how to use American Airlines miles?

[gwe67]

It looks like these can't be redeemed for magazines & newspapers as in the past. Is the only option to use American's eshopping site?

[Flobes]

Donate them

[TravelGeek]

Book a flight? (on AA or one of their many, many partners). Virtually all other redemptions result in poor value, and many have been discontinued by airlines to preserve cash (including shopping) since they would have to pay $$$ to buy you the products for your miles.

If you don’t want to travel right now (understandable) and need help keeping your miles alive, there are countless ways to create activity at low cost/effort that doesn’t involve travel.

You can apparently still get newspaper subscriptions:

https://www.newspaperrewards.com/americ ... ization=AA

via https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-prog ... -miles.jsp

[Chicago60]

I believe AA miles expire after 18 months of inactivity, but that policy has been paused through June 30, 2021.

[ResearchMed]

It looks like these can't be redeemed for magazines & newspapers as in the past. Is the only option to use American's eshopping site?

If you plan to do any traveling, then of course you can use the awards for flights.
And you can "purchase" tickets for family members, even if they aren't traveling with you or you with them, etc.

The best use in terms of $ value is for premium travel (e.g., business class) on top international airlines.
The AA network includes quite a few airlines, some of them very nice.
We calculate "$ value" compared with what it would cost us to purchase those award points/miles.
And then we figure how that compares with the use of these awards vs. paying cash for the exact type of seats on the flights we want.

The "value" typically is not very good for domestic coach travel.

And of course, the "value" isn't "real" unless one would indeed have paid cash for that business class ticket.
In our case, at our stage of life, we would. And one time that we traveled on short notice so we couldn't get awards tickets, we did indeed pay cash.

In terms of keeping the awards/account "active", if you have an AAdvantage charge card (such as CitiCard), then if you just make a small charge every several months, that's sufficient to keep the account - and the awards - current.

RM

RM

[grabiner]

The "value" typically is not very good for domestic coach travel.

And of course, the "value" isn't "real" unless one would indeed have paid cash for that business class ticket.
In our case, at our stage of life, we would. And one time that we traveled on short notice so we couldn't get awards tickets, we did indeed pay cash.

But it is always worth checking. I try to get 1.5 cents from my United miles (I live near Washington, a United hub, so I have lots of nonstops available) and 1 cent from other airlines.

In terms of keeping the awards/account "active", if you have an AAdvantage charge card (such as CitiCard), then if you just make a small charge every several months, that's sufficient to keep the account - and the awards - current.

And every time I rent a car, or stay at a non-Marriott hotel (I use Marriott hotels so often on business that I earn points to get elite benefits instead), I earn miles on a different airline to keep it active. One month ago, I needed a one-day car rental while mine was being repaired; 38 miles isn't worth much in dollars, but it gives me plenty of time to prevent my thousands of American miles from expiring.

[canderson]

I’ll gladly take them!