Use AAdvantage One-Way Bookings To Create A European Vacation

December 17, 2009 at 5:04 PM | by Omri | Comments (0)

Get together with any group of frequent fliers and—after they get done rightly trashing Ryanair—the topic of conversation inevitably turns to the declining value of mileage programs. When airlines aren't busy taking away perks, they're spending their time restructuring awards tiers so you don't notice how they're taking away perks. It's that steady decline, more than anything else, that underlies the very first rule of airline miles: don't hoard your airline miles.

So being good, rule-abiding travelers, we booked a trip to Europe this winter using AAdvantage miles and oneworld partners. We were able to book three destinations for 60K miles. That's not impressive on its own—three flights times 20K is 60K—but the beauty is that it more or less forms a round trip. The important trick comes from the policy change American Airlines implemented last March, allowing customers to use their points for one-way trips. And so 60K miles will get you most of the way from LAX to Sofia, Tel Aviv, and London and then, unfortunately, back home. The caveat is that you have to book SOF-TLV on your own unless you want to spend another 40K bouncing around Europe. Not ideal, but not a disaster.

This roundup was a lot more impressive before the British Airways travel strike forced major changes in our itinerary. But it's still an important reminder that using your miles, in addition to just being a good policy, is something very much worth it.

You can't book international AAdvantage flights over the website. Unfortunately that means you have to call the AAdvantage number, and then ask to get transferred to international booking, and then have them book the itinerary for you. As always it behooves you to do a little research beforehand. Know what airlines fly into and out of your cities, and check their websites for flight availability before you call. For instance, only British Airways and Malev fly into Sofia, which is important to know if you suddenly have to redo your entire itinerary to avoid an unprecedented British Airways holiday strike.

Also, their booking computers aren't great. Sometimes available seats won't come up on the automatic searches. If you ask about those seats, you're liable to run into comments like "well different airlines make different seats available to different partners." That's almost never true, so you need to insist that they check specific flights that you researched beforehand. After all, those miles aren't going to spend themselves.

[Photo: afagen]

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