New sale: Buy American Airlines miles from 1.88 cents each (50% off)

November 24, 2023

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The latest American Airlines mileage sale is live and its offering flyers a discount of up to 50% on the regular price of miles which, a little surprisingly, represents the best deal on AAdvantage miles that we’ve seen this year.

The sale

Buy 1,000 miles – get no discount
Buy 5,000 – 54,000 miles – get 25% off
Buy 55,000 – 149,000 miles – get 35% off
Buy 150,000 – 350,000 miles – get 50% off

The key terms are as follows:

The sale runs through to 11:59:59pm CT on 27 November 2023 (Monday)
The miles don’t count towards elite status
Members may purchase, or receive as a gift, a maximum combined total of 350,000 AAdvantage miles in this sale.

Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page (here)

The numbers

As is often the case with American’s mileage sales, the cost per mile doesn’t vary within each of the sale bands so as long as you purchase at least 150,000 miles in this sale…

a screenshot of a price list

… you’ll be buying miles at the lowest rate this sale offer (~1.88 cents/mile).

To put this sale in a bit of context, 1.75 cents/mile is around the best rate that we’ve seen American sell it miles in recent years, but it’s worth keeping in mind that it has been a while since we’ve seen a rate as low as that one on offer so 1.88 cents/mile isn’t terrible. It’s not amazing, but it’s also one of the better rates that American Airlines has published in the past 12 months.

Quick thoughts

Obviously, if you have no immediate use for AAdvantage Miles, you shouldn’t be taking part in this sale.

No matter how good a deal may appear to you, it’s never a good idea to stockpile miles and because the AAdvantage program is notoriously bad at releasing premium cabin award space (and because some partner airlines are restricting access to their awards), that is doubly true here.

Having said that, *if* you can find awards that you’re happy to book and you have run through the numbers to check that buying miles at 1.88 cents each will save you some cash, go ahead and buy as many miles as you need.

Which credit cards to use

American Airlines sells its own miles (the transactions code as travel/airline purchases) so, if you can see a good reason for buying AAdvantage Miles in this promotion, make sure you use a credit card that will earn you a travel/airline category bonus like card_name (review) – terms apply.

If miles & points aren’t what you’re looking to collect right now, a good cash back card like the Citi® Double Cash Card (review) or the card_name (which comes with an amazing welcome offer right now – see here) would be good alternatives.

Bottom line

For a lot of people, buying miles in this sale won’t make a lot of sense, but for anyone looking to book a partner award this may be a sale to consider… just make sure you stick to these simple rules:

Work out how much the miles would cost to buy
Find the cash fare for the same route and the same dates
Compare the two

That should give you an indication of how good or bad the deal is.

If the numbers work in your favor you should buy as many miles as you need. If they don’t, don’t try to persuade yourself that the deal is a good one anyway (the numbers don’t lie) – keep your credit cards in your wallet and move on.

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