American Airlines has launched a new award sale that’s released 500,000 seats for only 5,000 AAdvantage miles. That includes transcontinental flights between Los Angeles and New York, but there is a catch when it comes to eligible dates and eligible days of the week.
The Deal
Key Terms
- Availability is limited.
- Mileage amounts listed are subject to change.
- 500,000 one-way Main Cabin seats available at commencement of promotion
- Offer is valid for reservations made from March 5, 2024 – March 15, 2024 for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays between April 2, 2024 – Wednesday, May 29, 2024.
- American Airlines may, at any time and without notice, change, stop or end this offer in part or in full.
- Offer valid for reservations made in the US for flights originating in the contiguous 48 U.S. states to select destinations in the contiguous 48 U.S. states, Mexico, Caribbean and Central America.
- This offer cannot be combined with any other offer, or applied retroactively or to existing reservations.
- Valid only on flights marketed by American Airlines and operated by American Airlines or by American Eagle regional carriers. Not valid on codeshare flights.
- AAdvantage flight awards are subject to, and the passenger is responsible for, any applicable departure taxes, security fees, federal inspection fees, passenger facility charges and/or other taxes, fees, and surcharges assessed by appropriate authorities or partner carriers. In addition, there may be applicable non-refundable charges under the AAdvantage program, such as AAdvantage award charges or upgrade award co-pays.
- Offer applies only to published, scheduled service. Schedules subject to change.
- Offer is not combinable with any other offer or promotion
- For additional details about award travel please visit (Award travel − AAdvantage program − American Airlines)
- Offer subject to the AAdvantage program terms and conditions (AAdvantage terms and conditions (Effective March 1, 2024) − American Airlines)
Quick Thoughts
I imagine the 500,000 seats that are included as part of this award sale will get booked up pretty quickly, especially on transcontinental routes like New York to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
There is a catch with this great award sale though. It’s only valid on flights from April 2 to May 29, 2024, plus availability at the 5,000 mile level will seemingly only be found when traveling on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. If you have flexibility to fly on those dates, some of these routes at 5,000 miles will be a steal.
It looks like American isn’t artificially constraining award availability based on a few quick searches I ran. I’d wondered if they were perhaps releasing one 5,000 mile seat per flight on some of the more desirable routes, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. For example, here’s the award availability throughout April for four people from New York to Los Angeles. As you can see, only one of those eligible days doesn’t have 5,000 mile award availability. Even if you can’t travel on Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday, there’s a lot of pricing at the 7,500 mile level on nearly every other day of the month.
It might therefore be that rather than limiting the number of seats on each flight, there’s simply 500,000 seats up for grabs at the 5,000 mile pricing level on a first-come, first-served basis.
Something that’s also worth noting is that these are Main Cabin seats rather than Basic Economy. Among other things, that means you’ll be able to select your seat at the time of booking which could be particularly useful if you’ll be traveling with others.
This award sale is scheduled to end on March 15, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the 500,000 seats selling out before then, so book ASAP if you’re interested.
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