Changes to American’s Reduced Mileage Awards for Credit Cardholders
Changes to American’s Reduced Mileage Awards for Credit Cardholders
American Airlines has a great benefit for those AAdvantage members who also hold one of their branded credit cards. The benefit is known as “reduced mileage awards.” It allows you to book award flights for up to 7,500 miles cheaper than non-credit card holders. This is excluding the 10% rebate that most AAdvantage cards get you already, so really a first class domestic award flight could cost you 15,750 miles each way if you play it right (with reduced mileage awards + 10% back).
Previously, reduced mileage awards allowed you to say up to 7,500 miles round-trip (3,750 one-way) OR 5,000 miles round-trip (2,500 one-way). In other words, all awards were treated equal regardless of distance, it all depended on which AAdvantage credit card you held. However, since the change to the AAdvantage program in terms of mileage redemptions, they now added lower savings for short-distance flights.
New Rates:
- 7,500 mile discount (flights more than 500 miles); and
- 2,000 mile discount (flights 500 miles or less)
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World EliteTM MasterCard®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Visa®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® American Express®
- CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Select Visa®
- CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Select MasterCard®
- CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard®
- AAdvantage® AviatorTM Silver World Elite MasterCard®
- AAdvantage® AviatorTM Red MasterCard®
- AAdvantage® AviatorTM Business MasterCard®
- 5,000 mile discount (flights more than 500 miles); and
- 1,000 mile discount (flights 500 miles or less)
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Gold American Express®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Gold Visa®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Gold MasterCard®
- AAdvantage® AviatorTM Blue MasterCard®
The new changes have been implemented because you can now book short-distance award flights on American for as low as 15,000 miles round-trip and saving you up to 7,500 would be a big loss to them.