Fiji Airways Adopts American AAdvantage As Loyalty Program

In October 2024 I was able to get two 80k AA business award tickets from a US city to AKL via NAN on FJ. On the way home, I got one from NAN through DFW to my home city for 80k. After that, only 295k tickets were available for several weeks for that route (NAN-YVR was still 80k, but with inconvenient connections to my home city).
I checked it every day, and a month later another 80k opened up for the NAN-DFW route, so I immediately booked that as well.
Also managed to book 2 AKL-NAN business class tickets for 30k AA miles + $31.40 per person.

When flying out of Nadi, you need to learn 1 word: DELAYED

The Qantas program is pointless unless you're regularly flying long distances in business and/or first class. Without status redemption is notoriously difficult, and ever more so now that OneWorld members are tightening up supply and restricting premium redemptions to their own members.

Thanks for this information. It strikes me as a pretty straightforward benefit to be able to simply use AA miles to book Fiji. Given the fact that you can sometimes get good AA awards using Alaska miles, I'd think that could be another advantage (so to speal) of the AA-Fiji relationship.

Fiji Airways dodged a bullet by avoiding the Qantas FF programme. No matter how bad you might think your programme is, you ain't seen nothing bad until you've tried QFF.

Thank god they didn't go with QFF. The only use for QFF is EK redemptions, which (I think) have access to a different inventory stock that (sometimes) opens up F seats on flights not accessible to EK Skywards.

Just a datapoint on the preferred seat selection benefit for elite members. A week ago I attempted to book a flight to Australia directly with Fiji as a Oneworld Sapphire member (thru AA Plat) and was told that only I would receive free seat selection at booking. My companion (traveling on the same reservation) would be required to pay $88 to select a seat next to me. I sent them some feedback through their website explaining how their policy was different than AA's (and most other Oneworld carriers that I have flown) and that it would be helpful if they would disclose the differences in benefits that they provide vs. the American AAdvantage program on their website to avoid confusing other AA and Oneworld customers, particularly those who are accustomed to the AAdvantage benefits. I received the following response from them: "We regret to inform you that, unfortunately, we are no longer able to extend certain benefits, such as sharing Oneworld elite member privileges with a plus one. While we understand this change may be inconvenient, we strive to ensure that all our passengers are informed of our policies in advance. We appreciate your suggestion, and we will certainly take it into consideration as we continue to improve our communication with customers." I know seat selection is not a guaranteed Oneworld benefit and it is left to the discretion of the individual carriers but it's curious that they are adopting the AAdvantage frequent flyer program but not adopting the same benefits.