American Airlines have launched their latest offer which sees AAdvantage miles at an up to 35% discount if you make a purchase by 30 September 2019 — this equates to around 2.08 US cents per mile at the best-value tier.
These offers run almost monthly (see Offer history for details of past points value). This current offer is one that should absolutely give a miss unless you have a very pressing need and cannot wait for a better offer.
Buying AAdvantage miles makes the most sense when topping up your balance for a specific Business or First Class redemption on American Airlines, a oneworld partner like Qantas or Qatar Airways, or partner airlines like Air Tahiti Nui and Fiji Airways.
The current AAdvantage purchase miles promotion
- Discount: Up to 35% off
- Valid until: 30 September
- Best value redemptions: domestic Australian and Trans-Tasman Qantas Business Class, Fiji Airways Business to Fiji, Qantas/Cathay Pacific/Japan Airlines Business to Asia, and oneworld Business to Europe
- Book awards online: for AA, Qantas, British Airways, and some others (full list)
- Book awards over the phone: for other partners, you can only book over the phone and are charged a $75 USD booking fee
- You can buy miles in this promotion through this link
This promotion yields the cheapest per mile price of ~2.08 US cents per mile when buying from 100,000 to 150,000 miles.
Note: AAdvantage miles expire after 18 months of inactivity in your account, so make sure to keep your account active by earning/redeeming miles regularly.
Why purchase AAdvantage miles?
- For oneworld partner redemptions: American Airlines is a member of the oneworld alliance, so you can redeem AAdvantage miles across any oneworld airline, including all those who fly direct from New Zealand – Qantas, Cathay Pacific, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, and Qatar Airways
- For other partner redemptions: American Airlines have other partner airlines that fly to New Zealand that you can redeem AAdvantage miles for, including Etihad, Fiji Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Air Tahiti Nui
- Very helpful award hold policy: with AA, it is possible to hold award bookings for up to five days (if booking more than two weeks from departure) or 24 hours (if booking closer), allowing you to pencil in plans and then confirm the ticket once you’ve bought or transferred the miles into your account. This policy makes it easy to make risk-free redemption holds while you re-confirm total costs of making your booking and buying the points
The best value AAdvantage redemptions for NZ travellers
Here are some of the better-priced and more readily-available awards for travellers from NZ:
| Example Redemption | AAdvantage Miles required | Cost (USD) with latest promotion at highest discount tier* |
|---|---|---|
| * All redemption prices are in USD, one way and do not included booking fees, taxes and other charges | ||
| Australia to/from New Zealand in Business Class with Qantas or LAN | 25000 | $520 |
| New Zealand to Fiji in Fiji Airways Business Class | 30000 | $624 |
| New Zealand to Tahiti or Air Tahiti Nui Business Class | 30000 | $624 |
| New Zealand Business Class to Asia Zone 1 (Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam) | 40000 | $832 |
| New Zealand Business Class to Asia Zone 2 (Japan and Korea) | 40000 | $832 |
| New Zealand Business Class to Hawaii on Hawaiian Airlines | 65000 | $1352 |
| New Zealand Business Class to Contiguous 48 U.S. states | 80000 | $1664 |
| New Zealand Business Class to Europe | 85000 | $1768 |
Factors to consider when purchasing AAdvantage miles
Just like any miles purchase deal, you’ll need to take into consideration the following factors:
- The cost of the miles required for your intended route
- The $75 USD phone booking fee for some partners
- The USD:NZD exchange rate
- The taxes that come along with the booking, which are most easily confirmed by American over the phone
- The time taken to research award availability and make the booking
- AAdvantage accounts less than 30 days old are not permitted to buy or gift miles, so register for an account now so you can take advantage of future promotions
- AAdvantage usually lets you purchase or gift 100,000-150,000 miles (not including the bonus miles on offer) per year per account receiving the miles, so ensure you are buying into a deal when you have a redemption in mind OR you think it’s a really good one
- Be sure to get to the checkout page to see the full cost of your purchase including all USD fees and taxes
Previous offers
The simplest way to track historical AAdvantage offers is with the US cents per mile cost for the best offer tier for that period:
| Date | Cost Per Mile (USD cents) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| September 2019 | 2.08 | |
| August 2019 | 1.84 | |
| June-August 2019 | 1.72 | Lowest |
| May 2019 | 1.92 | |
| March-April 2019 | 1.92 | |
| January 2019 | 2.14 | |
| December 2018-January 2019 | 1.77 | |
| November 2018 | 1.92 | |
| October-November 2018 | 2.25 | Highest |
| October 2018 | 2.03 | |
| August 2018 | 1.84 | |
| June-August 2018 | 1.72 | Lowest |
| May 2018 | 2.08 | |
| March 2018 | 1.81 | |
| February 2018 | 2.02 | |
| January 2018 | 2.13 | |
| December 2017 | 1.77 | |
| November 2017 | 1.91 | |
| October 2017 | 2.10 | |
| September 2017 | 2.02 | |
| August 2017 | 1.83 | |
| July 2017 | 1.72 | Lowest |
| June 2017 | 1.72 | Lowest |
| May 2017 | 1.77 | |
| March 2017 | 1.80 | |
| February 2017 | 2.24 | Highest |
| January 2017 | 2.13 | |
| December 2016 | 1.77 | |
| November 2016 | 1.90 | |
| September 2016 | 2.02 | |
| August 2016 | 2.00 | |
| June 2016 | 1.72 | Lowest |
| May 2016 | 1.89 | |
| March 2016 | 1.81 | |
| February 2016 | 2.02 | |
| January 2016 | 2.13 | |
| December 2015 | 1.81 | |
| November 2015 | 1.98 | |
| October 2015 | 2.10 | |
| August 2015 | 2.09 | |
| July 2015 | 2.00 | |
| May-June 2015 | 2.06 | |
| May 2015 | 2.09 | |
| April 2015 | 2.00 | |
| February 2015 | 2.07 | |
| January 2015 | 2.14 | |
| Average | 1.95 |
Why purchasing AAdvantage miles is easier than earning them
The most common way to acquire AAdvantage miles for New Zealand travellers outside of flights would be to either:
- purchase them (the purpose of this guide)
- earn them through hotel stays or car rental
- spend with an American Express Membership Rewards card
Purchasing miles directly from American Airlines is usually the most cost-effective method if you have a specific flight you are targeting.
With most of these promotions I am usually quite risk-averse, and would only recommend purchasing miles for topping up an account or buying the full chunk of miles if you have a specific redemption in mind, but not to purchase speculatively. Your preferences may differ though!
Making your booking
Bookings using your miles can be made online if you are looking to fly American, Hawaiian Airlines, Qantas or and a heap of other airline partners.
If not, they’ll have to be made over the phone with the (usually excellent) call centre for the region, which happens to be in Fiji.
From New Zealand, you can contact them on (09) 308 4014, selecting option 3 for award travel.
Be sure to check the taxes and fees that will be incurred with your booking as well. I find the easiest way to do this is simply to research availability online on the Qantas website and call AAdvantage to price up the booking.
Summing up
AAdvantage provide those in Australia and New Zealand with some well-priced redemption opportunities available to use for cheaper premium cabin flights by buying miles and immediately redeeming them.
Their generous award hold policy makes the process much less risky, allowing you to hold an award, buy the miles and then call back to get it ticketed once they are added to your account.
Buying miles to redeem for flights in this way is still time-consuming, requiring you to research availability to death before you can book.
Whilst there aren’t many valuable deals for Economy travellers here, if you are keen for a Business or First Class bargain, you can still pick one up when buying AAdvantage miles.
You can purchase AAdvantage miles here.
Are you new to the purchasing points game?
If you’re new to the world of buying points/miles, I’ve written a full intro guide.
You can also access more comprehensive guides for buying points in each individual frequent flyer programme below.
Japan Airlines don’t fly to NZ.
Just had a couple of questions regarding AA miles. Can two people’s awards be booked using the miles from one person’s account. Can miles be transferred from one family member’s account to another?
Also just wondering what the cancellation policies and change fees on award flights already booked?
I ran the numbers on this latest AA offer and even though the headline rate of 1.72c USD per point is a lot cheaper than last time’s AA bonus offer (lowest price 1.81c per mile) you really have to set up a spreadsheet to analyse where the best value is for buying points with this promotion.
The reason being that AA plays around with the bands and offers either
bonus miles/discount on the price or a mixture of both ie bonus + discount which affects the effective discount on each month’s offer.
I ran the numbers and there are certain points where it’s advantageous to buy. Ie where the bands change to the next level of bonus points.
The effective discounts I calculated on this offer were (last month’s discounts in brackets):
85k miles – 32% discount (last month 37%)
101k miles – 37.7% discount (30%)
126k miles – 42.1% discount (37.5%)
150k miles – 46% discount (35%)
In summary I found:
-if you buy in at 101k that is where the higher discounts kick in
– to get the headline 1.72c per mile you have to drop $3982.50 USD to buy 150k miles (+ bonus)
– at levels less than 85k miles, last month’s bonus offer had a better discount on the price of a mile.
– if I could secure an AKL-HKG/KUL in J and bought in at 101k points (plus bonus and discount with this offer) then the price is around $1000 NZD one way which is good, for sure. If you can find availability on MH or CX…
– the expensive AA award chart and lack of availability on AUS/NZ-US routes lead me to prefer the AS program, however AA could be worth buying in for a second option to AS to get to Asia.
I’d be interested if anyone else has run the numbers on this offer and looked at the different tiers. Just want to cross check my calculations ☺