American Airlines Promotion – Earn Up To 50,000 AAdvantage Miles

American Airlines has launched a promotion which allows AAdvantage members to earn up to 50,000 AAdvantage miles when they travel roundtrip between the US and Europe. The number of bonus miles you can earn depends on what cabin you’re booked into but the good news is that it appears that all fare classes will earn some sort of bonus.

The bad news, on the other hand, is that it would appear that existing bookings will not count towards the promotion (update: despite what the T&Cs say this may not be the case – see more below)…which is a huge annoyance to me as I would have earned a lot of miles had this not been the case.

Up To 50,000 AAdvantage Miles Promotion Details

Offer dates: 9 May – 31 July 2016

Promotion Code: NAS16

Valid For: Roundtrip travel between the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe

Bonus Miles:

Participating Airlines:

• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Finnair
• Iberia
• OpenSkies

REGISTRATION PAGE IS HERE

Important Points To Note:

Bad News First:

• The T&Cs say “Offer applies only to AAdvantage members who purchase and fly on eligible published-fare tickets on or after May 9, 2016“. This would appear to suggest that existing bookings will not count towards this promotion. (Update: reports are coming in on FlyerTalk that miles are posting to members accounts where the member had purchased the ticket before the promotion opened. Only time will tell if these are anomalies or if it’s the norm)

• The bonus can only be earned for a maximum of two round-trips which means that Economy Class flyers can earn maximum of 4,000 bonus AAdvantage Miles – that’s hardly spectacular.

Other Points:

• The flights do not have to be marketed by American Airlines. As long as they’re marketed by one of American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair or Iberia then the flights will count.

• Flights must be non-stop.

• There doesn’t appear to be a stipulation in the T&Cs that travel has to start in the west so those originating in Europe should be ok.

The full T&Cs can be found at the bottom of the registration page.

One aspect of the promotion that I don’t like is the way American Airlines has presented it.

The American Airlines promotion page reads “For every eligible round-trip you take during the offer period, you’ll earn bonus miles based on the fare class purchased.*”

But it’s only when you read the tiny small print to which the asterisk directs you (at the foot of the page) that you find out that “every eligible round trip” is actually limited to just two round trips.

There’s no need for that. The airline should put that fact out in the open in the main part of the promotion for all to see.

Bottom Line

If it turns out that existing bookings are not eligible it’s a little bite annoying but, to a degree, understandable. The airline is running the promotion to drum up more business so why pay out bonus miles to those who have already handed over their cash (like me)?

There are two positives to note:

• The fact that flights on BA, Iberia and Finnair count towards the promotion is great as all of those airlines often offer good Business Class fares from Europe (I’m not including the UK in that comment!)
• The promotion includes travel in July, a month that’s traditionally slow for Business Class travel and, as a result, brings about some excellent Business Class fares…like this one for example:

I’ll keep a look out for more fares like this one and post any that I find here on the blog.

Overall this isn’t as good a promotion as we’ve seen in the past but bonus miles are bonus miles and, if you happen to have some trips coming up, then the bonus miles are a nice little extra.