The number one complaint among frequent flyers about their mileage program is limited award availability. There’s rarely an award seat when you want to fly. A close second and third is the lack of award seats on non-stops, and the inability to get the newest, most comfortable seat for award travel.
American Airlines’ new AAdvantage one-way Flex Award gives you a way to kill these three birds with one stone. Instead of forcing AAdvantage members to book award travel on a round-trip basis, American now allows you to book each leg separately. Flex Awards are priced at half the round-trip rate of MileSaver Awards (25,000 miles) and AnyTime Awards (50,000 miles). We think this is a good thing. Here’s why:
It makes more of your miles useable
Let’s say you’re traveling from New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles to London, and AA only has space in Business Class on the outbound leg. Instead of spending 100,000 miles for a round-trip award and only getting half of it, now you can book the outbound award for 50,000 miles with American. Then, for your return, use miles in your British Airways account, another program that also lets you book one-way at half the round-trip rate (50,000 miles).The Key to getting the most out of the new award is access to as many mileage programs as possible. That means having a Starwood Starpoints account—mileage is transferable to 29 different airlines. American Express Membership Rewards and Diners Club also open opportunities.
It makes it likelier that you can get a non-stop
Airlines like to steer award travelers to itineraries requiring a connection. American, for instance, stubbornly tries to route you through London from Madrid to Miami when you book on aa.com, although it’s happy to give you the non-stop on the way out.With the new award, you can book each leg separately and not fight the website.You can use your miles to best advantage
That means flying different classes on each leg—say, Business to Europe so you can sleep, but economy home if you want to conserve miles. Or First to Europe and Business home if you want to splurge.FCF investigated all oneworld alliance airlines, as well as two airlines that are not affiliated with an alliance to see which ones offer and/or honor one-way awards.We only include airlines in the chart that offer a credit card point transfer option:
[table id=1497 /]