American Airlines Archives - Page 6 of 7

May 24 2013

Building Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: American Airlines

AA miles can get you on Japan Airlines Dreamliner

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: Introduction

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: United

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: American Airlines

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: Delta

Bulding up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: US Airways

In the good old days, before I even got into it (unfortunately), you could net 150,000 AAdvantage miles in one day without breaking a sweat. Even crazier, they would count to million miler status. Alas, those days have gone, and it’s gotten even harder than when I built up my AA balance. Still, there are options to get a lot of AA miles in a short amount of time, and a lot of great redemptions to be had. So let’s get into the brass tacks.

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May 14 2013

There’s a Burn Notice on my Points: American AAdvantage

Burn Notice: Introduction

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 1

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 2

Burn Notice: Hilton HHonors

Burn Notice: American AAdvantage

As I mentioned in my last post, we had to burn our Hilton points due to the impending devaluation. We redeemed our Hilton points for four nights in Bora Bora. So to finish off my burn notice, I had to figure out how to get us there. My wife insisted we go in business class (it’s a de facto five year anniversary trip), so I either needed 300,000 Delta Skymiles or 250,000 American AAdvantage miles. There is a LOT we could have done with 250,000 AA miles, and I tried to convince my wife to go in coach, but to no avail. But it’s okay – points are for burning, right? Here’s how we redeemed the miles for flights to Tahiti.

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Apr 24 2013

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: Introduction

How do we turn these into miles and points as quickly as possible?

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: Introduction

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: United

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: American Airlines

Building Up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: Delta

Bulding up Mileage and Points Balances Quickly: US Airways

One of the most frequent questions clients ask me is “How do I get a lot of _______ miles quickly?” Not everyone is a points freak like me, so often people are looking to build up a bunch of miles in a particular program so that they can take one trip – honeymoon, anniversary, trip of a lifetime, whatever. The good news is, if you have six months to a year, you can totally build up a large enough balance to go wherever you’d like – sometimes even in business class! In this introduction post, I’ll review the mileage costs for awards for the different programs, what areas of the world work well with which programs, and special award ticketing rules to be aware of.

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Apr 13 2013

Real Life Award Booking: Getting to Taipei on Oneworld

I recently just helped a client book a one way ticket for his family of four (two adults, one 2+ child, and one infant in arms) from Taipei, Taiwan to the East Coast all in first class. It’s an itinerary that seems to be impossible when you try on aa.com but with a little bit of work it’s easily doable. Even though the client only booked a one way award, I’m going to show you how to do this as a round trip.

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Mar 20 2013

There’s a Burn Notice on My Points: Introduction

Burn Notice: Introduction

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 1

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 2

Burn Notice: Hilton HHonors

Burn Notice: American AAdvantage

I’ve decided to put a burn notice on some of my miles. Between my wife and I, we’ve accumulated over one million miles, mostly within the last year and a half or so. Well, as Hilton (most recently) and countless other award programs have taught us time and time again, miles and points are a volatile currency whose value only goes one way: down. So I’ve decided it’s time for us to book a couple of trips. There is no point on sitting on a stockpile of points – so let’s do this. Throughout this series, I will be talking about how I burned these points to give you examples of how you can burn yours!

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