American Airlines’ loyalty program is called AAdvantage, and its currency is called AAdvantage miles.
You can earn AAdvantage miles through activities such as flying with American Airlines or its partner airlines, spending on an American Airlines cobranded credit card and shopping online through the AAdvantage eShopping online portal. However, AAdvantage will update the specific ways members can earn miles and Loyalty Points on May 1.
While you can transfer certain travel rewards, such as Bilt Rewards Points (though this transfer partnership is ending in June), into your AAdvantage account, can you also transfer AAdvantage miles out?
Here is everything you need to know about transferring AAdvantage miles.
American Airlines AAdvantage overview
As one of the world’s largest airlines, American Airlines offers a large network of domestic and international routes. It’s also a Oneworld alliance member with 12 other airline partners, including Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific. Additionally, it’s the only “Big Three” U.S. airline out of American, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines that hasn’t fully eliminated award charts.
Related: Inside Europe’s first Oneworld alliance-branded lounge in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Whether you want to fly across the country, across the pond to Europe or somewhere more exotic like the Middle East or Australasia, American Airlines and its well-regarded partner airlines can take you there.
While AAdvantage miles for long-haul flights on American Airlines can be of poor value due to the dynamic pricing, partner redemptions remain a great deal.
TPG currently values AAdvantage miles at 1.55 cents each.
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Can you transfer AAdvantage miles?
You can transfer miles from hotel or credit card programs to AAdvantage in a few ways.
Hotel programs
Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to American AAdvantage at a ratio of 3 Marriott points to 1 AAdvantage mile. Unlike most Marriott airline transfer programs, you won’t earn an extra 5,000 miles for every 60,000 Marriott points you transfer.
Related: Here’s what you should know before transferring Marriott points to airline miles
While you can also transfer World of Hyatt points and IHG One Rewards points to AAdvantage, the transfer rate is so poor we do not recommend it.
Credit card points
You can use the Bilt Mastercard® (see rates and fees) to earn points when you pay rent (up to 100,000 points in a calendar year) and make other purchases. Cardholders must use the card five times each statement period to earn points (see rewards and benefits). Then, you can transfer Bilt points to partners, including AAdvantage, at a 1:1 transfer ratio.
Note that as of June 2024, the Bilt transfer option with American Airlines will end.
An easier option to consider for earning American AAdvantage miles is through sign-up bonuses and spending on American Airlines cards. Citi and Barclays currently issue AAdvantage credit cards that let you earn American Airlines miles when using your card for purchases.
Transfer to another member
You can transfer AAdvantage miles online to any other AAdvantage member in increments of 1,000 miles for $5 per 1,000 miles. This includes taxes, fees and discounts.
It is not possible to transfer AAdvantage miles to a credit card program or another airline loyalty program.
You can also use your AAdvantage miles in your account to book flights for other people.
How to book American Airlines flights with no AAdvantage miles
If you have no AAdvantage miles, you can still book American Airlines-operated flights in several different ways:
- You can book directly on aa.com, but remember to pay with a credit card that earns bonus miles for flight bookings.
- You could book American flights through a credit card travel portal like Chase Travel℠ or Capital One Travel, both of which offer bonus miles for airfare bookings.
- You could book through a partner airline like Alaska Airlines, which will sell you American Airlines flights.
- You could redeem points and miles in a partner airline program like British Airways Executive Club. This program partners with almost every transferable credit card program, so you have a wide range of options to earn points you could transfer to British Airways to book flights on American Airlines.
Bottom line
While there are only a few ways to transfer miles into your AAdvantage account, there are plenty of ways to earn more miles, from using a cobranded credit card to transferring miles from another member.
You can also book American Airlines flights, even if you do not have any AAdvantage miles, through the carrier’s partner airlines or online travel portals to earn extra rewards.
For rates and fees of the Bilt Mastercard, click here.
For rewards and benefits of the Bilt Mastercard, click here.
