American Airlines proves that an airline’s award charts aren’t always based on the same premise.
American Airlines has three award-redemption charts. One is American’s own chart, the second is an all-partner awards chart, and the third is the oneworld awards chart. (The last two are used for redeeming miles on partner airlines.)
The American and the all-partner charts are regional, meaning the miles required are calculated on flying from a departure region to a destination region—for example, “U.S. to Europe” or “U.S. to Asia.” You can get a one-way award from both charts, but free stopovers aren’t allowed.
The oneworld award chart is a flight distance award chart: It categorizes awards by the miles flown from the departure to the destination. The farther you fly, the more miles it costs. A free stopover is allowed, but the key rule to know is that an itinerary must include two other oneworld airlines, whether you fly AA or not.
Flight Distance Award Chart
Use this chart for an award when you’re planning a trip to multiple destinations. For example, flying from Dallas to New York, then to London, and returning from there to Dallas. Using the oneworld chart, you could do this trip on American, British Airways (from Canada), and Iberia for 115,000 miles. If you used the AA chart, each leg of the trip would be a separate award, that would total 125,000 miles.
The oneworld award chart also works well on shorter itineraries. For example, flying New York-Paris-New York on Iberia and Finnair. That’s 9,536 miles round-trip, requiring 90,000 miles. On the AA chart it would cost 10,000 more.
The downside is having to fly two different airlines to get the award, which almost always means taking an indirect route.
American Airlines Business Class Award Redemption Comparison
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