May 10th, 2009
AA Launches One-Way Mileage Awards!!!
Note: Need AA Miles? You can transfer 20K Starwood Starpoints that you’ve earned from your Starwood AMEX into 25K AA miles. Or you can easily churn AA’s credit card from Citibank.
Effective immediately you can now book one-way awards on American Airlines for half of the round-trip mileage required!
AA is the first major US based carrier to allow for one-way awards.
Besides for the obvious benefit of being able to book a one-way flight when you only need to travel one-way, there are even benefits from this new policy if you are traveling round-trip.
Previously if you were flying JFK-LAX and there was a 25K MileSAAver on the outbound, but only a 50K AAnytime on the return, the ticket would cost 50K. With the new one-way ticket pricing that trip would only be 37.5K. Or you could just book the outbound for 12.5K and keep checking for a 12.5K return flight to open up.
Additionally AA has a number of off-peak awards to international destinations. Previously if your trip spanned from off-peak into peak pricing the entire trip was priced at peak. Now you will be able to mix peak and off-peak pricing.
The only casualty of this new policy is the loss of a free stopover in an international city, which will now be priced as an additional one-way flight. Seems like a very worthwhile trade-off in my book though…
Between this very customer friendly policy change, the counting of all AA miles towards lifetime elite status, and the ongoing amazing availbility of AA awards at MileSAAver rates, AAdvantage miles are by far the most valuable domestic mileage currency today.
May 10th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Did they still allow changes with no fee?
May 10th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
You can change the date and time with no fee.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I fear that they will eliminate the 25k mile sign up bonus for the AAdvantage Credit card and only offer the Standard 15k miles and promote it as “more than enough for a (o/w) FLIGHT.”
May 10th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
@Mendel:
Yes, AA is the only airline to allow free date changes on award tickets. (CO and UA only allow it for free if the new date is 21+ days out.)
@Con:
Hint: There is a 30k link in the post!
May 10th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
I just applied for another AA card on my wife’s name (she already had 2 which were combined for a total of 30k) so I’m not surprised that they only gave her 2,200 credit line, (in today’s credit crunch)
I just hope that they give the 1st year free as promised, and give the 30,000 bonus…
May 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I got an email from AA with a link for a CC that gives you 25k miles after you spend $750 and another 10k if you spend $10,000 in the first year (which I guess is not so hard if you have the help of our friends from the mint). And yes, the first year is free.
It says that it is only valid to people who they invite through the email, but maybe someone can find a way around it.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
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June 15th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Is it possible to change the date of a flight date when you enter your visa number, to a date that there is no tickets available for AA Mileage? Will they allow you to get a ticket for free?