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American Airlines has resisted the temptation to launch its Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales weeks ahead of time and has now said that its seasonal deals will go live “starting November 28 at aa.com”.
Here’s what we know so far (which isn’t much!)
We know that …
- AAdvantage members will be the first to know about the “great deals on flights and miles”, so make sure you have your AAdvantage account set to receive promotional emails if you’re looking for a flight/vacation deal this year.
- American Airlines is claiming that it will “bring more affordable vacations to travelers in 2026”.
- American Airlines has said that its deals will start “from November 28” which suggests that whatever deals it plans to release could be staggered across a number of days
- There will be a big mileage sale (more on that in the next section).
This is what Caroline Clayton, American’s Chief Marketing Officer has had to say:
“American’s centennial year is rapidly approaching, and we’re thinking about hundreds of ways to bring affordable travel to our customers.
We’re proud to share our love for connecting travelers with the world by offering flight and mileage deals to ring in the new year by checking off bucket list adventures, reconnecting with friends and family after the holidays or earning AAdvantage miles.”
That doesn’t tell us very much, does it? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Friday brings.
The possible AAdvantage Miles sale
The one bit of solid information that the American Airlines marketing team has given us is the one which tells us that the upcoming mileage sale will “offer savings of up to 50% when purchasing up to 500,000 AAdvantage® miles between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2“.
Given that the AA marketing team isn’t known for its radical thinking and given that it often recycles promotions, there’s a very good chance that this year’s mileage sale will be very similar to the sale we saw this time last year.
In that sale, these were the bands on offer:
- Buy 1,000 – 5,000 miles and get zero discount
- Buy 6,000 – 24,000 miles and get a 10% discount
- Buy 25,000 – 79,000 miles and get a 20% discount
- Buy 80,000 – 149,000 miles and get a 30% discount
- Buy 150,000 – 299,000 miles and get a 40% discount
- Buy 300,000 – 449,000 miles and get a 45% discount
- Buy 450,000 miles and get a 50% discount
At the top end, the price per mile was ~1.88 cents and you had to part with almost $8,500 to lock that price in.
I suspect that while the bands will be slightly different this year (we know that AAdvantage members will be able to buy up to 500,000 miles in the upcoming sale), the best rate at which AAdvantage Miles will be on sale will again be ~1.88 cents/mile.
That’s the best price at which we’re now used to seeing AAdvantage miles on sale (a good thing), but you’ll still probably have to hand over a painful amount of cash if you want to lock in that rate (a bad thing).
If I’m correct about what we can probably expect, I won’t be topping up my account in this sale.
Bottom line
If you’re waiting to see what kinds of deals and offers American Airlines plans to publish for the spending season, you’re going to have to wait until Black Friday (and possibly Cyber Monday) to find out.
We don’t have any indication what types of flight and vacation deals we can expect, but we know that a big mileage sale is on the way in which AAdvantage members will be able to buy up to half a million miles.
