Questions and Answers

So here’s the deal. I currently have about 104,000 AAdvantage miles. I earned these miles from the US Airways credit card before that disappeared as well as the Citi AAdvantage Card. I have a family of four, and want to hopefully travel to Europe next summer.

What’s the best use of these miles pre-devaluation? Trying to find something affordable and aspirational with award availability is tough. Thoughts on buying miles? Credit cards I should get to make this more realistic?

Just for reference these are the others points I have access to:
~250,000 US Bank FlexPoints (yes, I know, horrible)
~232,000 Delta SkyPesos
~60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards
~52,000 Amex Membership Rewards
~250,000 Hilton HHonors (not sure if this is necessary, but am providing it just in case)

Nolan–unfortunately while you have a good diversity of points, you’re not quite at a place where they can be leveraged for “aspirational” travel. You could boost your AA totals by buying miles through the current bonus and opening credit cards. It would go faster if there are other members of your family that also do the same. Then you’d have to monitor for summer space to Europe, not always the easiest, especially with One World carriers since BA tends to be the most commonly available option and charges significant surcharges and doesn’t have the greatest J product.

My recommendation would be to use an award booking service that has some knowledge of availability trends and can help you plan your trip. It’s going to be tight to get everything in place for a summer trip but still doable. Good luck.