American’s Promo On Purchased Miles
Before I talk about this promotion specifically, it’s interesting to note that as of a few months ago American changed the structure of their buy miles promotions. The interface now looks different, and you have to log into your account to see the offer available to you.
Initially the promotions worked the same way they used to, which is to say that promotions on purchased miles still had published end dates. That’s not consistently the case anymore, as most promotions no longer list an end date for these offers.
With the latest promo, American is offering the following tiered bonuses and discount on purchased miles through February 16, 2020:
- Buy 15,000-69,000 miles, get a 30% bonus plus 10% off
- Buy 70,000-149,000 miles, get a 50% bonus plus 10% off
- Buy 150,000 miles, get a 55% bonus plus 10% off
In order to achieve the lowest cost per mile you’d want to purchase exactly 150,000 miles. If you did that, you’d receive a total of 232,500 miles at a cost of $4,315.05, which is ~1.86 cents per AAdvantage mile.
As usual, AAdvantage accounts less than 30 days old aren’t eligible to purchase miles. Furthermore, there’s a cap of purchasing 150,000 AAdvantage miles per account per calendar year.
As far as American’s bonuses and discounts on purchased miles go, generally they charge ~1.8-2.15 cents per mile.
This isn’t the best promotion they’ve offered, but it is on the lower end of their pricing spectrum.
Is Buying American Miles A Good Deal?
Personally I value American AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents each. While American significantly devalued their award chart a few years back, there are still some excellent uses of their miles, especially for travel in business class on partner airlines.
As a reminder, here’s the cost of first and business class awards originating in the US under the current program:
| Contiguous 48 U.S. To: | Business Class | First Class |
|---|---|---|
| Contiguous 48 U.S. States | 25,000 | 50,000 |
| Canada & Alaska | 30,000 | 55,000 |
| Hawaii | 40,000 | 65,000 |
| Caribbean | 27,500 | 52,500 |
| Mexico | 27,500 | 52,500 |
| Central America | 27,500 | 52,500 |
| South America Zone 1 | 30,000 | 55,000 |
| South America Zone 2 | 57,500 | 85,000 |
| Europe | 57,500 | 85,000 |
| Middle East / India | 70,000 | 115,000 |
| Africa | 75,000 | 120,000 |
| Asia Zone 1 | 60,000 | 80,000 |
| Asia Zone 2 | 70,000 | 110,000 |
| South Pacific | 80,000 | 110,000 |
Qatar Airways business class continues to be a great use of American miles
I find the cost of business class redemptions to still be reasonable in most cases. There are instances where it could make sense to pick up miles during a promotion with a short term use in mind.
For example, last year I redeemed 75,000 AAdvantage miles for a one-way Qatar Airways business class ticket from Cape Town to the US, which I consider to be a spectacular value.
Which Credit Card Should You Buy Miles With?
American processes mileage purchases directly, which means the purchase of miles does qualify as airfare spending. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the following cards for your purchase, since they offer the following bonus miles for airfare:
| Card | Points earned on airfare spend |
|---|---|
| The Platinum Card® from American Express | 5x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent |
| Citi Prestige Card | 5x ThankYou points per dollar spent |
| American Express® Gold Card | 3x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent |
| Chase Sapphire Reserve® | 3x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent |
| Citi Premier℠ Card | 3x ThankYou points per dollar spent |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card | 2x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent |
| Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ Mastercard® | 2 AAdvantage® miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases |
| CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard® | 2 AAdvantage® miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases |
| Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® | 2 AAdvantage® miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases |
| American Airlines AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card | 2 AAdvantage® miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases |
Redeem American miles for JAL business class
For example, I value Membership Rewards points at 1.7 cents each, so I view that as an 8.5% return on this spend if you use The Platinum Card® from American Express.
Other Great Ways To Earn American Miles
There are lots of great ways to earn American miles aside from outright buying them. At the moment there are excellent welcome bonuses on co-branded American Airlines AAdvantage Cards, as follows:
Buy American Miles Summary
American’s latest promotion on purchased miles isn’t the best promotion on purchased miles that we’ve seen from them, though it is among the better deals.
Generally speaking I wouldn’t recommend speculatively buying American miles without a use in mind. However, there are plenty of cases where acquiring miles at this cost makes sense (especially for redemptions on Etihad and Qatar).
Do you plan on buying American miles with this promotion?
@ Lucky….The cost works out to be just under $1,500 for a one way business class to Asia Zone 2. How would that compare to directly buying tgat segment directly thru the carrier? My use would be either JFK-SIN or JFK to Tokyo.
I bought 100,000 miles 2 days ago for 1.88 cents/mile. 70% bonus, which I was happy with. That’s it for me with AAdvantage spend for 2020; totalled out at 150K. And yes, I have an upcoming need for some of those miles; waiting for QR schedule to open up for later this year, then pounce.
AA is totally out of control – yesterday’s joke was the $150pp charge for Flagship dining
Today it is ANOTHER mileage fire sale
Last week, i bought 170K miles for about $3200 – at my EXP level, i would have had to spend over $15K in air fare -Am i missing something?
2 years ago, i topped out at 247K EQM and got nothing in return.
I need Emerald Status because of my Asian travel but this year it’s going to be 100K and out
i don’t need this BS anymore when Delta is on the rise domestically
I can use them for awards that used to cost 57.5k miles that now cost 400k miles…