Learn how to amass AA Miles so you can stay in the 7-star hotel Burj al-Arab in Dubai! Photo by: Evan Berman

When introducing the Asheville trip, I mentioned that when searching for hotels, my second choice is to earn lots of American Airlines miles. I thought it worth mentioning just why I find AA miles so valuable and how you can earn them.

For better or for worse, it has been a trend for US carriers to get rid of their awards charts in recent years. In case you are unfamiliar, there are pros and cons of dynamic pricing versus using award charts. Delta was first and the most egregious– prices for economy flights are regularly 100k+ miles even on transcontinental flights both by Delta and SkyTeam partners.

United and American Airlines both price their own awards (meaning flights flown by UA or AA) dynamically but maintain an award chart for partner airlines. United recently raised prices on partner flights to expensive levels to Europe. For now– and I cannot stress enough that this is likely to change in the next few years– American offers arguably the most valuable airline miles in the world.

Miles Are Easy to Earn

Let’s start with this one. If I told you that Airline XYZ offers flights to anywhere in the world in First Class for 10 miles, you might get excited (and hopefully skeptical!). But what if I then told you that the only way to earn miles is on domestic North Korean flights or by paying $5,000 per mile. Less exciting, right?

Thankfully AA makes it quite easy to amass miles. First, you earn miles when flying AA and can opt to earn AAdvantage miles on partner flights.

However, what if you don’t fly American frequently or at all? The Loyalty Points system was unveiled last year and allows you to earn miles from online shopping, at the gas station, by taking surveys, or staying in hotels. Personally, I accrue tens of thousands of miles a year. I’ve earned 14,000 miles from 3 hotel stays totaling 4 nights already this year. Additionally, by making purchases at certain stores, especially in combination with other credit card offers and rebates, it’s easy to earn thousands of miles for few dollars out of pocket, especially on purchases that you would already make.

Finally, there is the credit card option. AA offers cards through both Citi and Barclays. There are frequently offers for 60,000-75,000 miles after meeting minimum spend requirements. For example, I earned 80,000 miles after spending $2,000 in 3 months on the Barclays AAdvantage Aviator World Elite Business Card.

American’s Generous Award Chart

From/to the US and Canada:

From/to Middle East:

Here are the Region Definitions:

Central America:

Belize	Costa Rica	El Salvador	Guatemala
Honduras	Nicaragua	Panama

Central America is a fairly designed region with no discernable gamable sweet spots.

Caribbean:

Anguilla	Antigua & Barbuda	Aruba	Bahamas
Barbados	Bermuda	British Virgin Islands	Cayman Islands
Curacao	Dominica	Dominican Republic	Grenada
Guadeloupe	Haiti	Jamaica	Martinique
Puerto Rico	St. Kitts/Nevis	St. Lucia	St. Maarten
Trinidad/Tobago	Turks/Caicos Islands	US Virgin Islands

Puerto RIco is a part of the Caribbean, a giant region that stretches down below Northern South America. It’s not uncommon to find deals to Puerto Rico for less than $300 from most major East Coast airports. As such, it may be worth it to you to book a flight to Puerto Rico then fly onward. Unfortunately, this may be impossible due to routing rules– you’d likely have to fly to Miami then onwards on AA, which is not allowed. Play around with it though and see if you can find anything! The 10,000 AAdvantage Miles cost savings could certainly be worth it.

South America 1:

Bolivia	Columbia	Ecuador	Guyana
Manaus (Brazil)	Peru	Suriname

There isn’t much in the way of stellar deals here, especially as there are no oneworld airlines that fly to the Galapagos Islands.

South America 2:

Argentina	Brazil (excluding Manaua)	Chile	Falkland Islands
Paraguay	Uruguay	Venezuela

The Falklands look like a beautiful place to visit. At the moment only LATAM flies there from Puerto Arenas and awards are challenging to find. That being said, if you were able to find good award space, it is the same price as flying to Venezuela which is in Northern South America! Of course, you’re probably not visiting either place soon…

Europe:

Albania	Armenia	Austria	Azerbaijan
Belgium	Bulgaria	Canary Islands	Croatia
Cyprus	Czech Republic	Denmark	Estonia
Finland	France	Georgia	Germany
Gibraltar	Greece	Hungary	Iceland
Italy	Latvia	Lithuania	Luxembourg
Macedonia	Malta	Moldova	Montenegro
Morocco	Netherlands	Norway	Poland
Portugal	Romania	Slovenia	Spain
Sweden	Switzerland	Turkey	Ukraine
United Kingdom

There are a few things to unpack here. First, Iceland and the Canary Islands are a part of Europe. That makes sense intuitively, but consider that this means you pay the same price to fly there as to Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc. Whether that is a good or bad deal depends on the origin. Flying from the US? Not so much. From Asia, Africa, or the Middle East? That is a potentially great deal!

Next up, Azerbaijan is a part of Europe though this one is a bit of a bummer. The routing rules for AA Awards are relatively strict so you cannot book an award from the US to Azerbaijan as it is not allowed to fly from the US to Europe via the Middle East (Doha with Qatar or Abu Dhabi with Etihad).

Turkey is also considered a part of Europe. While that may seem like good news, unfortunately you will often be flying British Airways which means high taxes & fees (over $300 for Economy and $700 for Business/First) which negates the cost savings.

Additionally, both Turkey and Azerbaijan are cities that Qatar flies to from Doha which means if you want to fly there from Asia, you will have to pay the higher Europe cost compared to the Middle East bargain.

Finally, Morocco is considered a part of Europe. If you are looking to visit Marrakech or Casablanca, the pricing from Europe of Royal Air Maroc is the same as to anywhere else in Europe. That can be a good bargain especially if you wish to visit other countries in Northern Africa.

Middle East:

Bahrain	Egypt	Iran	Iraq
Israel	Jordan	Kuwait	Lebanon
Oman	Qatar	Saudi Arabia	United Arab Emirates

As Egypt is considered part of the Middle East, you can fly from the US or Asia for less than the rest of Africa. Keep in mind that the savings from the US are minimal and will likely be more than eaten up by the cost of flying from Egypt to somewhere else in Africa.

Indian Subcontinent:

Bangladesh	India	Kazakhstan	Maldives
Nepal	Pakistan	Sri Lanka	Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Since the Maldives counts as a part of the Indian Subcontinent, you can fly there for the same price as the Middle East/rest of the Subcontinent from the US or Asia. Pretty good for a group of islands in the middle of the ocean!

Africa:

Algeria	Angola	Botswana	Djibouti
Equitorial Guinea	Ethiopia	Ghana	Kenya
Mauritius	Melilla	Mozambique	Namibia
Nigeria	Rwanda	Senegal	Seychelles
South Africa	Sudan	Tanzania	Tunisia
Uganda	Zambia	Zimbabwe

The only upside here are the Seychelles and Mauritius are both considered a part of Africa. Much like how the Maldives prices at the same level as India, you can fly from the US for the same price as places much closer such as Ghana or Senegal.

Asia 1

Asia 1 consists of Japan and Korea. As such the only slight value is that flying to Korea costs the same as Japan from another region (e.g. continuing on from Japan to Korea for free from the US) and that a flight from Korea to Japan would price lower than any other country in Asia. However, these are minor and do not offer terribly meaningful benefits or savings.

Asia 2:

Brunei	Cambodia	China	Hong Kong
Indonesia	Malaysia	Myanmar	Phillippines
Singapore	Taizan	Thailand	Vietnam

Asia 2 does not have any discernible sweet spots to game, although there is a great deal to be had when flying outside of Asia. Since Asia 1 and Asia 2 price similarly, you can get a much longer flight for roughly the same miles as going to Japan/Korea.

South Pacific:

American Samoa and Samoa	Australia	Fiji	French Polynesia
Guam	Kiribati	New Caledonia	New Zealand
Palau	Papua New Guinea	Solomon Islands	Tonga
Tuvalu	Vanuatu

The South Pacific is so vast it is almost impossible to come up with an award chart. Guam is a long way from Australia so intra-South Pacific flights may be a great deal.

Examples

Let’s use a few examples. Remember that these prices are when there is award availability and often on popular routes that ranges from difficult to nearly impossible to find. Are you based in the US and want to fly to Japan? You can do so for 60,000 (check) miles each way in business or 37,500 miles each way in Economy! Do you want to visit the Middle East (which generously includes Egypt as well as the -stan countries, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan)? You can do so for 70,000 miles each way in Business Class or 40,000 miles each way in economy (check). Australia can be visited for only 80,000 miles each way in Business Class or 40,000 miles each way (check) in economy!

Below are the best value deals:

1. Flying from the US to South Africa for 75,000 miles each way in Business Class
2. Flying from the US to the Middle East for 70,000 miles each way in Business Class– $43 in fees
3. Flying from Asia to the Middle East for 50,000 miles each way in First Class or 40,000 miles each way in Business Class.
4. Flying from the US to Asia for 60,000- 70,000 miles each way in Business Class (depends on location)
5. Flying from the US to Oceania for 80,000 miles each way in Business Class

I will be using the 1^st and 3^rd sweet spots on upcoming trips and can’t wait to review them in detail! Most believe that Qatar Airlines’ QSuites business class suites are the best business class product in the world and it is possible to fly that product from any city in the US to South Africa (Cape Town or Johannesburg) with a stop in Doha, Qatar for 75,000 miles! Even if you live in a small city, you can connect to an airport that offers non-stop flights to Doha such as Dallas (DFW), New York (JFK), Chicago (ORD), San Francisco (SFO), and many others for no extra cost!

Alternatively, are you crazy (fun!) like me and want to visit multiple destinations on different continents on 1 trip? Suppose that you are in Asia (any country from Japan to India) and want to fly to the Middle East in style. If you can find award availability, it is possible to fly Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, or Cathay Pacific First Class for only 50,000 miles! Alternatively, Business Class, especially on Qatar’s QSuites can be spectacular… just like the deal to fly from Asia to the Middle East for 40,000 miles. Again, even if you origin and destination airports are off the beaten track (ex. flying from Guam to Kyrgyzstan), you will pay the same price as a direct flight from Tokyo to Dubai or from Hong Kong to Abu Dhabi.

Domestic:

Flights in the US on American Airlines can fluctuate wildly but there are quite a few deals on domestic flights as well. It is not uncommon to find flights form the US to the Caribbean for 10,000 miles each way! It’s hard to predict these prices so my advice as always is to jump on the deal when you see it!

Flexibility is Great

This brings me to a point that is not to be overlooked: you may freely cancel flights on AA at any time. So, if you see a deal to fly to Australia in Business Class for 80k miles and have the AA miles on hand, why not tentatively book the flight and then decide if you want to go? What’s the worst that happens? You have to cancel the flight and get your miles and fees back in 3-4 hours. While Delta and United offer the same flexibility, you will pay for that privilege with much higher award prices.

Taxes and Fees are (Almost Always) Low

There are other programs that offer award pricing at similar or lower levels. Unfortunately, these other programs usually come with taxes and fees that range from high to astronomical. For example, did you know that you can fly Lufthansa First Class for 50,000 miles one-way, if you could amass enough Asiana miles? Unfortunately, the fees would cost you $1,700 or more in addition to the miles. Sure, that’s better than buying the flight outright for $5,000+ but how much so?

Thankfully, AA is great about not passing along fees and fuel surcharges with one notable exception. Remember those great deals I mentioned above? Here are the taxes and fees that go along with them:

1. Flying from the US to South Africa for 75,000 miles each way in Business Class– $45.40 in fees
2. Flying from the US to the Middle East for 70,000 miles each way in Business Class– $43 in fees
3. Flying from Asia to the Middle East for 50,000 miles each way in First Class– $59.50 or 40,000 miles each way in Business Class– $59.50. These may vary slightly if you have more than 1 connection but never more than $150 in total.
4. Flying from the US to Asia for 60,00- 70,000 miles each way in Business Class (depends on Asian location).
5. Flying from the US to Oceania for 80,000 miles each way in Business Class– $25

The only exception lies when flying to, from, or through London. Whether you fly American, British Airways, or find a routing on Iberia or Finnair that means you will be visiting London Heathrow or Gatwick, expect fees to be $300-$900. For example, while British Airways Business Class can be had for 57,500 miles one-way that will come with up to $960 in fees! On American, that number will be closer to $350. That’s why I did not highlight flights to/from Europe in the sweet spot selection. Use other miles if London is on your mind!

Summary

American Airlines might not be the best to fly with– in fact, I only fly them when it’s the cheapest/most convenient option. That being said, the partner award chart is unbeatable. Between cheap award prices for Economy, Business, and some First Class flights, low taxes and fees, and great flexibility and cancellation policies, the program is my single favorite and I make sure to maintain a decent amount of AAdvantage miles as I keep finding myself using them for high value redemptions! I will note again that it seems like the AA award chart will be devalued (prices raised) soon, but until then keep getting outsized value! What’s your favorite redemption using AAdvantage miles?