American Airlines frequent flyer miles - THE WORST
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Anonymous
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Can someone please help me with using this insane program? I have so many miles, but transatlantic flights seem to always route through London (seemingly so they can charge exorbitant taxes). I live in Europe, and was hoping to use miles to take my family home every now and again, but it seems impossible.
What would you do if you had nearly 300,000 miles and wanted to use them on something good (but not on BA through Heathrow!) Should we look into another destination, ie Africa or Asia? |
Anonymous
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Do you all need to be on the SAME flight? We had more luck with finding TWO seats on one flight and then TWO or three on another flight, with everyone meeting up at the final destination. Each parent flies with one or two children.
Flexibility is key. But no, if Heathrow is the hub, then you can't force them to route you through somewhere else. It doesn't work that way. |
Anonymous
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The rules are always changing so what I'm about to write may not be applicable any more.
BA codeshares with Iberian (owned by the same parent company) and if you have Avios points then you can convert them into Iberian miles and they are much more flexible (and require far less mileage). As AA used to codeshare with BA, this may be possible, then again, it may not. |
Anonymous
| Ugh I hear you OP! It is so frustrating. We did have luck using AA miles to go to SE Asia a few years ago, but it wasn't easy. We were able to use them to get TO Rome as well, but had to use DH's United miles to get back. The charges on BA flights are ridiculous. I cancelled my AA credit card partly because of this. I still have a lot of miles though, so may look into the Caribbean or Central America at some point as AA has a lot of flights that go there. |
Anonymous
| The AA program is indeed crap. Miles expire after 18 months if you haven't added miles. United and Delta, miles last forever. |
Anonymous
Yep. We used up all our AA miles and don't use or go out of our way to collect them anymore. We use United mostly now, which I wouldn't say is awesome but we have better luck to redeeming miles for free travel. |
Anonymous
You can easily shop through their portal and add miles to you account so that this is not a problem. I bought flowers for valentines day ans accrued 14 miles/ $ spent. |
Anonymous
| I accrue a lot of AA miles simply because DCA is one of their hubs and I don't want to go to IAD for United or fly through ATL every time I fly Delta. |
Anonymous
You can also redeem for a magazine subscription for as little as 600 miles. |
Anonymous
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if you try to search from europe, uncheck british airways and you should get some alternatives but they'll likely be connecting flights through ny, philadelphia or charlotte.
another good use is nonstop to LA out of DCA on Alaska Air Or first class to hawaii on lie flat seats through DFW. |
Anonymous
| You may find more non BA codeshare flights from NYC instead of from Washington. Then you can add the DCA JFK leg later. |
Anonymous
| Use them to book on Qatar, if you're going to SE Asia. |
Anonymous
Wait, is this correct? United used to expire. Is that not the case anymore? |
Anonymous
I was originally Continental which did not expire but they were bought out by United, and they still don't expire. Don't know what the United policy was before that, |
Anonymous
Is this a joke? Who reads print magazines anymore? |