Three years ago I wrote an extensive guide to booking US Airways tickets. US Airways miles have been so easy to get, and their rules so opaque, that the guide was useful for many folks in figuring out what they could accomplish ‘within the rules’ of the program. Of course US Airways is unique in that agents manually apply regions to awards for pricing purposes, and routings are validated manually. Combined with a general lack of geographic knowledge, it has been possible to accomplish almost anything with US Airways miles if you’re persistent enough. Routing an Australia-US award via South America and Europe? Check!
We already know that as part of the merger between US Airways and American, that the combined program will be American AAdvantage. A few days ago it was announced that when American and US Airways merge, they will adopt American’s computer platform. As a result we can expect that in general American’s award rules will prevail (though there’s the possibility of both award chart and rules changes). At the very least I think we can expect an end to agents making up award pricing based on the region they think you’re flying to, and also arbitrarily ignoring or not enforcing rules — since in many cases American’s systems enforce them automatically, although not always correctly.
A little over a year ago I wrote about American’s little-known distance-based oneworld awards. American is one of the only airlines that offers you a choice between a “zone-based” or “region-based” award chart (one-way awards whose price is based on where you start and where you end) and “distance-based” chart (where award pricing is based on the total miles you fly). The former applies to flying American and any of its partners in any combination, the latter applies only to flying oneworld airlines and requires you to fly at least 2 different oneworld carriers not counting American.
Having covered distance-based awards, and with US Airways miles to become American miles in the not to distant future, a similar guide for American’s award rules seemed in order.
This is a bit of an advanced post, but can hopefully serve as a reference as you plan American AAdvantage awards in the future. Bookmark this one!
What I know about booking awards with American AAdvantage miles comes from more than a decade of personal experience, from more than four years booking awards for others, and some insights gleamed from unpublished rules shared over at TravelingBetter.com.
American One-Way Partner Awards
Here’s American’s partner award chart:
And here are the rules.
Stopovers: Stopovers are only permitted on international awards. No stopovers are permitted on domestic, Hawaii, Caribbean, or Canada/Mexico awards. For stopovers on awards to Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. stopovers are permitted only at the North American gateway city.
Since awards are ‘one way’ that means if you fly US to Hong Kong, that’s a one way award. if you stop for a few days in Hong Kong, then fly to Bangkok, that’s a separate one-way award. If you then fly Bangkok to Tokyo and stop for a few days, one-way award. And back to the US from Tokyo, one-way award.
A connection of 4 hours or more on a domestic award and 24 hours or more on an international award is considered a stopover. You can transit a city for 23 hours and 59 minutes and that’s just a connection (go explore a city for no extra miles) but once you hit 24 hours that would be a stopover — and if it’s o city other than the one you leave North America from or arrive in North America at then it will cost additional miles.
So you can have a connection that’s just up to a day. And you can have a free stopover in at your North American gateway city. If you fly New York – San Francisco – Hong Kong, you are allowed a stopover in San Francisco for no additional miles. The stopover can be for as long as you like, provided that the ticket of course is valid for no longer than a year from date of issue. So fly to San Francisco, stopover for months even, then fly to Hong Kong.
Here’s how this works with ‘free one-way’ awards. If you live in Los Angeles, you might fly Los Angeles – Hong Kong, and then Hong Kong – Los Angeles. Why not call your return trip Hong Kong – New York? Route Hong Kong – Los Angeles, and you can have a stopover there (as it’s the first North American city you arrive back into) and then add a flight to New York later. If you’re on a business class award, you get a business class Los Angeles – New York flight just for the extra airport taxes. If you’re on a first class award, you get a ‘free’ Los Angeles – New York flight in first.
If you’re flying Los Angeles – London and back, then again have a stopover in Los Angeles — instead of calling “home” your final destination. Hawaii is included in the ‘North America zone’ so it’s no extra miles to say you’re really doing Los Angeles – London, and London – Hawaii with a stopover in Los Angeles. You get a ‘free’ Los Angeles – Hawaii flight to use later. And you can always change the date on that last flight segment for free. When you book the ticket, grab the flight segment, it will cost you only extra airport taxes. And change the date to another one where there’s award availability later, when you know when you’ll want to use it.
Routing rules:
Published routing: You have to fly a ‘published routing’ in order to book an award. Specifically, the primary overwater carrier has to publish a routing between your starting and ending cities in order to fly between those two cities on a single award. And you have to follow their routing rules for any connections.
So if Etihad has no fare between Richmond and the Maldives, then you’re going to be looking at two award tickets — say, Richmond to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi to the Maldives, costing an extra 25,000 miles for one-way business class from Abu Dhabi to the Maldives or 25,000 miles for first class Richmond to your US departure gateway.
This is a rule that’s little understood by agents, they often won’t know why an award will price higher than the award chart suggests for travel between two regions.
Another ‘trick’ or area of confusion is that “IATA YY fares” don’t count for this purpose (there are fares published which any participating airline can use, even though they aren’t their own fares — those don’t count for the purposes of having a published fare between two cities in order to book it as a single award). Similarly, “constructed fares” don’t count either. An airline may show a fare from a city in Mexico to San Francisco and separately from San Francisco to Bali, adding them together. That’s not the same thing as the airline having its own fare between the city in Mexico and Bali.
Because this rule is little understood, I’ve actually had some (very occasional) success in skirting it. When an award hasn’t priced the way I want it to, and it gets escalated, the person reviewing it may not understand why it didn’t price and may push it through manually. This is rare, and not something I push the envelope on in my award booking service but still worth noting that it’s happened.
Maximum permitted mileage: Many airlines say you can only fly the ‘published maximum permitted mileage’ between two cities, or the published amount plus some percentage. And the number of miles flown is the primary constraint on how you can route an award. Aeroplan, for instance, will let you fly 5% more than the standard mileage allotted between any two cities.
American on the other hand doesn’t really use the maximum permitted mileage concept. They make you fly on a published routing. However, some fares don’t have published routings and instead themselves rely on maximum permitted mileage. In that case, American will allow you to fly the maximum permitted mileage plus 25%. That sounds super generous, and it is, but the situation doesn’t apply often enough to be really controlling.
Most direct routing: This is a catch all and is a rule that applies, though not always automatically. It’s a reason you can be denied an award that otherwise appears to follow American’s rules. You have to fly the most direct routing, though of course the most direct routing between many cities is a non-stop flight and yet you’re allowed to connect most of the time. So it isn’t really consistently enforced, but is something in the airline’s back pocket which says that any time they find you to be doing something unreasonable they can deny it.
What this means in practice, I find, is that I can fly Hong Kong – Los Angeles (stopover) – New York JFK.
But — while I have even been allowed to do this — I cannot bank on being permitted to fly Hong Kong – New York JFK (stopover) – Los Angeles. I’ve literally done that specific award, but it’s certainly not the most direct routing between Hong Kong and Los Angeles and shouldn’t be counted on being approved, that it’s within the “maximum permitted mileage plus 25%” notwithstanding.
You cannot connect in a third region. Award travel between two regions cannot touch a third region, unless a specific exception is in place. You cannot fly from the US to Europe to Asia, you have to fly direct from the US to Asia. Again, unless there’s an exception — no American partner flies non-stop form the US to Africa, and it’s possible to use American miles to fly to Africa, because they do make an exception that will allow you to connect in the third region of Europe.
Known Exceptions:
- Travel between North/Central/South America and the Indian Sub Continent/Middle East can connect in:Europe
- Travel between North/Central/South America and Africa can connect in:Europe
- Travel between North/Central/South America and Asia 2 can connect in:Asia 1
- Travel between the Indian Sub Continent/Middle East and Asia 1 or South Pacific can connect in:Asia 2
- Travel between Africa and Asia 1 can connect in:Asia 2
- Travel between Asia 1 and Europe or South Pacific can connect in:Asia 2
So you can fly from the US to Africa via London (exception 2) but you cannot fly from the US to Afica via Abu Dhabi as there’s no exception allowing transit in the Middle East region.
And you can fly from the US to Hong Kong via Tokyo (exception 3) but you cannot fly from the US to Tokyo via Hong Kong as there’s no exception allowing transit in Asia 2 enroute to Asia 1.
Relatedly there are specific rules that you can only fly from North America to Europe, Africa and the Indian Sub-Continent/Middle East via the Atlantic. It can make total sense to fly San Francisco to India via Asia instead of Europe, but this is not allowed.
Additionally, you can only fly to Asia via the Pacific, and though Australia and Tahiti and Fiji are in the same region, you cannot fly to Fiji via Australia (“the long way”).
Correct pricing: Unlike US Airways awards, American’s system automatically prices award tickets. It’s usually correct based on the rules above, but is not always correct. I’ve found that allowable stopovers in a North American gateway city can ’cause the fare to break’ meaning that the system will want to price separately the domestic award ticket to or from that city, and then the international award ticket. For instance, New York – San Francisco (stopover) – Hong Kong – Bangkok might price separately as New York – San Francisco and San Francisco – Bangkok, even though a free stopover should be allowed in San Francisco. In that case, it helps to know the correct price and to get the agent to appeal for help because the pricing can be manually stored, overriding the computer. I’ve had this done while I’ve waited on hold, and I’ve also had to have them ‘look into it’ and get back to me. But it’s worth being aware of.
Booking and change fees:
- Telephone booking fee. American doesn’t have most of their partners on their website. And the website sometimes misprices awards, too (if you use multi-city search to specify flights from the US to Europe via a specific gateway, you may be charged extra for the intra-European flight when you shouldn’t be). I find that more often than not I call American to book award tickets. American’s Executive Platinums do not pay a telephone booking fee for their own awards. But everyone else does, and an Executive Platinum redeeming miles from their own account for someone else will still pay the $25 per person booking fee.
- Close-in booking fee. Awards for travel less than 21 days out cost $75, though this fee is waived for awards issued out of an AAdvantage elite member’s account. You used to be able to book travel more than 21 days out, avoid the fee, and then make a free date change to be within 21 days. That trick is something American has since cracked down on.
- Date changes are free. There’s no charge to change just the date or time of a flight, or to change the class of service of an individual segment if that segment was booked in a lower class than the award you paid for (one flight was available only in coach on a business class award, and then business opens up later).
- Changing your origin or destination costs $150. If there’s more than one passenger on a reservation, then the $150 applies to the first passenger only and in the distance past I was charged only $25 for each additional passenger though I haven’t verified that is still the policy. This fee is waived for Executive Platinums. And it doesn’t apply at all if you’re flying American Airlines only on an ‘AAnytime’ (double miles) award.
- Changing an award type requires cancellation and redeposit. If you’re flying an American-only award and want to change to a partner award, you can’t just make the change and pay a fee, the award gets cancelled and you start over.
- Cancellation and redeposit is $150 for the first passenger and $25 each additional passenger, waived for Executive Platinums. It’s nice that American doesn’t have the $200 rule that United charges (though they also don’t have United’s sliding scale of different fees for different level elites) or Delta’s rule about changes within 72 hours of travel.
Got questions?
- You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Thanks, Gary, for putting this all together and in one place. Why do I think that this might be of particular interest in light of the ongoing 100k AAdvantage Exec offer? 😉
Two curiosities:
1) Is there any hard limit on number of legs on an award routing, provided that it doesn’t violate zone rules, MPM, stopovers or most direct routing?
2) You mention no charge to bump a leg up to the class of service of the whole award. What about changes to a leg that would bump up the class of service of the whole award?
@CW there are some segment limitations, like no more than 2 segments on a one-way intra-Hawaii award. oneworld distance-based awards can’t exceed 16 segments, but that’s a ticketing limitation, so I assume it applies to these awards as well. You cannot put more than 4 one-way awards on a single reservation. But I haven’t seen or experienced a maximum number of segments that a single one-way award can have otherwise.
If you bump the class of service of the whole award that incurs a fee to cancel/redeposit.
I have a question on the published routing rules. Let’s say I want to fly EY from AUH to YYZ. Clearly, EY publishes a fare there (because they fly this route). But let’s say I wanted an F seat or else there were no seats on the nonstop to YYZ. Can I route AUH – JFK – YYZ? And what if there’s no nonstops between JFK and YYZ open? Can I route AUH – JFK – CLT – YYZ? That’s probably not a published routing, but that would be the case with most connections, no?
Are free date changes permitted once the award travel has begun? this would come into play with the NorthAmerican gateway stopover.
Thanks.
Gary, It’s like you were writing this post for me. We’re looking to fly Etihad on AA for our honeymoon (one way and using United miles coming back). Even though we’re in RVA, we would be departing out of a DC area airport given our ceremony location. It does sound like BWI/DCA/IAD-NYC(stopover)-AUH-MLE is in order though, correct? Or would that price at all? Thank you so much for your help.
Gary,
I believe AA has changed their policies. You CAN have a stopover, but you must continue on your way within 24 hours.
Old Policy: LHR-LAX (STOP) – 5 MONTHS LATER LAX-JFK all in the same class of service.
New Policy: LHR-LAX (STOP) Under 24 hours, LAX-JFK.
I’ve called the Executive Platinum desk many times regarding this since I book one way awards on AA to gateway cities and always use to take advtange of their policy, but every single time they say my stopover must be less than 24 hours if I want to book another leg.
Of course, if you are Executive Platinum, you can cancel that last leg and reschedule up to a year, but not sure regular Joe’s can do this.
Can you clarify?
@MMichael – less than 24 hours on an international award is a CONNECTION and not a stopover. You can stop > 24 hours at the North American international gateway city. It’s no problem to do LHR-JFK (stopover) – LAX.
@Ben IAD-AUH-MLE is no problem as a single one-way award. Note that flight schedules mean you will have to overnight in AUH on the way to MLE.
@Steve you can make free date changes to onward travel once the award travel has begun, yes
Thanks Gary. I wonder if changing the the connections between origin and destination would trigger the change fee. Say, change a ticket,EZE-MIA-JFK to EZE-JFK .
thanks!
Is it possible to do HKG-NYC-HNL? If so, must I fly nonstop JFK-HNL?
@Adam unlikely because of most direct routing rule, that would be a stretch. Even HKG-LAX-HNL is hard to get, though some have done it.
Gary:
Does AA impose award change fees if you’re switching from non AA/OW to AA/OW metal?
For example, if I were to book LAS-LAX-HNL, with the LAS-LAX portion on AA, and the LAX-HNL was on HA, and I switched the LAX-HNL portion to AA, would I incur the $150 change fee, have to rebook the award, or would the change be free?
Thanks!
Unfortunately AA still hasn’t changed its South Pacific – Europe rules to include connections in the Middle East. QF technically operates “direct” flights MEL/SYD-LHR via DXB, but it would be nice to go one way MEL/SYD-LHR on QF via DXB and return LHR-SYD/MEL on EY via AUH. 🙁
Gary,
I have already booked a ticket – BOM-AUH-IAD and I want to add a trip to the carribbean lets say in Dec 14. Would that be possible or does EY have to a published fare to the carribbean destination? Also would I have to pay for additional fees to tack on the one way?
– naroowal
One gotcha that I just ran into is that if you are trying to change a partner award, be aware that Alaska is not in OneWorld and is therefore treated differently from AA’s OW partners, resulting in a cancellation and redeposit.
Gary,
This is why I been reading your blog for the last decade. Posts like these really make you stand out from the rest of the crowd. Thank you again for this post. There is a nugget (or two or three) of new info that I picked up today.
P.S. I know that coach is not your style. Some of your readers may care about Off-Peak to Europe, Japan, South America — are some of best deals in the airline mile redemption world. Especially with 10% AAdvantage Citi card, 36k miles to Europe… that’s hard to beat.
Gracias,
PedroNY
Is Mexico considered North America? Could I do something LHR – LAX (stopover) – ZIH on a one-way award ticket?
in the “Close-in booking fee” has the trick ever worked recently, or has their crack down totally not let you save the $75 (meaning should i bother to try)?
Two things to add:
1) The constructed fare prohibition has some exceptions that are not well understood. I ticketed OMA-ORD-HKG-BKK, despite CX’s OMA-BKK fare being constructed. There was no hassling, it priced at 67.5K in F automatically.
2) Stopovers can use coterminals. The award I mentioned above was changed to OMA-DFW-LGA(stopover)JFK-HKG-BKK without any issue.
3) While American does generally charge a change fee for changes to origin or destination, there is an exception for dropping initial or terminal changes if the country of origin and country of destination do not change and the award type does not change. Thus, I was able to successfully drop the OMA-DFW-LGA portion of the award (making it JFK-HKG-BKK) I’ve been discussing after I moved out of Nebraska before beginning travel.
There was no haggling, convincing agents, or involving supervisors to get any of this done, so it seems to be things that are implemented in the computer. If someone could figure out exactly which constructed fares AA accepts, that would be great. The soundest theory I’ve heard is that MPM-based constructed fares are allowed but constructed fares that specify the routing are not, but I’m not sure if that’s really the case.
This is a very a timely post!
I’m thinking of burning my UA miles for a CA F award (IAH-HKG via PKE) but wanted to fly back on CX F (HKG-LAX-IAH). However, it doesn’t look like there’s saver space on a direct LAX-IAH flight I’d like for my date so I’m thinking of buying a revenue UA ticket (e.g. P or Z fare) LAX-IAH-LAX so that I basically get another IAH-LAX(UA) & LAX-IAH (AA) roundtrip.
Is that going to work? And do I understand it correctly that I would be able to change a date for free for LAX-IAH flight even after having flown one segment on the AA award ticket? (With UA tickets I guess changes may incur a fee depending on fare class.)
Currently I’m trying to piece a trip back from Europe, DUB-PHX and the only thing that is coming up is on BA, even the Aavantage line couldn’t find anything (Nov 14 give or take 3 days.) Wondering if more inventory open up? I would like to do DUB-LHR (stopover) JFK-LAX-PHX.
Question Gary. I’m flying SIN-HKG-SFO-DFW-IND. SFO is my NA gateway city. Am I right that I can have a stopover of >24hr in SFO, and a layover of <24 hr in DFW, for no additional miles?
@italdesign – yes
@Tony – can’t say what inventory will open up, BA is the primary transatlantic partner and AA doesn’t open much space on its own flights especially far in advance.
@gary, so it is possible that later in the year something will open up? I would love to fly the new 77W in F…
Thanks for this informative post – I moved all my travel from UA (*A) to AA about 18 months ago and just started booking AA (OW) awards, so this is timely and helpful. Only thing I will miss from *A is NA-EUR-Asia routing.
I have gradually moved almost all of my firm’s flying to AA, and away from DL and UA, based upon those airlines debasement of their frequent flyer schemes. One of AA’s rules that sticks in my craw however is their denial of geography, in requiring East Coast-Asia rewards to go via the Pacific. The shortest routes between NYC and SIN/KUL/BKK/CGK/PEN are all via the Atlantic, and there is no legitimate reason to force me to go the long way. As a practical matter, I recognize that travel via the Pacific — on CX or JL — might be preferable, but it would be nice to be able to utilize European and ME partners.
Gary,
Thanks for this post and also for your correction of my question.
One more for you: if I have a LHR-LAX-JFK booked, and I fly the LHR-LAX and cancel the LAX-JFK portion because I want to use it at another time, can I still use that award ticket leg within the next 12 months as an executive platinum?
@Michael within 12 months of the date the original ticket was issued, provided there is award availability when you want to fly
Dear Gary,
Yours is one of the blogs I signed up when I started learning about travels using points & miles. You share many invaluable and helpful tips, some I’m still trying to understand. I thank you very much!
Here’s my question about the free stopover at the end of the trip. I pretty much am aware of all the rules & requirements, but have not been able to find out what would happened if you are not able to go on the last segment of AA one way award flight. In our case, the date I booked the last segment is pretty close to the one year deadline (from issue date of our award flight) to complete the flight. What should I do, just don’t show up for the last leg or do I call to cancel? Is there any penalty or charge for doing so. FYI, we have no plans to NOT take the last leg, but may run into some unavoidable circumstances that would not allow us to take the flight (to Miami). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Our itinerary HKG-LAX (stopover for 1 month)-MIA.
It’s no problem to skip the leg
When I look at availability on AA.com for an award itinerary from the US to Tokyo (stop) to Hong Kong, the second leg comes up as unavailable. Is this because that second leg would be on a partner airline that can’t be booked online?
@Sam – correct, AA.com doesn’t support Japan Airlines or Cathay Pacific
@Sam — use BA site to find award space and then call AA. That’s what I did when looking for HKG-SFO on Cathay.
Great writeup! A rather specific question (made me think by the specific call out of getting to Easter Island via Tahiti only) – I plan on hopping around south pacific, mostly with UA miles, and was looking to add Easter Island to the list as well. Figured I would fly round trip from PPT to IPC and try to use my AA miles on that LAN flight… but I see absolutely no availability all through the year and neither could the AA agent on the phone. Do you know if they open up any award space on those flights at all?
Gary (or anyone else who knows),
I’m just getting into the miles game and I’d like to use the US Airways “Asia via Europe” booking rule for a trip this fall, but I don’t have the miles yet. What do you think will happen to US Airways award booking after they switch alliances?
@james – we don’t know whether there will be any award chart changes or routing rule changes
If you cannot connect in a third region, how can you fly Europe to Australia?
@Louie there are specific exceptions to the rule of no connections in a third region, just as you are permitted to connect in Europe enroute from the US to Africa
OK. I couldn’t see anything relevant in your list of known exceptions in your original post, which I had assumed was exhaustive, but maybe you just concentrated on ones ex-USA. Do you know what routings are acceptable from Europe to Australia, please? If not, how do you go about finding out?
@Louie – connections are permitted in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Narita, Osaka or Singapore only.
Thanks!
Are Mexico and the Carribean considered “domestic” award zone if travel is performed from US continental to Mexico (or to the Carribean)?
Can I use 24 hours connection regardless of any other scheduled flights in the interval of 6-24 hours? Because I found this comment in the Aadvantage rules (http://flyerguide.com/index.php/Award_Rules_%28AA%29):
“Travel wholly within or between all other regions:
– Passenger has 6 hours to connect. If there are no scheduled flights within 6 hours, regardless of availability, the passenger must take the next scheduled flight but, may not exceed 24 hours.
– A connection with more than 24 hours will be considered a stopover.”
Sorry, “the Carribean” replaced to “the Caribbean” 🙂