Two years ago American Airlines joined Delta and United in awarding miles for flights based on the cost of a ticket rather than the distance you fly.
- Short, expensive flights earn more miles
- Long, average-priced flights earn fewer miles
- Mileage-earning on cheap long haul flights is almost a waste.
- Fewer miles are awarded after this change in total than were awarded before it.
We’ve seen New York – Hong Kong on sale for as little as $354 roundtrip. If that itinerary involved flying American Airlines, a customer without elite status would have earned 19,023 miles roundtrip before August 1, 2016. Now a $276 fare (excluding taxes) will earn 1380 miles. Sad!
If you’re going for American Airlines AAdvantage elite status, you’re still going to credit your cheap flights to American because you’ll need the elite qualifying miles flown. And elites do earn more miles for the same ticket price, at least.
The best AAdvantage mileage-earning for flights tends to be cheap business class tickets on partner airlines.
But if you aren’t an elite (giving you a reason to credit to American), and your ticket isn’t super expensive (where you’ll earn as many miles as before), it’s worth considering other frequent flyer programs that American partners with to credit your miles to. If you know the fare class of your ticket you can look up options at WhereToCredit.com.
At first you had 3 choices where the cheapest American Airlines tickets still earned 100% of flown miles.
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Etihad Guest
- Finnair Plus
Cathay Pacific was eliminated from this club last spring. Then Etihad’s earning for American Airlines flights changed in the fall.
The other side of the Etihad trick is still valid, though. Etihad still charges the same number of miles for American Airlines flights that American itself used to charge prior to the March 22, 2016 devaluation.
Both American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards transfer to Etihad, and Dallas Tokyo remains 100,000 miles roundtrip in business class while Dallas Hong Kong remains 135,000 miles roundtrip in first. That’s if you can find availability of course.
Now the last opportunity to continue to earn 100% of flown miles when buying cheap American Airlines tickets has closed. American’s joint venture partner Finnair has finally reduced earning on American Airlines flights. The cheapest American tickets have gone from earning 100% of miles flown to earning just 25% of miles flown (which can still be more generous earning than American’s own program).
Finnair wasn’t a viable option for most since you couldn’t top off a Finnair Plus account with transfers from major bank currencies.
What about crediting to British Air?
what about crediting to British Airways?
How about Alaska?
The tables do not give ALL information, be careful before booking.
In 2017 we used Finnair from MAD->HEL, first class, paid ticket. Got nothing on my AA account. Apparently Finnair flight numbers starting with 16xxx considered as charter flights and do not give ANY credit for partner airlines, only Finnair. I learned it only when the flight was marked as “ineligible” on my AA account. I did call customer service, they explained over the phone, but could not point to any written reference. My numerious phone conversations with Finnair and AA did not resolve the issue. I was asking for the information, where I can read about these flights, nobody -Finnair nor AA could point me to the rules. I found the information on some blog, where somebody was complaing about Finnair 16xxx flights. One of the AA advise was, “you should call us before booking to veriffy eligibility”.
Alaska is dead for crediting AA except for codeshares and international flights.
BA isn’t 100%, though avios are convenient.