American Airlines eliminated saver and anytime award travel in favor of dynamic pricing. And always and everywhere that airlines have done this, they’ve devalued their miles. I don’t think AAdvantage members realize how much their miles are devalued, though, if they live in an American Airlines hub and are trying to redeem for non-stop flights.
Here’s how it used to work. If a saver award seat was available, the price of the award was determined by the regions you were traveling between. A business class award between anywhere in North America and anywhere in Australia cost 80,000 miles each way.
- For instance, whether you flew Los Angeles – Sydney or Philadelphia – Los Angeles – Sydney the price was 80,000 miles.
- In fact, people often felt like they were getting a better deal flying Philadelphia – Los Angeles – Sydney for 80,000 miles because they got more premium cabin flying without having to spend extra miles. (Indeed some frequent flyer programs priced awards based on distance, so more travel cost more.)
- American’s new award chart says business class from the U.S. to Australia ‘starts at’ 95,000 miles. So when the cheapest seats are available that’s the price you should expect it to cost – that’s literally what the airline tells you.
The cheapest I generally see American Airlines business class on their non-stop Los Angeles – Sydney flight is 223,000 miles one-way.
However if you’re connecting you’ll find it much cheaper. That includes your flight to Los Angeles and the very same flight from Los Angeles to Sydney.
Let’s have a look at December 5. American is offering business class one way from Charlotte to Australia starting at 60,000 miles.
But if you want to start that same business class trip in Los Angeles – taking the same overwater flight! – it’s 223,000 miles.
You might want to defend American Airlines here, and I’m open to hearing it. My first thought was, “it’s a revenue-based program now, and people might be willing to pay more for the non-stop flight” and argue that it’s therefore fair for American to charge a mileage premium for non-stop flights too? That might not get you to almost four times as many miles, but ok.
Here’s the cost of that non-stop flight if paying cash today:
It turns out that American Airlines connections from Charlotte are substantially more expensive when buying a ticket.
Put another way, American Airlines is charging LA-based members 73% more miles for a product that is actually 32% cheaper! Ennismore hotels calls its new offering a Dis-loyalty program. But isn’t that actually what AAdvantage has created, making your miles worth so much less?
This is only one of the many ways that AAdvantage has devalued. One-way awards for travel on American are now frequently much more half the cost of a roundtrip. Even those non-stop redemption prices that don’t match American’s award chart, have gotten more expensive. Last year Los Angeles – Sydney was generally available for 175,000 or 195,000 miles – 23,000 to 43,000 miles less than today.
American AAdvantage doesn’t have access to as many partner airlines as Star Alliance competitors like United and Air Canada, making their miles better-suited for premium cabin travel to far-flung reaches of the world. But AAdvantage is still a good program for booking awards on its partners. Those prices haven’t gone up. And that’s the advantage American has over Delta. But for American Airlines premium cabin travel I’m not sure members fully realize the SkyMiles-ization of AAdvantage that’s gone on.
What is your current valuation of American miles?
@Beachfan they haven’t changed partner awards (though in practice changes to partner awards have become more difficult) and that is what mostly drove my valuation before. So I am debating whether or how much the valuation changes.
Thank you for this – it’s rare to see blog articles on ff program shortcomings. However, I would take issue with the assertion that AA is still a good program for partner redemptions. Availability and/or excessive connections and travel time are too common problems to call it a good program, in my opinion. And that’s for just about all for Fe programs, not just AA.
Partner awards seem very narrow. Do you publish the miles for you or your readers?
Maybe two values, one for partners and one for their own metal.
I myself don’t have luck with partners. For example, LAX-Mad in J is always booked by the time AA opens the window. I transfer Amex MR to IBs Avios. It would seem considering this partner, Amex points must be worth 5x American points.
To me AA miles are worth very little these days and I never chase them anymore. However, the Loyalty Points side of the coin is where I find value in the Aadvantage program.
Also a partner award if you aren’t at the gateway will require two bookings most of the time, one a positioning flight.
@Beachfan – the last valuation update I did is at https://viewfromthewing.com/value-of-frequent-flyer-miles/
So happy I burned almost my last AA miles 18 months ago at 70k each way in Japan Airlines business class from SFO to BKK. I could have used fewer AS miles but I expected AA to devalue faster and harder. Boy did they.
Everyone focuses on devaluation. I call it inflation. Look at the earning changes over the years. There are now 100,000 mile CC signups, you can multiple CC accounts with multiple banks and earn large bonuses, miles for shopping, dining, banking, charitable contributions, etc.
Maybe the days of a 25,000 FC award is history, but so is the 25,000 CC sign up bonus.
Very insightful article.
AA sure has a number of underhanded business practices. Do you have insights on why of all One World Partners American Airlines is the only one who require that One World Emerald/Platinum members traveling in economy buy meals and alcoholic beverages when flying economy domestically? What’s next One World Emerald/Platinum Members will be asked pay for lounge access only in AA lounges?
Can you please investigate and do an article on this. I would be happy to give evidence from numerous recent flights.
Thanks for work you do
I agree Gary – it’s really a shame. It’s why I left the Delta game long ago. Now UAL has gotten equally ridiculous in terms of their pricing and seems they have also let the partner awards become dynamic. I have written them about it but, of course, crickets. I should have burned my AA like one of the previous commenters did. My only hope is, perhaps, a JAL award on AA before they toss partners into the pot as well. Thanks for this blurb.
I still see no reason to be loyal to any big three airline when they can’t delivery anything consistently–be it food, service, performance, or a working tray table.
@Andrew: Your inflation explanation only applies to those who get miles by applying credit cards. For those who earn miles just by flying, they don’t get miles = “5 times x distance” they fly. So if AA, DL, UA (the king) charges 500k miles for something it used to be 80k, that is devaluation.
Thank you, Gary. Very insightful and useful.
The pricing is insane. I paid like 300k miles for my husband and I to fly from DFW to Savannah in Domestic Biz RT. Ludicrous.
Why is anyone surprised? Even since the USAir gang took over, they have been remarkably effective at achieving and maintaining their #1 objective……..ignoring and degrading their customers (especially the best ones) so they can enrich themselves.
This is true for UA too. Direct flights get completely shafted on points redemptions currently and the connections that are cheaper have terrible timings. The other thing I have seen with American is discounts for booking round trip of about 20k miles each way vs two o/ws
Yeah, it’s wild that the award flights are so much disconnected from the actual pricing. One might think this is on purpose, but I don’t. While I’m sure AA has a team of data scientists trying to optimize pricing/revenue, having been a revenue director at decent size software company, your pricing models can make mistakes that you only find out about months (even years) after you implement them- and it’s customers who nearly always find them!
And inflation is a thing, lol. As miles are based mostly on what money you spend at AA, and money is inflationary, it means that frequent flier miles will be as well. Though… there is nothing to stop AA from saying, “GREAT NEWS! We have halved the award chart!”, while also making miles only 0.3 miles per 1$, lol.
It’s all about how you market price increases to customers.
Finally, I do think gone are the days you can try to get .02/mile back for AA. The *best* I can do for a premium seat is around $0.01/mile or so (I’m EP and have half a million give or take 200k at any point in time, so a recent 1st class round trip from PHL to JAX in January is 85k, the price was $860, and there were NO system-wide upgrades available either, sigh)
-Jon
LAX to Sydney on Delta using miles was 443,000 miles each way. Instead, I book for Mexico City. And it was 95,000 each way. Same connecting flight at LAX.
I’m actually debating whether to pay $95 or 7500+$6 for a trip next week. AA miles valued at north of 1ct in this scenario which is better than DL and probably similar to many redemptions to LHR but a far cry from QR suites (if those awards still exist!). Leaning towards paying cash (like a sucker).
The pricing on the Pacific routes post “dynamic pricing”was nuts. 450k pretty much every day in J. Something changed about a month ago and flight pricing seems to be more in line with demand. I was able to score AKL-DFW-ORD for 60k in J which is one of the better redemption I’ve ever had based off current market conditions. I was really bummed as it felt like AA had gone the way of SKYpesos and just priced everything at 450k. Happy to see they are actually offering some decent values again.
200k+ award travel isn’t what would keep me engaged with AAdvantage, but AA was already doing this before with married segment availability. Saver availability was extremely rare for years too. Also, prices today are still often much better than Delta and United.
In a way things are better because 60k miles US to Sydney in J is a fantastic deal, even better than before, and there’s deals like this all over the place whereas before I couldn’t ever find saver availability in business class.
No one but American knows their pricing models, but it’s not surprising that miles prices don’t match with award prices. These are separate markets, and I figure a lot of people want non stop J to Australia, few want to make many connections. Plus, AA doesn’t want to cannibalize non-award sales. The new system maintains (and in some way expands) the system that segregates those who want convenience and will pay top dollar vs those that want a good deal and won’t otherwise shell out thousands for a flight.
Meant to say it’s not surprising that cash prices don’t match with award prices
About five years ago we dropped our AAdvantage Credit Cards in favor of BarclayCard which provided a cash benefit. Why? Because over time, the value of our AA miles declined until we were unable to redeem our miles for reasonable flights to desired destinations. It was obvious that management had deprioritized rewards in order to boost their bottom line. With that, they lost our business altogether.
I just put on hold DCA LAX SYD in First (Long Live the Swivel Seat!) for next July for ~140,000 AA miles. But I’ll shepherd my reservation and it might drop – like last months award to SYD. Booked at 220,000 then rebooked a week or so out at 110,000. Then rebooked a couple days later for 90,000 🙂
I wish I can get those miles mentioned, I just checked lax to seoul for 785k miles in J one way, how in the world can someone spend that much miles, somehow this dynamic pricing is ridiculous, no matter how you look at it and can’t booked oneworld to Asia because they are nowhere to be found. Been calling AA direct for 3 weeks and to no avail.
I sure would like my 35,000 miles back that someone stole from me. AA has all the peoples names and information and they refuse to move on it. I have filed police reports and as much as I can do. Their fraud department is not moving on it.
@GaryLeff If there are no more Saver awards, how does it work for determining which awards are bookable using partner programs, such as when one books a flight on AA using Avios?
Pushing traffic to that piece of crap hub Charlotte. I only use AA points, well actually, Delta as well, to get me to my international jumping off point.
Waste of points but not paying any of them Wicked stupid rates for
their crappy international flights. Try even finding decent points Redemption for “partner” airlines. Pretty much impossible.
Let’s face it, it was fun while it lasted but the points game is pretty much dead.
I’m convinced the 3 don’t actually WANT flying customers,just their money.
Being a CLT flyer, the example is the one bit of hope I have in this program because CLT to anywhere esp a West Coast Non stop is like SkyPesos. Now having said that: one bright spot I have noticed, is AA seems to be releasing a decent amount of domestic first class to partners. Its nice to pop open BA for an upcoming intern and usually see FC — granted its to the disadvanatege to all us EXP that can’t get an upgrade 100 hours out
The elephant in the room is Europe. Almost impossible to find AA award space at reasonable cost in business, except if using BA to cross the pond. And then, the carrier fee is almost $3000 for two people. BA is useless and the only real option at a reasonable mileage cost
@guflyer – American still publishes the old saver buckets for partner use, and for use in conjunction with AAdvantage partner awards
My friend is a 4 million miler and P2 a 2 million miler (million milers like DL means less than zero). Being out of DFW, we’re hub captive. For the past several months reading all the trashing of Delta award levels, AA is right there with DL and has been for months. Check out AA to JFK for a positioning flight. DL is 40% less in 1st (non-stops). Check-out going to LAX, YYR, BOS and a lot more cities (positioning flights). DL beats AA every time. You can’t get across the pond to almost nowhere on AA less than 150K business unless you go through PHL or CLT. I could go on and on. You Gary and a lot more blogs & posters are about 3-4 months behind reporting what has been happening. FYI I’m partial to no airline. Loyalty means glitch.
@Patti: I only use AA points, well actually, Delta as well, to get me to my international jumping off point… Let’s face it, it was fun while it lasted but the points game is pretty much dead. (check)
The cheapness of AA as a company has no bottom.
Gee, Gary. If this keeps up, I guess my 2.5% cash back card isn’t so bad after all.
Bash AA but I can never get enough AA miles. So an ocassional long haul partner award often works (e.g. 70K ATL-DFW-HND-MNL for 70K inc. DFW-HND in JL F…or Qatar Q-suites to/from Africa), but I get tremendous value out of domestic, North American and Caribbean itins from my tiny airport that has only two carriers serving it. You will NEVER find a flights from US East Coast to Caribbean on DL/UA for 10K, I do it all the time in high winter season…with no cancel penalty. I understand the complaint about domestic business bookings but these are 2-5 hr. daytime flights. No AA complaints here.
This is the Pinnacle of stupidity. There have ALWAYS been award flights that were crazy prices. And there STILL are award flights that are cheap. Nothing has changed. Only the name of the pricing structure.
@ Gary — In your example, I would just buy an F ticket on AA or UA from LAX-CLT and credit it to AS or UA. That generates a decent chunk towards my MVPG75k or UA 1K status, so it is no big deal. Even if it requires an overnight hotel stop, I view that as another opportunity to earn a qualifying night at a Hyatt. It’s a mile run/mattress run 2023-style, plus a great deal on an award ticket!
Gary, have there been any consequences to skiplagging an award ticket ? E.g., booking syd-lax-wherever and just not taking the onward flight from LAX?
This is American shooting at fish in a barrel .Its not inflation this is extortion!
Yes 80 k was a business class ticket to Australia and now the same seat is 450k one way in 2024
Don’t fly AA to Europe for revenue or award anymore I use Condor through MP instead
The only possibility are their web savers sometimes which are what they used to charge in miles
But even those are loaded with married segments so limited use
Sometimes fly Delta or Alaska non stop and use cash back cards which have more value than AA mile pesos.They have killed their Golden Goose by damaging their mile currency IMO
But as one poster shared they redeemed and I re quote
“The pricing is insane. I paid like 300k miles for my husband and I to fly from DFW to Savannah in Domestic Biz RT. Ludicrous.”
That just encourages AA to carry on as business as usual
When folks say no they will adjust.I’ve said no and won’t even after near 10 million miles
I hope AA doesn’t go down the ‘miles never expire’ path. That forces a further devaluation because of the longer liability in the name of more engagement among uneducated new members. Delta started that, United followed.
AA should remain a holdout – as bad as some of these examples are, they still tend to offer more premium cabin avail at more reasonable prices and I think having expiring miles is part of what lets them do it.
I am a life-time Gold Elite AAdvantage member and I do know “how much [my} miles are devalued” and I am not very happy about it. The only AAdvantage credit cards my wife and I have now are two MilesUp cards. We have simply given up on AA miles.
A result of DEREGULATION.
Enough said.
If “experts” expected differently, they were idiots.
Gary, when you pump up the AA Executive Card offering 100,000 points for signing up or the AA Business Card offer 65,000 points, of course points needed to fly will go up. Its point inflation both in the bonus offering as well as the redemption rate. There are no free point lunches. I like Southwest’s model where points are fixed at a specific dollar value and you are welcome to pick the flight you want without trying to game the point system.
@gary, Thank you for the honest and frank approach to AA. I have to say that the changes don’t surprise me. In turn, I started booking all of my miles. I have about 300K left but have about 1.5m attached to trips up to June 2024. The reason being is that it is not going to revert back to where it was. We all have been waiting for the shoe to drop regarding the partner awards. Instead of increasing the redemption value, they just limited availability. AA miles will become the next SkyPeso. Remember, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. For all intents and purposes, this gravy train is over.
As an ex plat I’m finding it challenging to stay loyal to AA with the constant drive to the bottom. The miles devaluation paired with the limited upgrade availability due to them offering the upgrades last minute for a lower price have stripped the benefits of loyalty. Then they peddle the credit cards constantly on the planes and advertise it as multiple free flights worth of miles. That is just rubbing it in our faces. I’m strongly considering a status match especially if they do dynamic with partner awards.
AA pretty much gutted their program in a race to match up with Delta. I still see some reasonable prices on UA but they are all rapidly reaching ~250K for a one-way long haul premium flight. Partner awards on AA are on borrowed time so either publish two values or just go with the lower AA-metal value.
At least you are honestly addressing the issue. Over at Frequent Miler (which I still respect, but less so) they are still claiming AA miles are worth chasing. That’s a position I only expect from PointsP*mp oops Pointsguy.
While this information is all true it’s actually much worse on AA. When you can actually find availability for long-haul premium cabin seats the layovers are required to get close to good value and most of the time they include 3 or 4 stops with long layovers. Want to fly from MCI to CDG, sure how about you board the plane at 5 a.m. to LGA, have a 10-hour layover, and connect out of JFK.
Thanks, Gary. In that scenario, do you know if you booked a round-trip through CLT or another city, could you get your bags in LAX before flying to CLT and leave from LAX or would the bags automatically be loaded into the next flight before being able to be claimed at LAX?
UA is no better. Used 300K miles pp for East Coast to HI last year. Wanted to make one minor change in schedule and was told they have ‘dynamic pricing ‘ and it would cost another 200K pp. The airline customers are increasingly treated like scum by the 3 major airlines.