Last week, American Airlines started charging more miles for award itineraries that include travel on Japan Airlines. This is either an unannounced devaluation, or a mistake in American’s favor.
Reader Tommy passes along this comparison of travel between the U.S. and Taipei on Cathay Pacific and on Japan Airlines, and Japan Airlines is now priced higher.
- Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong in economy at 37,500 miles.
- Japan Airlines via Tokyo in economy at 55,000 miles.
The higher Japan Airlines award price also matches the published award chart price of 35,000 for ‘North America to Asia 1’ plus 20,000 for ‘Asia 1 to Asia 2’. Historically, travel from North America to Asia 2 could connect through Japan on one award, but it looks like that’s no longer how American is pricing it.
American hasn’t updated its published prices for partner awards. It’s possible that their pricing on Japan Airlines award travel is just broken. Here are a couple of similar examples.
- Last week we started seeing Japan Airlines premium cabin awards between the U.S. and Japan price more expensively. Business class went from 60,000 to 80,000 and First from 80,000 to 100,000 on connecting itineraries.
- We also saw Dallas – San Francisco – Tokyo – Taipei increase from 37,500 to 55,000 with travel on Japan Airlines, while Cathay routings remained 37,500.
Here’s why this matters. Earlier this year, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom promised AAdvantage miles would stay more valuable than other airline program currencies.
He’s been calling AAdvantage unmatched in value across the industry for years and the airline laid out delivering the highest value per mile through AAdvantage as a key element of their business strategy at the carrier’s last Investor Day.
Yet we’re seeing a consistent pattern of chipping away at AAdvantage, even as they did improve lifetime elite status (though it remains less generous than at United and Delta) and have largely kept their elite program intact.
In April 2025, American reduced award holds from 5 days to 24 hours. They eliminated fixed mileage upgrades in August 2025.
Availability on partner airlines has gotten much worse in recent years, as partners have limited access of space to American AAdvantage. To wit, this list is not exhaustive:
- Etihad has restricted most premium award space to within 30 days of departure and even within that window AAdvantage now sees only a small subset of space offered to their own members.
- Cathay Pacific limits most of its award space to its own Asia Miles members.
- Qantas, despite an antitrust immunized joint venture with American, restricts most of its premium cabin award space ot its own members. Frequent flyers ultimately do not benefit from the joint venture in the manner that was hoped.
- British Airways limits much of its award space, including the space it commits to loading when schedules first become available, to programs using Avios as a rewards currency – despite their revenue-sharing joint venture with American.
- Qatar Airways limits much of its award space to its own members. American hasn’t been able to ticket Qatar space at all in recent times, though I’m told they are working on this.
- Japan Airlines makes very little of its award space available to partner airlines like American, despite having a joint venture where they’re supposed to be indifferent between travel on JAL versus American.
What improvements have we seen in AAdvantage, beyond higher levels of lifetime elite status, to offset this? We started to be able to redeem points on JetSMART last summer, and Aer Lingus this year. That’s really all that I could come up with. American needs to make sure its members can actually book awards and keep their CEO’s word not to raise prices, so that the value of their points remain top of industry.
For years, it’s one of the only things that American has had to keep customers loyal. And it would be a slap in the face of customers who stayed loyal and make the points they earned doing so worth less.
As other blogs have noted this appears to be the case only w Japan Airlines and also if you pair it with an AA segment so it is a very limited increase.
However ai fully expect award prices on AA to increase across the board. They can still be the most valuable US airline program and raise prices. Just make sure they are cheaper than DL or UA.
Get over it – prices increase and benefits decrease. That is true for all programs so quit acting like it is still the 90s and getting shocked when this occurs.
Huh, so a un-regulated corporate pseudo-currency wildly moves goalposts… *shocked Pikachu*
In this totally-not-rigged-system… *cough* we are incentivized to accumulate miles based on the promise of value, only to see that value unilaterally altered by the airline without warning or recourse. All the more jarring when Isom explicitly committed to keeping AAdvantage miles “more valuable” than competitors. For now, the corporation holds all the leverage. Maybe we should do something about that. Or not. Whatever. *burp*
Dynamically priced premium cabin awards on AA metal are now nearing SkyMiles territory. Premium transcon on AA now tops out at 300k one way vs 120k on UA. When comparing to cash prices, the AA awards on these routes are often pricing out at close to, or under, 1 cent per mile
@DWT — It’s sad, because it didn’t used to be that way, even a year ago. And, further disappointing, the Alaska points have gone closer to dynamic on the AA redemptions, too. So, nearly all the sweet-spots are disappearing, fast. (Though, if you’re a ‘market realist’ like @Retired Gambler, you just have to adapt or shut-up. I donno man, seems like some baseline consumer protections would be nice.)
It’s only been just over a year when I used to see so much more JAL inventory on AA. Last year, I even scored first class twice, from HND and then from ORD. The difference between this year and last is huge. Even though I often saw JAL business on days I didn’t need them, at least I could reliably “see” them, especially during less traveled times like January. This year, I will search and search for up to an hour at a time and almost never see any JAL business for any of their major hubs in the USA or Canada. And I am talking about no business for the “whole” year not just for certain days. The calendar will often show nothing (except those phantoms here and there) for the remainder of the AA calendar . Also as you mentioned, no Cathay Pacific anymore. Can’t even remember the last time I saw business from them available This is definitely the worst year in terms of availability that I’ve ever seen for using AA miles.
@MandN — It’s probably because the March BILT bonus flooded JAL. Or, it’s companies reacting to new wars, increased fuel costs, persistent inflation, etc. Or, it’s that you just need to ‘lift yourself up by your bootstraps.’ Take your pick.
Ben at OMAAT just posted about wide-open Alaska point redemption availability in J on Starlux, so, if anyone’s been hoarding Atmos points, maybe worth a lookie. (Of course, if you do proceed, you’d wanna hope Xi doesn’t attack Taiwan anytime soon… *gulp*)
@Gary –> “Earlier this year, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom promised AAdvantage miles would STAY more valuable than other airline program currencies.” (emphasis added)
One question: When has AAdvantage miles *ever* been more valuable than other airlines? It’s hard to STAY someplace when you’ve never been there…
Thank you for bringing this to light – I’ve noticed United gettting more competitive with Saver awards for both intl and domestic premium so AA you are in their crosshairs
@Greg
United is far too occupied devaluing their own program to Delta levels to even think about “targeting” AAdvantage lol
Nearly any reputable website shows United miles worth roughly 36% less than an AA mile
Why @Gary, are you suggesting that no-notice devaluations, a stunning paucity of partner premium cabin award space (except BA with their horrific YQ) available on long haul flights, extreme scarcity of availability to use SWU’s effectively, and AAdvantage pricing AA metal premium cabin awards at ludicrously high prices belie what Isom said?
For an airline that’s using their loyalty program as their crutch to try to get back in the game, American is breathtakingly inept at actually enhancing or even retaining value in AAdvantage. You’d think they would fanatically guard anything involved with the most profitable segment of the company but apparently they’d rather worsen what was arguably the best thing they had.
@Christian — PREACH!!