With American AAdvantage’s Loyalty Points system, you can earn elite status without stepping foot on a plane. That’s not to say that you should do it, but you can. In addition to being able to earn Loyalty Points with credit card spending, you can also earn Loyalty Points with all kinds of other partner activity.
One of the most popular ways to earn Loyalty Points is by booking hotels in a way that earns AAdvantage miles. We’ve just seen some changes implemented to this, so I wanted to cover what you need to know.
In this post:
The basics of American AAdvantage Hotels
Historically you could earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for hotel stays most efficiently in one of two ways (the number of AAdvantage miles you’d earn would vary based on your exact stay):
- You could earn them with Rocketmiles, by selecting American AAdvantage as your preferred rewards currency
- You could earn them with AAHotels.com, which was powered by booking.com
This past week we saw major changes to this, as the new AAdvantage Hotels platform is now the best way to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for your hotel stays. This comes as American seems to have essentially consolidated its options for earning miles from hotel stays.
That’s because AAHotels.com now redirects to the new AAdvantage Hotels platform, while Rocketmiles has greatly decreased mileage earning with AAdvantage (clearly because of the launch of this new platform). For what it’s worth, AAdvantage Hotels is powered by Rocket Travel by Agoda, the same company behind Rocketmiles.
Earning Loyalty Points & miles with AAdvantage Hotels
AAdvantage Hotels is essentially an online travel agency, and with each booking you’ll see how many AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points you can expect to earn. Online travel agencies get a commission for hotel bookings, and AAdvantage Hotels is using some of that commission to reward customers who book through the platform.
A few things to note:
- When you search for a hotel stay, you’ll see the number of AAdvantage miles listed that you’ll earn; these will qualify as both redeemable miles and Loyalty Points
- Note that you earn significantly more rewards if you have elite status and a co-branded AAdvantage credit card, so you’ll want to be sure you’re logged in when searching hotels
- With the AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards system, you can earn a 20% Loyalty Points bonus with AAdvantage Hotels for six months when you pass 60,000 Loyalty Points, and you can earn a 30% Loyalty Points bonus with AAdvantage Hotels for six months when you pass 100,000 Loyalty Points; this won’t be reflected on the site, but if you’re eligible, you’ll earn that in addition (those are just Loyalty Points, and not redeemable miles)
- With the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (review), you’ll earn 10x miles on hotels booked through AAdvantage hotels; those 10x miles are redeemable miles, but you’ll only earn 1x Loyalty Points per dollar spent
When you search for hotels, you’ll notice vastly different mileage earning rates, which presumably reflects the commission amount that the hotel pays. You’ll see that the site lets you search by most miles earned. I like searching that way, though keep in mind that this isn’t the highest miles earned per dollar of hotel rate, but rather highest number of miles earned in absolute terms.
For example, take a couple of hotels in Tampa. When logged in as an elite member with a co-branded credit card, you can earn 4,000 AAdvantage miles at a Sleep Inn & Suites that costs $124, or you can earn 3,900 AAdvantage miles at a Marriott that costs $249.
Just to use the Sleep Inn & Suites as an example, let’s further crunch those numbers:
- Those 4,000 AAdvantage miles would be both Loyalty Points and redeemable miles
- If you passed the Loyalty Points threshold offering 30% bonus Loyalty Points, you’d earn an additional 1,200 Loyalty Points
- If you paid with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card after the upcoming changes, you’d earn 1,240 AAdvantage miles plus 124 additional Loyalty Points
- So all-in-all, you could earn up to 5,324 Loyalty Points and 5,240 AAdvantage miles
The catch with booking through AAdvantage Hotels
Of course it sounds great to be able to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for your hotel stays, so what’s the catch? Well, since this is a third party booking site, there are many disadvantages.
If you’re staying at a hotel belonging to a major hotel loyalty program, expect that you won’t be able to earn your rewards with programs like Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, World of Hyatt, etc. You also generally won’t receive any elite perks you’d otherwise be entitled to.
For luxury hotels, you can’t book through AAdvantage Hotels in conjunction with a program like Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts or Virtuoso, which can add value for a stay.
And regardless of the type of hotel you book:
- You’ll always want to compare the prices through AAdvantage Hotels to what you can otherwise find, because you might find lower prices elsewhere
- Generally third party bookings get last priority for room assignments, so if you want to have a great hotel stay, avoid booking through a third party
AAdvantage Hotels is a brilliant concept from American’s perspective, in the sense that the airline can essentially skim a commission on hotel bookings, and can keep people on the Loyalty Points hamster wheel. Personally I find there’s usually too much of an opportunity cost to booking that way, though I know others feel differently.
Bottom line
AAdvantage Hotels is American’s new platform for earning AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for hotel bookings. In many cases the earnings rates aren’t quite as lucrative as before. However, between the up to 30% Loyalty Points boost through Loyalty Point Rewards, plus the up to 10x AAdvantage miles on spending, the rewards can certainly add up.
If you’re addicted to Loyalty Points, it could be worth booking some hotels this way. Just be aware of the opportunity cost. Personally I’d rather earn rewards with my preferred hotel loyalty program, and for luxury independent hotels would rather take advantage of programs offering elite-like perks.
What’s your take on AAdvantage Hotels?
Sadly the new program is such a scam.
HORRIBLE cancelation terms, sometimes 28 days to get a refund. Sometimes not able to at all.
Booked a trim to Costa Rica, Out the hotel in Google Maps for directions.
Hotels own rate is less than half ripoff-rocket, Which a day after booking they wont let me cancel.
I have used AAdvantage Hotels in the past and had a good experience - until tonight. When I arrived at the property I booked a few days ago (121 30th Ave in Nashville) it turns out its not a hotel at all! Its a private condo being marketed as a hotel room. All over the listing on the site (I have screen shots) and in the emails its referred to as a hotel. But its...
I have used AAdvantage Hotels in the past and had a good experience - until tonight. When I arrived at the property I booked a few days ago (121 30th Ave in Nashville) it turns out its not a hotel at all! Its a private condo being marketed as a hotel room. All over the listing on the site (I have screen shots) and in the emails its referred to as a hotel. But its not. There is no check in desk, lobby, common area, on-site staff, maintenance or room service. I am planning to file complaints with the city and state against the owner and the management property - a scammy group called AvantStay. No way this is up to hotel standards or paying hotel taxes. Its a condo! Would love see OMAAT do a story on this scam. After refusing to stay I was told I could "request" a refund by AAdvantage Hotels but one is not guaranteed. If I had wanted an AirBnB I would have booked on AirBnB. Shame on you AAdvantage "Hotels". Buyer beware.
I have heard from friends about this property. I can confirm it’s not a hotel at all. It’s a condo building. Sorry to hear you were scammed. Hopefully American Airlines will make sure you get a refund.
I recently booked a week stay at Paris Las Vegas. BIG MISTAKE. Unknown to me was that it was having a hackers cinvention and a cannibus convention. The hotel has a policy of NO TOP SHEET so you are sleeping with other peoples blankets. Horrible and un sanitary. Sadly, I prepaid or I would have instantly checked out. NEVER AGAIN!! Or if I must, never more that 1 prepaid night at a time.
So if I book through Aadvantage hotels, I get loyalty points but no hotel-specific points...but would I get qualifying night credit with the hotel? For example, if I stay at a Hyatt - do those nights count toward my Hyatt status? And does dual accrual still apply if I fly American and stay at Hyatt with this kind of reservation?
We just used at a Hilton property. They did ask for our Hilton number at the property and it is included in our Hilton account as a 1 night stay. So no points but goes towards total nights stayed.
In March 2023 I reserved, using Rocketmiles, 1 night in CLT to earn 5,000 miles and loyalty points. There has been no change my reservation on Rocketmiles. Will I still receive that amount or will it be reduced?
what i dont hear mentioned is using any combination of bookings. i looked at one for marriott with 7500 points back. looking for 6 days. However, you only needed to book 2 nights to get the 7500. so book 2 with aabooking then use your marriott card for the rest of the days...
Biggest issue with services like this is that it is a third party rather than the hotel directly or brand.
Depends where you value getting the points
Thanks, I’ll stick to hotel owned rewards programs. AA is pretty useless where I live anyways.
I usually book Hilton or IGH. If the rates were more than my Per Diem covered, I would use rocket miles for other hotels. Came in Handy and got lots of points.
Formerly a great deal as the extra mile accelerator counted as LPs. Was worth the extra spend for me to hit the old ExPlat target and SWUs. With the new 250k level for those and cap on miles, probably the end of my extra spending, considering the opportunity cost of hotel points and the higher cost per mile on aadvantagehotels compared to bookaahotels.
Back to the old days of just slow and steady saving up miles for an award I guess.
It's one thing for AA to lower the generous LP earnings. Not happy about it, but understandable. However, the 15K per stay cap has rendered the program useless to all but frequent business travelers on government per diem. Why are the bloggers not discussing this at all?
No one's going to fly to stay one only night at a nice hotel to avoid being gutted on the miles and points and taking a huge...
It's one thing for AA to lower the generous LP earnings. Not happy about it, but understandable. However, the 15K per stay cap has rendered the program useless to all but frequent business travelers on government per diem. Why are the bloggers not discussing this at all?
No one's going to fly to stay one only night at a nice hotel to avoid being gutted on the miles and points and taking a huge loss from the 15K cap. Very few people will voluntarily stay in 2* properties six blocks from the beach facing trash dumpsters in order to stay under the 15K cap. Even if you're willing to do that, the best you can still do without changing hotels, is only 3-4 nights in many cases before breaking the 15K cap.
Pursuing status and spending on AA became worthless to me this week. I buy F anyway and the status was mainly for IRROPS and one world lounges. The 15K cap is a deal breaker.
You're a douchebag. We get it.
Ben- can you help get an answer from American Airlines to the question that was posed from an earlier comment. Will AA still provide the Loyalty Point awards from aabooking.com if the reservation was made prior to the announcement about the new partner site? We all received an email from AA providing the phone number for aabooking.com if we needed to modify or cancel reservation, but it did not specifically state that existing reservations and...
Ben- can you help get an answer from American Airlines to the question that was posed from an earlier comment. Will AA still provide the Loyalty Point awards from aabooking.com if the reservation was made prior to the announcement about the new partner site? We all received an email from AA providing the phone number for aabooking.com if we needed to modify or cancel reservation, but it did not specifically state that existing reservations and their associated mile awards would still be honored. If not I will cancel and rebook with the new service.
AA always just kicked me back to the third party when I had problems, even though AA was pushing it as a benefit and lending their name. Don’t hold your breath… terrible service.
Have you heard anything? Or Lucky? Got a canned response from aa hotels, that really didn't say much.
I have five upcoming prepaid reservations booked through the previous booking.com-operated “bookaahotels” that came with some very generous Base Miles. When I view those reservations through the new site, an arbitrary number of miles on each booking have now been demoted to Bonus Miles — which would come without corresponding Loyalty Points. Two days ago I reached out to the new site’s concierge (which promises a response within 24 hours), but have heard nothing back....
I have five upcoming prepaid reservations booked through the previous booking.com-operated “bookaahotels” that came with some very generous Base Miles. When I view those reservations through the new site, an arbitrary number of miles on each booking have now been demoted to Bonus Miles — which would come without corresponding Loyalty Points. Two days ago I reached out to the new site’s concierge (which promises a response within 24 hours), but have heard nothing back.
Does anyone else find themselves in the same boat?
Yes, I booked a hotel in Cape Town a couple weeks ago thru AA. The 4 nights in February was around $1900 and earned 35000 points. I checked the same booking today thru the new site and the same hotel cost $2100 and gave 9100 LPs. Kind of a joke right? Since I have my reservation booked I would expect AA honors the 35000 LPs for that hotel stay?? I also reached out to the new site and have not heard anything back about them honoring the LPs.
Under the prior BookAAhotels.com, top-tier properties typically received 10,000 LPs PER NIGHT. Under the new AAdvantage Hotels, the same properties typically receive 10,000 LPs PER STAY for stays of 1, 2, or 3 nights and 15,000 LPs PER STAYS for stays of 4 nights or longer. EVEN A 14-NIGHT STAY AT THE RITZ CARLTON CENTRAL PARK IS CAPPED AT 15,000 LPS PER STAY. This is utter bull-poop.
What if you booked a series of 1- night stays? Yes, annoying - but could you avoid the cap?
Is this possible? I'm staying in Mexico City and each night, I can get 10k points if I book them separately. I don't see anything in the fine print that says no.
Just a suggestion but I would do a post comparing the old platforms with the new one. Simply put, it is no longer a viable and attractive option even for booking with independent hotels. The 15K cap (even if you are paying thousands of dollars per night and they are getting massive commissions) and the lack of LP boost is an absolute killer.
Bookings will certainly tank unless they make changes to the earnings structure.
I'll give it a shot because my travel patterns make AA loyalty points more valuable to me than hotel points. I hated bookaahotels because of how frequently the expected points never arrived. Hopefully this will be better.
Booking hotels through AAHotels has been ok sometimes, and a nightmare other times. Your reservation goes through booking.com or rockettravel.com (you can't tell which when you book), and if there's a problem with a stay everyone points fingers at the other parties and doesn't help you.
For example, I showed up at my hotel last month to find that my months-old reservation had been canceled, even though AAHotels sent me a check-in instruction &...
Booking hotels through AAHotels has been ok sometimes, and a nightmare other times. Your reservation goes through booking.com or rockettravel.com (you can't tell which when you book), and if there's a problem with a stay everyone points fingers at the other parties and doesn't help you.
For example, I showed up at my hotel last month to find that my months-old reservation had been canceled, even though AAHotels sent me a check-in instruction & confirmation email just that morning. I had to pay separately for a new reservation, and when I tried to call the number in the confirmation email I was hung up on several times - not sure if this was because of the early hour or what. Tried calling AAHotels later - they can't help, because they didn't make the reservation. Booking.com can't help. Rocket Travel can't help. The hotel can't help, because I booked through a third (or fourth) party. Citi (who my AAdvantage credit card is through) can't help.
I'm still waiting for a refund for over $2000 for this stay that SSOMEBODY canceled for no reason, then kept my money for.
Just...be careful. Too many parties involved here, and none of them take any ownership whatsoever.
Duh, easy solution. Credit card dispute.
Dang it. Was looking at Ubud (where there are fewer chain and point redemption options) for later this year and was seeing a 4-night stay give 30k to 40k (without even including the boosts), but unfortunately did not lock in the reservation before this. Still have two others under the booking.com platform (with the boost) and now the question is, will AA honor the LPs that would correspond to the original reservations with the boost...
Dang it. Was looking at Ubud (where there are fewer chain and point redemption options) for later this year and was seeing a 4-night stay give 30k to 40k (without even including the boosts), but unfortunately did not lock in the reservation before this. Still have two others under the booking.com platform (with the boost) and now the question is, will AA honor the LPs that would correspond to the original reservations with the boost included? Or just grant LPs for the original miles granted (in my case 4000 + 6000 boost for one and 1000 + 2500 boost for another).
If they don't honor the boost, I might go ahead and cancel the reservations, and re-book them with Aeroplan or Alaska, since the earning rates for those are still quite strong.
Well that was lucky. I had just booked a bunch of throwaway stays through rocketmiles with some boosted options and locked in, i hope, a ton of LP's. After reading this, went back and looked at the current rates and points and it is less than 10% of LP's now and higher prices for the same rocketmiles bookings.
But the lack of LP's with the boost option with AAHotels really stinks. I have 10-15...
Well that was lucky. I had just booked a bunch of throwaway stays through rocketmiles with some boosted options and locked in, i hope, a ton of LP's. After reading this, went back and looked at the current rates and points and it is less than 10% of LP's now and higher prices for the same rocketmiles bookings.
But the lack of LP's with the boost option with AAHotels really stinks. I have 10-15 throwaway hotel stays at side of interstate hotels for random trips and rocketmiles was such a great way to jump some levels quick with AA.
The AAHotels options never were great and don't seem that great especially since there won't be any sweet spot boost mile options anymore. Plus it seems more complicated to keep up with my future stays. Do future stays list in the AA app or anything i can see in an app on my phone? If not, i am sure I'd double book at some point. At least they can sort by points now.
This will just push me back to booking directly with Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt for these low tier stays.
So true. This used to be a cheap way to rack up loyalty points, which explains why it’s gone. The meager points offered now is no incentive to book away from the hotel sites themselves.
An article about some sweet spot that was just completed gutted. point blog style.
What are your thoughts on the old “boost”? Now it asks if you want more miles for an additional cost but has the caveat that those only count as miles and NOT Loyalty Points and they used to go towards Loyalty Points. That is a huge change if you are booking this way to truly make it to the next level of AA status without necessarily flying!
Yeah, that part is completely whack. I will literally only ever use this site if I have fully requalified for status with all of my hotel programs. Last year I used the AA site to do a couple bookings and luckily had no issues and got all additional LP's. 10k per night plus paying for a boost was "worth it" in some instances, now that it's not fully LP's: AA can go back to the...
Yeah, that part is completely whack. I will literally only ever use this site if I have fully requalified for status with all of my hotel programs. Last year I used the AA site to do a couple bookings and luckily had no issues and got all additional LP's. 10k per night plus paying for a boost was "worth it" in some instances, now that it's not fully LP's: AA can go back to the drawing board. They raised requirements this year, and then take away our opportunities to earn. Ridiculous.
Used to search both DL and AA for hotels and points. Good for a while then a lot of bookings moved to non refundable and pay up front.
Nope.
I search the hotel sites directly then bookings and finally the airline sites. Pretty much the airline site lose on both price and requirements. Not worth a few extra miles to potentially get stuck with a booking if my plans change.
Rocketmiles has an interesting feature, allowing to book rooms on behalf of someone else.
Does the AAdvantage Hotels site allow the same?
Great question. Curious about this too.
Ben’s example of the sleep inn stay - the return is ~$78 in redeemable AA points for a $124 stay. That’s not bad at all. Especially on the margin….what if that stay put you over the 250k loyalty point threshold….If you value AA elite status, this new platform coupled with the executive world elite Mastercard could be highly preferable to (1) booking with the Chase Sapphire reserve using...
Great question. Curious about this too.
Ben’s example of the sleep inn stay - the return is ~$78 in redeemable AA points for a $124 stay. That’s not bad at all. Especially on the margin….what if that stay put you over the 250k loyalty point threshold….If you value AA elite status, this new platform coupled with the executive world elite Mastercard could be highly preferable to (1) booking with the Chase Sapphire reserve using Chase’s portal, or (2) non-FHR bookings using Amex’s platform with the Amex Platinum.
AA is methodically and thoughtfully fine-tuning their loyalty points program, credit cards, and partnerships, and I think they’re eating delta’s and United’s lunch. What good are delta lounges if they’re always overcrowded? (Or centurion lounges for that matter). AA seems to be targeting rewards to the customers (not just passengers) throwing them the most revenue. I’d expect delta and United to follow this more and more over time.
That feature allowing you to book for someone else is gone. I used it a lot on rocket miles. I stayed for a 1200 price and the miles were supposed to go to my wife like before. They ended up in my account. If i i now log into my account all AA accounts now show my name. I cannot even delete them. Their helpline has no clue. They cannot and will not help me. Planning to send them a notice of arbitration as i have legal insurance.