Reader Tom commented: “Aadv miles are pretty much worthless. Got a million I can never use” on a recent post about using airline miles for hotel stays (SEE: Should you use airline miles for hotel stays?). While redeeming miles in this fashion is something I would *never* suggest, it may seem tempting given the utter dearth of American SAAver Award space these days.
But how did you get so many miles?
Whenever I hear of someone having huge numbers of miles I think a few things. First, there is “wow, I wish I had a stash like that!” Followed by, “you obviously don’t redeem miles often enough”. Finally, I wonder “what could I possibly do with XX miles…”
Even though AA award availability is downright AAbysmal, there are still some great options out there for redeeming their disAAdvantaged miles. They just typically don’t involve AA! Here are 10 great options for redeeming a million AA miles:
Take 4 romantic getaways to Europe in business class
With a million AA miles, you have enough for 4 round-trips vacations to Europe for you and your significant other. Finding transatlantic award space on AA’s own metal is pretty hard, and the fees on British Airways are obscene. But consider AirBerlin or Finnair!
Award space is typically fairly good on both these carriers. Checking some dates from U.S. gateways, there is even a decent amount of space this summer. The trick will be to get yourself to said gateway (which can be a bit frustrating as AA often doesn’t have enough domestic award space).
7 round-trips to the Middle East in business class
You have three great options here: Royal Jordanian business class, Etihad’s business class, or Qatar’s legendary product. And you have enough miles to figure out which one is your favorite! You might even consider splurging for first, although that would cut you down to only 4 round-trips. Do be aware of the current political issues if flying to Qatar.
Another thing to note is that Royal Jordanian is also one of the few (two?) Middle Eastern carriers that fly to Israel. They only have North American gateways at ORD, DTW, YUL, and JFK. Again, given American’s lack of even domestic award space, getting to a gateway could be tricky.
Fly your family of 6 to Southeast Asia in Cathay Pacific’s premium cabins
While Cathay first class costs a pretty penny using AA miles (a steep 110,000 each way), if you have 1,000,000 AA miles sitting around, why not! Their business class is relatively affordable at 70,000 miles each way. Overall, Alaska miles are still the way to go here, but we’ll work with what you’ve got.
And what you’ve got is enough for 2 round-trips in Cathay first and 4 in business. If you can find the availability, take your family of 6 to Hong Kong or another destination in Southeast Asia. A mere 20,000 more miles, and you can head to India. Or say hello to the Maldives?
Book an around the world extravaganza for 2 people
Granted, I will freely admit that you’ll be wasting miles on this one. But if you can manage to stockpile such a massive pile of miles, you gotta burn them on something! Here’s a potential itinerary:
US-Japan-Australia-New Zealand-Hong Kong-Qatar-South Africa-UAE-Germany-England-Spain-Peru-US
All in business. All booked as separate one ways, stopping in each country. Enjoy.
Take a group of 25 to visit Peru
Ok…have fun figuring out the award space on this one. But it’s an idea!! And if you have people starting in different cities or arriving on different days, it could work.
At 40,000 miles per round-trip in economy, this makes for a pretty good redemption. Consider a family reunion in a foreign country (just don’t ask me to take on the logistics).
Just make sure you know about the new restrictions on visiting Machu Picchu (SEE: Peru making it harder to visit Machu Picchu).
12 one-ways in Japan Airlines’ amazing first class
While JAL business class is impressive enough, first is truly over the top. Sharon recently took a trip to Japan and reviewed both their business and first class products:
(SEE: JAL first class SFO Haneda)
(SEE: JAL business class Haneda SFO)
I believe she used Alaska miles for this experience but American miles will work well enough. You’ll need 60,000 for business or 80,000 for first each way. This hardly puts a dent in a stash of a million miles.
Hop around the South Pacific for months
At only 15,000 miles per one-way ticket in economy, you could hop around the South Pacific forever. American’s definition of the South Pacific is broad, so this covers anything from Sydney-Auckland to Tahiti-Perth. With Qantas service covering essentially the whole region, you have a ton of options.
Additionally, service wholly within Australia is 10,000 miles each way. Island hopping within Fiji on Fiji Airways (another partner) is even better at only 5,000 AA miles per one-way. Even if you are spending 15,000 miles on every one-way, you can visit roughly 60 destinations. Take a year off and do it. You may never go back to work.
Hire an award booker
Seriously. If you can’t find the space to book an award flight, yet you have the means to accrue 1,000,000 AA miles, you can probably afford to hire someone to hunt for the award you want! Just call me. I’m itching to burn those miles for you!
Conclusion
I know my collection of ideas are pretty zany, but I hope it just illustrates there there are still quite a few ways to use AA miles. They just *don’t* involve the pain of searching futilely for AA SAAver space. Forget awful American Airlines. Fly any one of their great partners (i.e. pretty much all of them minus BA).
Obviously, this is a major issue if you want to spend your million miles domestically. But consider expanding your horizons a bit. You’ll see that there are plenty of options out there.
My final comment to the reader is: if you *really* can’t think of a use for the miles, I’d happily take them off your hands. 🙂
Sydney Opera House photo courtesy of Hai Linh Truong under CC 2.0 license.
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I guess 53 years of living have me jaded towards these kinds of offers. There’s never a free lunch no matter how many “miles” they offer.
Thanks for the creative thinking but AA needs to take a serious look in the mirror and look at their Saver availability. No loyalty from me.
Nice post IAAn but there were not neAArly enough amAAzing puns for my sAAtisfAAction…
Lol. AAnd here I thought I was going overboAArd with them.
International awards on Oneworld partners can be AAdequate-on AA metal, not so much. In the last three years I got three business seats ATL-HKG (AA to ORD, CX onward & return JFK, LGA-ATL AA first), Three AA for ATL-CLT-DUB-LHR-ATL (the last was in BA 1st with loads of fees), two ATL-PHX-RNO-LAX-ATL (AA first), two ATL-DOH-SIN with QR, HKG-JFK on CX, LGW-ATL AA first and upcoming BCN-MAD-MIA IB and MIA ATL AA first. All were at the saver rate. The time and effort required however left me feeling pretty crAAnky.
These ideas are only good for single travellers. How can I use my millions with my family of 6
Hey now….at least give me *bit* of credit. Item #3 is specifically for a family of 6. And you could apply the same logic to the trip to Japan, although my guess is that you’d have to split between First and Business, if you could even score 6 seats. But a million AA miles would be enough. 🙂
If you think a million AA miles are worthless, you’re doing this wrong. Stick to cashback.
Ian, thanks for the great article. I’m trying to get back from BKK to Miami Business Class with my significant other. I have tons of points but nothing is showing on any websites. When do the Bus Class seats start to open (how many months prior)? Also, how do you go about using points on partner airlines when their itineraries don’t show up on AA, BA, UA or Delta sites? E.g. if I go to Qatar to find a flight directly, there’s no clue as to whether the flights have reward seats free.
Hi Janine,
Here’re some short answers: most airline schedules open up about 330 days (11 months) out. There is typically a little availability really far out, and then more gets released the closer you get to the travel date. I don’t have a good handle on each carrier, except that I find that many carriers release a bunch more seats 2-3 weeks out (which is way too close for most people).
My short guide for best sites to find availability:
Oneworld: Search BA or Qantas
SkyTeam: Search FlyingBlue
StarAlliance: Search United, Aeroplan and/or ANA
JAL/AA/Alaska/Emirates + others: Alaska
Another hint is to search segment by segment. A bit time intensive, but it might reveal more options.
Great advice, thanks Ian.
Janine, assuming you are using AA miles, your best bet from BKK to East Coast is JAL or Cathay Pacific, but you need to break the trip apart and try to book 330 days out or within a month of departure. So look for JAL from BKK to HND or NRT (Tokyo airport) and then HND/NRT to JFK, availability are usually pretty good but there is a long layover in Tokyo. Another alternative is on Cathay from BKK to HKG to EWR or JFK! You can search both airlines on BA.com. And just book a separate ticket JFK/EWR to MIA/FLL. Always search leg by leg and then piece them together. Hope this helps!
Thanks, Sharon, very helpful advice!
This might be sacrilegious, but… when you have a million miles, you don’t HAVE to just book saver fares.
Hubby and I only have a few hundred thousand AA miles. We splurged on first class flights to Liberia, Costa Rica in January for 60K each. (Flying Delta 1st back)
AA are low hanging fruit. We scoop them up when there are easy deals. Being in an old USAIRWAYS hub, there are lots of AA flights for us – both for positioning flights and destination flights.
Good point Dee – sometimes you just gotta suck it up and book a “standard” award 🙂
This very thought causes me to break out in hives.
Flying out of Boston, we don’t have a problem using our points..just learn to book early (and often). First class to Fla. during winter (50k rt) is bargain. To Houston , LA, Vegas, clev, all on regular basis…..I will take all the AA points they want to give me…
Good stuff. I’ve used AA miles for years and never flown American internationally – and always business, once or twice first class. Just finished Cathay biz JFK to Asia and AU. Been to every continent, and feel a round-the-world trip in my bones (hehe). May look for help on that one, and have decent miles in three alliances. Who best to help with that should I run into frustrating walls? Also, thanks for good and helpful posts.
You are more than welcome to contact Dan (dan pointswithacrew.com) if you’re looking for an award booker. We should be able to hook you up with introductory pricing if you want to hire us. 🙂
If you want other options, feel free to ask that, too!
Thanks very much for reply, I put this in my travel notes. Cheers!
never a problem using my AA miles ( 3m+) over the years.
we plan ahead, book 300+ days in advance, on cx, jal partners
How about AA metal? I’ve heard some similar experiences from others. They’re still crap for domestic travel, and even to Latin America. United calendar? Often wide open.
well, one of my workers retired, we booked him san/mem with no problem 5 days in advance a few months ago.