[PREDICTION] American Airlines Will Soon Sell Miles From 1.77 Cents Each

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UPDATE 23 November 2018: The prediction was right 🙂 Follow this link for more details

One of the unexpected bonuses of American Airlines not having any real creativity is that the airline can be very predictable.

Admittedly when the airline is predictably delayed or predictably bad at anything that involves customer service this bonus is hard to see…but when the airline is too lazy to freshen up its promotions it can be very helpful.

This time last year I predicted exactly what I’m predicting today – that we’ll be able to buy AAdvantage Miles from 1.77 cents within the week – I was right.

I warned readers not to purchase miles in last year’s early November mileage sale and, sure enough, come the Black Friday sale American Airlines reduced the cost of miles to 1.77 cents each.

While there’s always a chance that someone at AAdvantage HQ will decide to do something different this year, I’m quietly confident that apathy and lethargy will win the day and we’ll see the same Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale this year as we saw last year…..and the year before that too.

I’m basing my confidence on the fact that this year’s early November mileage sale looks like this:

And the fact that last year’s early November sale and 2016’s early November sale looked like this too. For all I know the same can be said for 2015 but my records don’t go back that far.

The AAdvantage Miles sales in early November 2016, 2017 and 2018 have been identical and, as the 2016 and 2017 sales were both followed by a sale offering AAdvantage Miles at 1.77 cents each, I’m pretty sure that’s what will happen again this year.

Here’s the deal I’m expecting to see released any day now:

As with a lot of AAdvantage promotions you’ll probably get the best cost/mile by buying the minimum number of miles in each band (i.e it will be cheaper, per mile, to buy 100,000 miles than it will be to buy 149,000 miles)

Naturally,  to get the cheapest price/mile you’ll have to buy the maximum amount allowable (which I expect to be 150,000 miles) and that will probably cost $4,786.88 (because that’s what it cost last year)

$4,786.88 will net you 270,000 AAdvantage miles (after the bonus is factored in) and will mean that the cost per mile is…..1.77 cents.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking to top up your AAdvantage account with a few miles it may be prudent to ignore the current sale (in which the price/mile starts at 1.92 cents) and wait to see what the Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal looks like.

I think we’ll see another sale at 1.77 cents/mile but, even if we don’t and American Airlines conjures up some creativity from somewhere, it’s unlikely that the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is going to be any worse than a sale at a normal time of year.

As with a lot of things this time of year, patience may see you save some cash.