American Airlines Miles

[Kat81]

I have a credit card in which I accumulate AA miles. I have never cashed any in though. How do I do it? Can I do it myself? Can a TA do it? Do I have to have all the points to cover the ticket or just some of them and they price the difference? Does anyone know? Sorry that was a lot of questions. I just don't really understand it.

[cheese_diva]

You can book online if you have enough miles to cover the entire cost..otherwise I think you need to buy more miles to make up the difference in which you would probably want to call for reservations directly.

 

Reservations - Select Flights - Award Flight Search

[Maura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kat81 I have a credit card in which I accumulate AA miles. I have never cashed any in though. How do I do it? Can I do it myself? Can a TA do it? Do I have to have all the points to cover the ticket or just some of them and they price the difference? Does anyone know? Sorry that was a lot of questions. I just don't really understand it.

I can answer this -- we booked our travel to our wedding on award miles with AA.

You need to know your AA miles customer number first. Then you can book yourself, or you can give it to a TA to do it for you (however, if you are using the TA to do only your airfare, sometimes they charge you a fee if youre not booking anything else, so check first, but its easy to do on your own IMHO, so why not DIY anyway)

You must have all the points to get a ticket. It costs 35,000 per ticket for an international ticket to Cabo from the US. If you do not have 35,000 miles, you have two options:
1) buy more miles from AA (which can be pricey depending on what you need; in my case we were 8K short for two tickets, so we purchased them from AA for $250 including all the fees associated with it)
2) pay for your tickets, and then use your miles to get upgraded to first class

[kristendotcom]

I used frequent flier miles on AA to Cabo... I got nonstop flights from DFW to Cabo for 30,000 miles each. I booked it right on the website and just had to pay the taxes which I think were about $60 each ticket.

[Maura]

ahh kristen maybe you paid less miles because you are already in TX, but the standard award chart says 35K miles for international flights. the taxes are usually $60-75.

[Kat81]

Thanks girls it makes a little more sense now.

[Mandy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maura ahh kristen maybe you paid less miles because you are already in TX, but the standard award chart says 35K miles for international flights. the taxes are usually $60-75.

Maura, we actually booked our tickets to Guadalajara with our award miles and it was 30K apiece. I think in part it depends on the time of year you are booking/traveling. I've also gotten them to Managua, Nicaragua for 30K (from Missouri). One warning: if you're traveling in a short amount of time (30 days or less, I think), there's an extra charge up to $75 for using your reward miles.

[nylalany]

You should also check with whichever credit card you have because some of them (like citicard) offers reduced mileage awards to certan destinations every quarter (like april-june). So instead of using all 35k or 30k, you might get a ticket for 28k or something.

And it DEFINITELY depends on what time of year you're going - American offers reduced mileage on certain times or offers specials sporadically - just check on their site for more info, it is pretty detailed!

You can also use them to fly other airlines if American doesn't fly there - we flew to Peru biz class on Lan Peru (the kind of seats that fold into beds, my 1st time!) for 60k miles each, which is pretty good!

[Mandy]

Wow, that sounds like an incredible deal! I need to re-build my airmiles again. I'm ready for another trip.

[Lorilou]

I also think they have different mileage categories called SAAVER (30k) and ECONOMY AANYTIME (60K) -but BUSINESS is 60K so i'd do that instead. THis is for CHicago to Puerto Vallarta in May. Looks like you are getting married in Cancun and wedding in Sept, departing from Dallas/Fort Worth. I did a Thurs to Thursday and looks like you could do it for 30k miles each for $63.51 each. not a bad deal at all. Good luck!