Editor’s word: We’ve up to date this put up with new data. TPG founder Brian Kelly is a Bilt advisor and investor.
Despite being shorter than some home routes, flights to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America will be costly. In addition to the additional taxes and costs, many airways cost greater award charges for these routes.
But you’ll be able to generally ebook low-cost flights to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America with American Airlines. Following the steps beneath, you may discover awards to those areas for comparatively few American Airlines miles.
Why it’s particular
American Airlines AAdvantage will quickly provide totally dynamic mileage awards and introduce a simplified award chart for journey on its flights. But, for now, you’ll be able to nonetheless ebook MileSAAver off-peak awards to pick out areas. These awards allow you to save on financial system awards between sure areas throughout choose journey durations.
MileSAAver awards to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America sometimes price 15,000 AAdvantage miles every manner in financial system however can be found for simply 12,500 miles on off-peak dates.
The low cost is utilized routinely, so you’ll be able to ebook these awards even in the event you don’t have sufficient miles at the usual charges.
There are some terrific locations you’ll be able to ebook at these discounted charges, together with San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO), Panama City (PTY), Aruba (AUA), Barbados (BGI), Bermuda (BDA), Mexico City (MEX) and Cancun (CUN).
How to ebook this award
Booking an off-peak MileSAAver award isn’t any totally different than some other AAdvantage redemption. However, you need to familiarize your self with the off-peak dates to know when to ebook.
The present off-peak dates for the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America are April 21 to May 20 and Sept. 9 to Nov. 18. Keep in thoughts that the autumn dates are throughout peak hurricane season for a few of the locations, so that you’ll wish to pay the taxes and costs with a bank card that comes with journey protections.
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Once you’ve picked your dates, search as you usually would on the American Airlines web site. Enter your route, choose your dates and test off the “Redeem miles” field.
If there’s MileSAAver availability, you’ll routinely see the decrease charges — no promo code wanted. Just do not forget that the low cost is simply accessible for financial system class, not enterprise or first.
If there’s no MileSAAver availability, I like to recommend you utilize the calendar search software to test alternate dates. Unfortunately, MileSAAver off-peak awards do require you to fly American Airlines. So, you gained’t be capable of get these charges in the event you join by way of a companion airline like Alaska.
As American Airlines costs awards dynamically, we discovered some dates priced even decrease than the anticipated off-peak MilesSAAver price. If you’re versatile, you could possibly ebook these awards for under 10,000 miles (plus taxes and costs) every manner.
The draw back of dynamic pricing is that for peak durations, American expenses way over these costs. For instance, we discovered some one-way financial system awards to Costa Rica pricing as excessive as 65,000 miles plus $28.28 in taxes and costs.
After you’ve chosen a flight, you’ll must log in to your AAdvantage account to finish the reserving. Some of the perfect playing cards for paying taxes and costs on award tickets embody The Platinum Card® from American Express and the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Not solely do they earn bonus factors on airfare, however they arrive with journey delay reimbursement — which is very vital in the event you’re touring throughout hurricane season.
Related: Maximizing redemptions with American Airlines AAdvantage
How to earn miles for this award
You may marvel find out how to earn sufficient miles for this award in the event you’re not a frequent American Airlines flyer. At first, this might sound difficult since American isn’t a switch companion of American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi ThankYou. However, there are many different methods to earn AAdvantage miles.
Earning American miles with playing cards
Two main transferable currencies companion with American Airlines: Bilt Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy. Bilt Rewards switch to Marriott at a 1:1 ratio, whilst you can switch Marriott factors to American Airlines AAdvantage at a 3:1 switch ratio. To earn Marriott factors, contemplate including the Bilt Mastercard® (see charges and costs) or a Marriott Bonvoy bank card to your pockets.
A doubtlessly easier manner of racking up AAdvantage miles can be by selecting up and spending on an American cobranded bank card. In addition to giving your AAdvantage account a pleasant enhance, some American Airlines cobranded playing cards present helpful “elite-lite” perks starting from free checked baggage on home itineraries to lounge entry.
Other strategies for incomes American miles
You don’t essentially must get a brand new bank card to earn the miles you want. While sometimes at suboptimal charges, you could possibly additionally switch World of Hyatt factors, IHG One Rewards factors and Choice Privileges factors to American AAdvantage.
Alternatively, you could possibly store on-line by way of the AAdvantage eShopping portal or dine by way of AAdvantage Dining. You might additionally purchase American Airlines miles, however this might generally be extra expensive than shopping for the flight outright.
For extra choices, learn our full information on incomes American Airlines miles.
Related: What is American Airlines elite standing value?
Bottom line
American Airlines AAdvantage will quickly get rid of its MileSAAver and AAnytime awards, going all-in on dynamically priced flight redemptions. But as of publishing, you’ll be able to nonetheless ebook off-peak MileSAAver awards. And as we famous on this story, you will discover even cheaper pricing on some dates resulting from dynamic pricing.
For charges and costs of the Bilt Mastercard, click on right here.
For rewards and advantages of the Bilt Mastercard, click on right here.
Additional reporting by Ben Smithson.
Source: thepointsguy.com”