Thanks to the recent devaluations
the aspirational awards on partner airlines cost considerably more AAdvantage Miles than they did in the past and, even at 1.72 cents / mile, I can't see the value.
However, I still love me some AA miles because they are great for redeeming on
aspirational awards on partners like Etihad, Qatar, and Cathay Pacific.
Not exact matches
If you are a frequent traveler, both the number of airlines and their quality will be important: You will not only be able to earn miles
on a large number of flights, you will also have access to some of the best airlines for
aspirational award travel — a trip in Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa First Class will make any honeymoon very special!
One of my favorite «
aspirational»
awards is a suite
on Singapore Airlines.
However, one of the most
aspirational premium class
award in the world — the Singapore First Class suite
on the A380 is not even available
on United.
From 22 March 2016 the AAdvantage program will be devaluing and the cost of
award travel will be going up — substantially in the case of the
aspirational awards like those
on Etihad.
United Airlines may not have many cabins that one would call
aspirational (The latest Polaris seats
on the 777 - 300ER are nice but there's hardly any of them in service) but it offers far better
award availability than American Airlines and requires considerably fewer miles for premium cabin
awards than Delta — that makes it a valuable transfer option to have.
I consider a business or first class
award trip
on Thai Airways an
aspirational award — better than anything I have seen
on US carriers and some of the best in the world.
If you decide to hold off
on redeeming until the merger completes, your Dividend Miles will convert to AAdvantage miles and you can use them for
aspirational One World
awards, including
on Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Etihad, to name a few.
Considering United is devaluing its
award chart
on February 1, and US Airways will leave the Star Alliance
on March 30, now is the time to unload those miles for an
aspirational award you may not be able to book later
on.