Buying miles & points strategically can be a good value, especially for first & business class travel.
Going back a couple of years, American AAdvantage used to consistently have different promotions on purchased miles each month. However, in early 2022, American increased the cost to purchase miles, and seemingly gave up on selling miles, as the program has pretty consistently had the same 35% off promotion on buying miles since then, with limited exceptions.
This spring, we saw a brief period where American sold miles for 45% off, and now American has just launched a promotion whereby miles can be acquired for 50% off. So if you want to buy AAdvantage miles, this is probably as good as it’s going to get.
While I wouldn’t speculatively buy miles at this cost, there’s potentially value to be had. Note that buying AAdvantage miles doesn’t count toward your Loyalty Points total.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased American AAdvantage miles
Through Monday, November 27, 2023, American AAdvantage is offering up to a 50% discount on purchased miles. The offer is tiered, and you get a bigger percentage discount the more miles you buy, as follows:
- Buy 5,000-54,000 miles, receive a 25% discount
- Buy 55,000-149,000 miles, receive a 35% discount
- Buy 150,000-350,000 miles, receive a 50% discount
How much does it cost to purchase American AAdvantage miles?
Ordinarily American sells AAdvantage miles for 3.5 cents each (pre-tax) before factoring in any discounts or bonuses. If you maxed out this promotion and purchased 350,000 AAdvantage miles, you’d receive a total of 350,000 miles at a cost of $6,584.38, which is a rate of 1.88 cents per AAdvantage mile.
As mentioned above, this is the best promotion we’ve seen from the program so far all year.
How many American AAdvantage miles can you purchase?
The American AAdvantage program ordinarily allows members to purchase at most 150,000 miles per account per calendar year, before factoring in any bonuses. However, during this promotion, that cap has been increased to 350,000 miles. Note that AAdvantage accounts less than 30 days old aren’t eligible to purchase miles.
Which credit card should you buy American AAdvantage miles with?
American AAdvantage processes mileage purchases directly, which means the purchase of miles does qualify as airfare spending. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the following cards for your purchase, since you’d earn bonus points for airfare purchases:
The Platinum Card® from American Express
American Express® Gold Card
For example, I value Membership Rewards points at 1.7 cents each, so by my math The Platinum Card® from American Express (review) offers an 8.5% return on this spending, given the 5x points category.
Is buying American AAdvantage miles worth it?
Unlike Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus, American AAdvantage continues to publish award charts for travel on partner airlines, and redemption rates are largely quite good, especially for travel in premium cabins on partner airlines. Among the “big three” carriers in the US, I tend to think AAdvantage has the best redemption opportunities.
I find the cost of business class redemptions to be excellent in many cases. There are instances where it could make sense to pick up miles during a promotion with a short term use in mind. Just to give a few examples of some of my favorite uses of AAdvantage miles (all redemption rates are one-way):
- For 57,500 miles you can fly from the United States to Morocco in Royal Air Maroc business class
- For 60,000 miles you could fly from the United States to Japan in Japan Airlines business class
- For 70,000 miles you could fly from the United States to most of Asia in Cathay Pacific business class
- For 70,000 miles you can fly from the United States to India in Etihad business class
- For 75,000 miles you can fly from the United States to South Africa in Qatar Airways business class
On what airlines can you redeem American AAdvantage miles?
American Airlines belongs to the oneworld alliance, so you can redeem AAdvantage miles on all oneworld airlines.
On top of that, you can redeem miles on some of American’s other partner airlines, including Air Tahiti Nui, China Southern, Etihad Airways, Fiji Airways, and GOL Airlines.
How much are American AAdvantage miles worth?
Everyone will value mileage currencies differently, but personally I value American AAdvantage miles at ~1.5 cents each. However, I tend to value points pretty conservatively, and there are many ways to get way more value from AAdvantage miles than that.
Do American AAdvantage miles expire?
American AAdvantage miles don’t expire as long as you have at least some account activity once every 24 months. Eligible activity includes earning or redeeming AAdvantage miles in any quantity.
What other ways can you earn American AAdvantage miles?
There are lots of great ways to earn American miles aside from outright buying them:
- There are excellent welcome bonuses on co-branded American AAdvantage credit cards
- You can earn AAdvantage miles with a Bask Savings Account
- You can earn AAdvantage miles for everyday purchases with programs like AAdvantage Dining and SimplyMiles
Bottom line
American AAdvantage has just launched its best promotion on purchased miles in quite some time. The program is offering up to a 50% discount on purchased miles, which is an opportunity to buy miles for 1.88 cents each. While I wouldn’t speculatively buy miles at this cost, with a specific use in mind, there could be value with this offer.
Do you plan on buying American miles with this promotion?
"American AAdvantage processes mileage purchases directly, which means the purchase of miles does qualify as airfare spending. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the following cards for your purchase, since you’d earn bonus points for airfare purchases"
Is this true ? So using Amex Plat to buy these miles will result in 5x points ?
I think the spend, ~ $9,000 on the card gets ~18,000 LP.
In your 4th paragraph, you warn: "...buying AAdvantage miles doesn’t count toward your Loyalty Points total." But the email blast from AA states, "Earn 1 additional mile and Loyalty Point per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases when you use your AAdvantage® credit card." What am I missing?
That is a separate promo if using a credit card.
Correct! But since a good number of OMAAT's readers are likely to hold an AA card with this promo, the "bonus" LPs might be useful to folks who are on the requalification hamster wheel.
If maxing out the promo, the spend of 6K counts as LP if using an AA card. The purchased miles (350K) doesn't count as LP's.
Question: If you purchase the AA World Elite M/C, don’t you get 4x miles for AA spend - and then 5x AA spend after $150K charged? So in this case, if you use the card and pay $2500 to purchase miles under this offer and you’re in the 5x group, you get an additional 12,500 miles (plus the miles purchased) and a total of 12,500 LPs. Am I getting this wrong?