American Airlines has revealed that it’s changing how members can redeem American AAdvantage miles for upgrades. I suspect that some people will like this change, while others won’t.
In this post:
American rolls out instant upgrades with miles
Effective immediately, American has rolled out instant upgrades using American AAdvantage miles. As most travelers are probably aware, American has been selling upgrades for cash through both the website and app for quite some time, for those who have already ticketed their itineraries.
The airline is now taking this to the next level — when you see the option to upgrade with cash, you’ll also see the option to upgrade with miles. As you’d expect, these upgrade offers are dynamic, so you’ll find vastly different pricing depending on the flight you’re on, and you’ll even find that the cost for an upgrade on a particular flight can change significantly as the departure date approaches (both up and down).
A couple of data points I’ve seen suggest American is generally offering just under one cent of value per mile for these upgrades, in comparison to paying cash. That’s not exactly a great use of miles.
This replaces American’s mileage upgrade award chart
There’s nothing wrong with American giving customers the option to pay cash or redeem miles for upgrades, but here’s the bad news. Previously, American AAdvantage published an upgrade award chart, so as long as confirmable upgrade space was available, you could confirm an upgrade.
The bad news is that the new instant upgrade program is replacing the old system for upgrading. Any new requests using the mileage upgrade award chart will no longer be accepted starting August 12, 2025. So that means upgrading American flights with miles will go fully dynamic in terms of pricing.
American will continue to honor confirmed mileage upgrades and continue working to confirm existing waitlisted requests, even after this date. Note that none of these changes impact how systemwide upgrades can be used, or how complimentary upgrades for elites work. This strictly applies if you’re looking to redeem miles for upgrades.
With this change, it’ll certainly be easier than before to upgrade with miles, though the value often won’t be as good. Furthermore, it won’t be possible to confirm an upgrade during booking, since you need to ticket your reservation before you seen any upgrade offers (previously you could call and have an agent help you do both at the same time).
I can’t say I’m surprised to see this change. Frankly, American made the process of upgrading with miles ridiculously complicated — most members couldn’t actually see upgrade availability online, and then you needed to call to actually confirm the upgrade.
So for those into maximizing value, I’d say this is bad news. But in terms of making upgrades easier for more people (who aren’t obsessed with maximizing miles), this is probably good news. As you might expect, I’m not a fan of this change, because I have no interest in redeeming miles for just a penny each.
Bottom line
American is overhauling its system for mileage upgrades. Effective immediately, American is offering upgrades with miles for existing itineraries through the website and app, just as you’ll see an option to upgrade with cash. This is coming at the expense of the existing mileage upgrade award chart, which has fixed costs for upgrades, but more capacity controls.
What do you make of these changes to American’s upgrade program?
The best use for airline miles has ALWAYS been upgrades on international flights.
What are these numbers REALLY going to when evaluating international travel only? I suspect it's a lot worse than dropping from 1.2 cents to .99 cents value.
Whenever there's no tables and transparency, it's a lot easier for the airline to hide changes.
And lower it little by little, death by a thousand cuts.
They could have implemented this without taking away the upgrade award chart pricing.
Let the chumps who don't research take the lousy offer advertised to them on the web, in the app.
And let true loyalists leverage the hard to find award chart deals.
Bad move American - and time for yet another transfer out of Bask Bank.
The answer as with everything is: it depends. In recent years, I’ve found it difficult to secure premium long haul award space to places I actually care to fly at reasonable rates via AA, even on partner airlines, leaving me with a still large pile of miles since I retired 4 years ago, With long haul international flights now with obvious excess capacity in the past few months, availability has suddenly gotten easier, so maybe...
The answer as with everything is: it depends. In recent years, I’ve found it difficult to secure premium long haul award space to places I actually care to fly at reasonable rates via AA, even on partner airlines, leaving me with a still large pile of miles since I retired 4 years ago, With long haul international flights now with obvious excess capacity in the past few months, availability has suddenly gotten easier, so maybe options for using AA miles (including upgrades) will improve and be less dire than predicted for at least a while. That is, until flights start getting cut back to wait out the decline.
I did my first 25K, $350 international upgrade from PE to Business in March. They never charged the card, nor subtracted the miles. That goes away with this new process
This is probably the biggest devaluation in years for AA as most dynamic long-haul upgrades are going to cost far more than 25,000 miles + $350 copay. In general, I think you would want to pay cash for the upgrade as you dont earn LP when you pay with miles.
Really the only good use of miles now is award flights if you want them to be worth more than 1.0 cents/mile. This may...
This is probably the biggest devaluation in years for AA as most dynamic long-haul upgrades are going to cost far more than 25,000 miles + $350 copay. In general, I think you would want to pay cash for the upgrade as you dont earn LP when you pay with miles.
Really the only good use of miles now is award flights if you want them to be worth more than 1.0 cents/mile. This may force everyone to lower AA miles from the 1.5 cent/miles they used to be worth. I guess on the plus side, that may mean more availability of upgrades and make SWUs easier to use and more valuable.
As I told the NYT months ago when interviewed: fly less, buy F, f*** loyalty. This move simply proves a point: Miles are a chump's game now.
I'm most concerned about enabling upgrade from Y to P - soon they will announce that SWU do no longer upgrade Y to C but to P...
they will lose a ton of elites to other airlines if they do that. one of the last remaining areas AA outshines competitors.
Now if only they could confirm SWUs instantly!
Isn't the value of a mile the same cost of what AA would sell them for?
Can someone explain to me how systemwide upgrades work and if they are always available or only for certain flights? I have never been able to use them or am doing something wrong. Thanks.
Ben posted an excellent guide to AA's SWUs three months ago - https://onemileatatime.com/guides/american-airlines-systemwide-upgrades/
FWIW, I'm not having any luck using them either.
If you're not seeing this for what it is -- a chance for American to massively raise the price of upgrades with points-- then you're fooling yourself.
Miles upgrades are going to go from ~25K + a few hundred bucks on a long haul to 100-300K. This is a massive devaluation.
Not only that... It is also a nail in the coffin of complimentary upgrades for elites, since the process of upgrading by anybody becomes so much easier (even though not making sense economically but, as many have remarked, the majority of people do not do the math). You are right, Jake. This is a MASSIVE devaluation.
I find myself very fortunate at the right time: Just promoted to Platinum Pro for Life, it essentially means...
Not only that... It is also a nail in the coffin of complimentary upgrades for elites, since the process of upgrading by anybody becomes so much easier (even though not making sense economically but, as many have remarked, the majority of people do not do the math). You are right, Jake. This is a MASSIVE devaluation.
I find myself very fortunate at the right time: Just promoted to Platinum Pro for Life, it essentially means that I do not need to requalify, am free to fly with anybody and maybe get Elite with an alliance through a good offer, status match or otherwise. Skyteam has taken a head start. AA miles (from old trips and CC) can always be used exclusively through partners, the only remaining decent use. The same goes with status: Oneworld Emerald is infinitely more valuable than AA Platinum Pro or even Executive Platinum.
So this means Miles + copay for international go away too? That’s a horrible change as there is generally good value there if you don’t have SWUs available.
What a fantastic change. Excellent way to use miles that just pile up in my account.
Bizarre blog/Flyertalk obsession with cpm set aside in the real world.
The miles cost nothing to acquire (by product of work travel) so no need to try to value them as if they are money. They arent.
lmao you might be on the wrong website homie
That's YOUR situation. Others might have different situations. Can you conceive that others might have different views?
“The miles cost nothing to acquire”. You definitely on the wrong site, homie.
The impulse “buys” in the lobby will be tragic. I think it’s a smart move though, miles for many don’t equate to dollars, much like chips in a casino. This CC elites who don’t do the math will be so happy they won’t even know how bad the conversion was.
I agree. Give ma and pa kettle their 100,000 mile “upgrade” as long as it helps AA get some miles liabilities off the books and prevents them from devaluing the partner award chart, I’m satisfied.