I have been able to find saver transatlantic J award space for two trips in the past ~9 months, purely by being flexible with the flight origin and being willing to position myself for those origin flights. Even taking into account the cost of positioning flights and incremental lodging expenses, these are still outsized value.
Note that these redemptions have been on AA metal; I’ve been discouraged by not finding more Finnair J space since their hard product is IMO one of the best in the world.
So I don’t think AA miles are truly worth less than they were if you are willing to put in the work to find value, but for the general public, maybe so.
Yeah.... On AA metal. Not exactly the aspirational use of these miles.
Better than flying in coach, sure, but not what I was looking for.
It’s not the best product for sure. But if we’re talking about value for miles in terms of cpp, it’s still there.
(One of those flights for me was on the 787-9P and I snagged one of the larger suites in row 1…that actually did feel like a decently aspirational redemption at 57.5k miles)
Ben, I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with you about this not being AA's fault. To me, it is a failure to manage their partners and to drive standards for award availability across Oneworld. AA's leadership needs to see this as a problem. With fewer routes, less reliable service, and a smaller presence in key business markets, AAdvantage is how it stays competitive. As soon as members believe that premium redemptions are not available, they will look to fly (and put their credit card spend) elsewhere. As for me, I just booked a $10K RT paid business class ticket on United. I could have found a way to make American work, but it wasn't worth going through the hoops to do so as I can't redeem for JL, CX, QR, or QF F awards.
AA isn't innocent on this. IIRC they started restricting awards to partners first (via web specials). This happened before CX and QR returned the favor.
2 realities here:
1-Of course miles will lose value. Embrace the s*ck.
2-Fixed rebate programs, like SWA, are a good option.
OF1944ATX -- Fixed? Are you totally unaware that SWA has reduced that fixed rate multiple times? That is the most blatant form of devaluation because no one can say it has anything to do with rising ticket prices. Instead, it is flat out THEFT.
I agree that the value of Aadvantage miles is rapidly declining, if, for no other reason, other than the absurd number of miles AA itself is asking for long haul international business class flights on its own planes. We're flying from LA to Tokyo next year, and round trip business class AA flights are running 750,000 miles, give or take. That's crazy.
Given that using mileage to upgrade international flights is now off the table, why should I continue to go through all sort of shenanigans to try to amass AA miles? Long gone are the days where 150,000 miles, or even 250,000 miles will regularly get you a round trip international business class ticket.
It's incredibly frustrating, since we know there's good values there but they're almost exclusively unavailable or over subscribed.
Americans own awards are ridiculously overpriced now, eg 300,000 mi for one way medium haul or something equally dumb.
Those last minute awards that Ben quotes are certainly juicy, but unless you just missed a flight, who's making long-haul international plans for tomorrow??
Im so confused by this piece. The sweet spot is American metal? An award from Japan or Australia to the US is always minimumum 300k miles. To fly the worst business class on those routes.
Another point this article misses is the devaluation of partner awards that happened by integrating new programs within the AA program. I used to be able to fly from the US to Fiji for fantastic prices on FJ. Now the price is....300k or more.
This is very unfortunate, since reasonable award prices are/were the only thing giving AA any competitive advantage.
I like to plan trips way out in advance. As I the day the schedule opens up. You used to be able to find tons of award space on long haul flights under 100K miles. Those days are long gone now occasionally you will see some cheaper ones a few months out, but buying in advance to get a deal is non existent not. That's where I am seeing it thr most
@ Ben -- The simplest way for American to increase the value of its miles is to make redemptions on their metal eligible to earn Loyalty Points. Is American so desperate for cash that they can't reward customers for taking liability off the books for distressed inventory? Delta and United apparently find this useful, so how is American different?
I suppose we will next be seeing a post about Delta SkyMiles becoming MORE valuable (they definitely are!). There should also be one about Atmos rewards becoming less valuable. After all, folks might be getting outsized value from 4.5k/9.0k single-segment, short haul AA awards, but that barely moves the needle on the average value. Most Atmos redemption prices that I see are absurdly high. Anyway, I hope this series of (two so far) posts is leading up to an entire refreshed valuation table from you!
Definitely still finding value in spots. That being said, TATL has taken a nosedive in value. On AA metal (which, if one is at an AA hub is what pops up), J is 300-400k round trip, which is absurd. BA availability is okay, but those carrier added fees really kill the redemption value.
I want to offer a counterpoint to the other comments here (along with some datapoints). In the past 8 months, I’ve been able to book the following with AA miles:
2 J seats from LAX-HND on JAL A350 for 60k miles each (I realize I won the lottery here, but what a treat!)
2 PE seats from HND-LAX on AA metal for 50k miles each (J ended up coming down to 110k each but I didn’t bit the bullet. PE wasn’t great but it was tolerable)
2 J seats from LAX-CDG on Air Tahiti Nui for 57.5k miles each (terrible product, but at the end of the day a lie flat seat is a lie flat seat)
2 J/F seats from NCE-LAX (via PHL) on AA metal for 85k miles each (above the published award chart rate, but still way cheaper than DL or UA)
On top of these flights, I’ve booked multiple Y fares from LAX to Asia and Europe at the published award chart rate.
Finding premium cabin deals at award chart pricing (and without crazy fuel surcharges on BA/IB) is tough, but with a little bit of tenacity and luck you can get outsized value (especially compared to DL and UA).