Airline Loyalty American Airlines AAdvantage Miles & Points Sale

Avoid The New American Airlines Mileage Sale – It’s Abysmal

November 2, 2020

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American Airlines has now launched a new mileage sale for November and it’s a sale that absolutely nobody should be participating in. Considering the levels at which we’ve seen AAdvantage Miles sold in the past (and not just during a pandemic), you would have to have taken leave of your senses before thinking that buying miles in this sale is a good idea.

For very obvious reasons I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but I’ll outline the latest AAdvantage sale nonetheless.

The Offer

a screenshot of a white and blue screen

The Math

The cost per mile doesn’t vary within each tier but, obviously, it does get cheaper the higher up the ladder you progress because the discount gets bigger.

The biggest discount available here is 35% and if you buy anywhere between 100,000 miles and 150,000 miles you’ll find yourself paying a truly ridiculous 2.275 cents per mile.

a screenshot of a cost calculation — Click to enlarge

Considering American Airlines has sold miles at 1.6 cents each already this year, and considering that the airline will sell miles at between 1.7 cents and 1.8 cents each outside of a pandemic, why would anyone pay 2.275 cents/mile now?

I’m not sure whether we should be laughing at this “sale” or whether we should feel insulted that the airline thinks that we’re dumb enough to fall for this nonsense.

It’s important to note that this sale only runs through to 26 November (Thanksgiving) and that means that it will end just in time for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales at which point American Airlines will, almost certainly, launch a new sale in which its miles will be considerably cheaper to buy than they are right now. We may even see them on sale at under 1.7 cents each.

Bottom Line

Stay away from this non-sale. I value American Airlines AAdvantage miles at 1.25 cents each so the best price on offer here is not even close to one that’s worth considering. Add to that the fact that it’s almost unthinkable for American not to offer a serious discount on its currency come Black Friday/Cyber Monday (just 4 weeks away), and you’d have to be incredibly desperate for AAdvantage Miles to part with any cash in this sale.

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