The Latest AAdvantage Miles Sale Is A Hard Pass

a plane on the tarmac

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Around the beginning of this month, American Airlines launched the best mileage sale I’ve ever seen the airline offer and I was sorely tempted to dive in and load up (I didn’t). Now, just days after the last sale ended, American is back with another sale and I’m here to suggest you stay well away.

The Sale In Brief

As we’ve seen in the past, sometimes American likes to make its sales overly complicated:

a screenshot of a website
Click to enlarge

The key terms you need to know are as follows:

  • The sale runs through to 31 May 2020
  • The miles don’t count towards elite status
  • Members may purchase, or receive as a gift, a maximum combined total of 150,000 AAdvantage miles in a calendar year.
  • Bonus miles do not count towards the annual maximum total.

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

The Math

There are two key things to know about the math fort this sale:

Firstly, you’ll have to buy the maximum number of miles on offer to get the cheapest cost/point:

a screenshot of a website

247,500 miles at a cost of $4,554.77 comes to ~1.84 cents/mile

Secondly, because of how this sale has been structured, there isn’t much difference in the cost per point within each band – the difference in cost/mile between buying 121,000 and 149,000 miles is minuscule.

Quick Thoughts

Ordinarily, 1.84 cents/mile would be the price of offered by one of the better American Airlines mileage sales but it’s hard to make a strong argument for people to dive in this time around.

Sure, if you somehow missed the last sale and can see an amazing award available for travel in 2021 then an argument could be made for buying miles in this sale (assuming that you’d be saving money by buying miles)…but for most people this isn’t a deal that’s worth considering.

We already know that American is happy to sell its miles at just 1.6 cents each so, apart from the fact that no one should be buying miles if they have no immediate use for them, why would you choose to pay 15% above the price we know American is willing to drop to?

Even under normal conditions (when the travel world isn’t imploding), American Airlines runs mileage sale after mileage sale so there’s no doubt whatsoever that the airline will be back with another “deal” in early June…so why not wait to see what that sale looks like? There’s every chance that American will be in just as much need of cash in June as it is right now so we may see the 1.6 cents/mile price return sooner rather than later.

Bottom Line

I really need AAdvantage miles right now (I’d like to book a trip for 2021) but I wasn’t ready to buy miles in the last sale and I’m definitely not paying 1.84 cents/mile in this sale and I advise everyone else to stay away too.

American Airlines’ mileage sales are far from being a rarity and I see no reason not to expect a better sale than this one (possibly at 1.6 cents/point) in the near future so this sale really isn’t a good deal right now.