Buying miles & points strategically can be a good value, especially for first & business class travel. In the past, American AAdvantage used to consistently have different promotions on purchased miles each month. However, in early 2022, American increased the cost to purchase miles, and seemingly gave up on selling miles, as the program has had the same 35% off promotion on buying miles for the entire year… until now.
American has launched its best promotion of the year on purchased miles. While I wouldn’t speculatively buy miles at this cost, there’s potentially value to be had. Note that buying AAdvantage miles doesn’t count toward your Loyalty Points total.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased American AAdvantage miles
Through Monday, November 28, 2022, American AAdvantage is offering up to a 50% discount on purchased miles. The offer is tiered, and you get a bigger percentage discount the more miles you buy, as follows:
- Buy 2,000-4,000 miles, receive a 10% discount
- Buy 5,000-24,000 miles, receive a 15% discount
- Buy 25,000-79,000 miles, receive a 20% discount
- Buy 80,000-104,000 miles, receive a 25% discount
- Buy 105,000-149,000 miles, receive a 30% discount
- Buy 150,000-300,000 miles, receive a 50% discount
How much does it cost to purchase American AAdvantage miles?
Ordinarily American sells AAdvantage miles for 3.5 cents each (pre-tax) before factoring in any discounts or bonuses. If you maxed out this promotion and purchased 300,000 AAdvantage miles, you’d receive a total of 300,000 miles at a cost of $5,643.75, which is a rate of 1.88 cents per AAdvantage mile.
As mentioned above, this is the best promotion we’ve seen from the program so far in 2022. So while we’ve seen lower costs to purchase AAdvantage miles in the past, it has been quite some time…
How many American AAdvantage miles can you purchase?
The American AAdvantage program ordinarily allows members to purchase at most 150,000 miles per account per calendar year, before factoring in any bonuses. However, during this promotion that cap has been doubled. Furthermore, note that AAdvantage accounts less than 30 days old aren’t eligible to purchase miles.
Which credit card should you buy American AAdvantage miles with?
American AAdvantage 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 you’d earn bonus points for airfare purchases:
The Platinum Card® from American Express
American Express® Gold Card
American Express® Green Card
For example, I value Membership Rewards points at 1.7 cents each, so by my math The Platinum Card® from American Express (review) offers an 8.5% return on this spending, given the 5x points category.
Is buying American AAdvantage miles worth it?
Unlike Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus, American AAdvantage continues to publish award charts for travel on partner airlines, and redemption rates are largely quite good, especially for travel in premium cabins on partner airlines. Among the “big three” carriers in the US, I tend to think AAdvantage has the best redemption opportunities.
I find the cost of business class redemptions to be excellent in many cases. There are instances where it could make sense to pick up miles during a promotion with a short term use in mind. Just to give a few examples of some of my favorite uses of AAdvantage miles (all redemption rates are one-way):
- For 57,500 miles you can fly from the United States to Morocco in Royal Air Maroc business class
- For 60,000 miles you could fly from the United States to Japan in Japan Airlines business class
- For 70,000 miles you could fly from the United States to most of Asia in Cathay Pacific business class
- For 70,000 miles you can fly from the United States to India in Etihad business class
- For 75,000 miles you can fly from the United States to South Africa in Qatar Airways business class
On what airlines can you redeem American AAdvantage miles?
American Airlines belongs to the oneworld alliance, so you can redeem AAdvantage miles on all oneworld airlines.
On top of that, you can redeem miles on some of American’s other partner airlines, including Air Tahiti Nui, China Southern, Etihad Airways, Fiji Airways, GOL Airlines, and JetBlue Airways.
How much are American AAdvantage miles worth?
Everyone will value mileage currencies differently, but personally I value American AAdvantage miles at ~1.5 cents each. However, I tend to value points pretty conservatively, and there are many ways to get way more value from AAdvantage miles than that.
Do American AAdvantage miles expire?
American AAdvantage miles don’t expire as long as you have at least some account activity once every 24 months. Eligible activity includes earning or redeeming AAdvantage miles in any quantity.
What other ways can you earn American AAdvantage miles?
There are lots of great ways to earn American miles aside from outright buying them:
- There are excellent welcome bonuses on co-branded American AAdvantage credit cards
- You can earn AAdvantage miles with a Bask Savings Account
- You can earn AAdvantage miles for everyday purchases with programs like AAdvantage Dining and SimplyMiles
Bottom line
American AAdvantage has just launched its first “real” promotion on purchased miles all year. The program is offering up to a 50% discount on purchased miles, which is an opportunity to buy miles for under 1.9 cents each. While this isn’t as good as some promotions we saw prior to 2022, it is the best offer we’ve seen so far this year.
Do you plan on buying American miles with this promotion?
is it a good idea to use the AAdvantage® Executive Card to buy the miles
Will I get the Amex $200 airline credit if I purchase these miles? AA is my chosen carrier for Amex Platinum.
I’ve been wanting to buy miles for a trip to Europe next year. But, I’m not seeing ANY award availability (only on BA with huge fuel surcharges). Am I missing something?
I was able to book LAX-CDG on Air Tahiti Nui this morning for a June trip. Also saw availability on Finnair for my ride home.
AA seems to be offering only partner award flights on second tier airlines and BA (which I consider 2nd tier due to its extortionate carrier-imposed surcharges).
A work-around to finding inventory is to check the search engines of other OW carriers (BA is user-friendly and generally shows plenty of non-BA inventory) and then phone AA to cross-check and hopefully book.
OMAAT has done articles in the past on how to get optimal booking...
AA seems to be offering only partner award flights on second tier airlines and BA (which I consider 2nd tier due to its extortionate carrier-imposed surcharges).
A work-around to finding inventory is to check the search engines of other OW carriers (BA is user-friendly and generally shows plenty of non-BA inventory) and then phone AA to cross-check and hopefully book.
OMAAT has done articles in the past on how to get optimal booking results from AA call centres; some are better than others!
From what i've seen, they pulled Qatar awards from their website. Do you have any insight regarding this? Thank you
Try ringing an AA off-shore call centre to book QR.
You have to call AA to book Qatar award travel. You won’t see it
Lucky, will I get the 4x bonus that the Citi AA cards have in place until the end of the year, or is that strictly on airfare?