This is great news for most people with American AAdvantage miles.
Continue reading: American AAdvantage Moves Morocco To Europe
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This is in fact HUGE news and might be the best news for Africa travelers in 2020 to 2022 now that Royal Air Maroc is part of OneWorld. For those of us hoarding AAdvantage miles to get to remote Africa destinations it's really awesome.
Stated differently, it somehow seemed kind of inevitable. Anyone who has ever taken EasyJet between UK and Morocco or Ryanair between Europe and Morocco for under $10 knows what I mean. The fact that Ryanair in 2020 had routes between so many European cities and Morocco brought Moroccan cities that much closer and lowering the old high-cost barrier of Africa travel has been great.
Doesn't this make N America to Africa awards more expensive? Couldn't you have flown JFK-CMN-DKR as one N America to Africa award so long as CMN was Africa? Now, it would be two awards (N America-Europe and Europe-Africa), right?
Or am I missing a nuance?
@Ryan you don't need two awards to transit Europe between N am and Africa, luckily—it's one of the third region exceptions.
@Ryan - Why would it be two awards? You could still fly JFK-CMN-DKR at the 40,000/75,000 rate because it's priced on your final destination, regardless of whether CMN is considered Africa or Europe. It's just like if you fly on BA from JFK-LHR-JNB you're still getting charged the Africa rate, even though you're routing through Europe, because your final destination is Africa.
Beware of Royal Air Maroc's on time record!!! Read the reviews. I knew two people flying out of BOS at different times around Xmas. The first flying to Algiers was late out of BOS and had to overnight in Casablanca because of a missed connection, and the second never made it out of BOS, since the flight was delayed and delayed and then canceled, and then the friend was rescheduled and the person missed the event in ALG.
What if I want to book a flight from Morocco to South Africa? Does it require more miles now?
Beware, they have just accepted reality that many cities in France and Germany already resemble Morocco if you walk through the streets with open eyes.
If you’re not a member of the Eurovision Song Contest or UEFA you’re not part of Europe (unlike Israel).
Doesn’t this also mean you can’t use AA miles to redeem on Qatar or Etihad to go to Morocco? Although definitely more time wasted, but was one of the few destinations to take advantage of those great premium seats
who has an idea on the fee AA will charge on RAM and the availability of b-class seats per flight?
I have seen web sale prices to Morocco from 17,000 each way, the same price as Europe for a few months, so it seems thos has been in the works for awhile. Great news!
@David
Royal Air Maroc doesn't fly to South Africa. I'd stay tuned for a new route announcement though (as it seems fairly logical they would add JNB or CPT fairly soon, coronavirus permitting of course).
Morocco was already part of Europe/Middle East for the purposes of the onward Explorer awards so this move by AA is in line with that.
@Max - although your characterization is absurd, even if it wasn't then consider it consequence of exploitative colonialization (France) and getting your male workforce killed in a war you started (Germany).
Back to reality:
Great news! This definitely makes travel to Europe and Morocco both more attractive on AAdvantage.
Was it even possible previously to use AAdvantage awards for intra-african travel? I see 3 possible flights, all of which are from South Africa...
Probably the best AA and OW news in a long time as far as I am concerned.
@ Max: Cute ! (and so true...)
@Richard they did not make a racist comment about the people but simply pointed out an obvious reality about those countries. There has been significant migration from northern Africa into western Europe for several decades...it's just a fact. But if you wish to see racism in everything then best of luck.
@ABC but Morocco is a member of the European Broadcasting Union so is eligible to take part In Eurovision and has done done once in 1980.
I'll keep this in mind for 2023, when I might fly long haul again. Wasn't impressed by Casablanca or Marrakech in 2019, but maybe another look post-Covid-19? If AA also survives.
@IQ 0 - so other airlines don’t have delayed flights.?
Yeah it’s annoying if people miss events etc but cancellations and delays are a fact of like.
Soon Morocco and Spain
Will build 2 tunnels for cars and trains distance is about 10 miles or so, bycicles and motobycks will be free to race as see teet dialy.
Breakfast in Spain and lunch in Morocco.
Cost 1 galon of ⛽ petrol for motobycks and cost for the bycicle, 1 kg of bananas and 2 litres of water done. ,
what happens to my miles already earned with Royal Air Morocco in my Safarflyer Gold account and my family account?
@Mohamed Amine, the changes outlined here have no impact whatsoever on your RAM frequent flyer account.
@ Tim
Racism is racism. They didn't point out migration patterns. If they were, then they'd just be ignorant: most North Africans in France are Algerian as they were as much a part of the fourth French Republic as Paris. In Germany, people of color are overwhelmingly Turkish or Kurdish,
not Magrebi.
Those aren't the points being made, though. It's insidious right-wing, xenophobia about their previous white, colonial perfection being overrun buy Muslims. Everyone "that color" is the same thing, no bother to differentiate. If you don't recognize the rhetoric of the contemporary nationalist right, you are a bigger danger than I am.
Not that it bothers me in any way, but does it mean that an AAdvantage Award flight on AT betwen, say Casablanca and Dakar, will be invoiced at the "Europe to Africa" rate ?
Uhh, this is terrible. AA desperately needed access to Africa. Their Africa chart has always been reasonably priced - in theory - except you could only use it on COMAIR for shorthaul flights WITH fuel surcharges. They finally get a damn African partner with a few routes and they immediately jack up the price of an intra-African flight? I don't like it one bit.
This isno longer the case. I previously have booked JFK-CMN-BCN as a single award in J for 57,500 miles and a very small amount of taxes. AA no longer offers AT flights when searching for USA-Europe awards even though the availability is there. Now when searching for US-Europe awards the only way to display AT flights is to do a multi-city search and then it prices as 2 awards for 80k total in J, (57,5k + 22,5k). This is a recent change as I was able to price it as a single award about 2 weeks ago. I have called AA several times to ask about this and I have received some ridiculous explanations that agents were obviously making up on the spot, and they all insist that 80K is the correct pricing and that this itinerary must (and has always had to) be booked as 2 separate awards.