American Airlines (AAdvantage)

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Current Frequent Flyer Miles and Hotel Points Expiry Extensions

ByMatt

See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking. 

Things have evolved quite a bit since March 2020 when the coronavirus lockdowns hit the travel industry. As time went on, airline and hotel program made adjustments to stay afloat. They also tried to make things more generous for customers, while trying to juggle their balance sheet.

Many people would argue that airlines would get government bailouts anyway, so all they really need to do is sit back and relax. Whether true or not, today’s post focuses on extensions given to member account balances. Several of those extensions have now expired, while some programs made some more permanent changes to their expiry policies.

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Recap of Miles and Points Temporary Extensions

ByMatt

Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, airline and hotel loyalty programs have paused/extended expiry policies to their miles and points. Today’s post is a current snapshot of the state of these programs. 

Please note that we ongoingly update our COVID-19 updates page as well for most up-to-date information. 

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Positive Videos from Airlines and Hotels!

ByMatt

Keep in mind that we a frequently updated COVID-19 page. 

With so much negativity surrounding the news, I would like to share some positive airline and hotel company YouTube videos. We posted a list a few weeks ago, so you can see the previous videos on that list. Today’s list are more recent videos since then.

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Positive Messages from Airlines, Hotels and Train!

ByMatt

Airlines and hotels have been putting together some positive videos together on YouTube, so I wanted to give them a shout out for putting these videos together. The videos range from: Thank you message Giving passengers assurance message (e.g. being…

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Loyalty Program COVID-19 Updates

ByMatt

Loyalty programs across the board have implemented temporary solutions to deal with any COVID-19 related matters. Below is a list of hyperlinks to useful information. I also included a small blurb for each company that may be more commonly relevant.

I tried to include companies more relevant to Canadians, but please let us know in the comment section below if you see any other links that we can add to the list (in alphabetical order).

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RBC 20% Transfer Bonus to American Airlines AAdvantage

ByMatt

RBC is once again offering its 20% conversion bonus to American Airlines AAdvantage miles. The bonus is applied for transfers between September 3, 2019 to September 30, 2019.

Normally, you can earn 7 miles for every 10 miles that you earn. With the 20% bonus, you can earn 8.4 miles for every 10 RBC Rewards points converted. There is a 5,000 RBC Rewards points minimum requirement transfer. But it is increments of 1 point thereafter. So 5,000 points will get you 4,200 miles (instead of 3,500).

Rundown on American Airlines for Canadians (updated August 12, 2019)

ByMatt

I cannot believe how long it has been since I last updated this post. I have personally been loading up my American Airlines AAdvantage (AA) account, partially due to the uncertainty with Air Canada. Even though Air Canada’s loyalty does not seem up in the air as much anymore, it is still good to keep my portfolio diversified.

One AAs best value is that it is a member of Oneworld alliance, which means that you can earn and redeem miles with any of its member partners. Furthermore, if you redeem directly with American Airlines, the taxes and fees are fairly reasonable (especially compared to Aeroplan reward flight with Air Canada).

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Rundown on American Airlines for Canadians (updated December 3, 2017)

ByMatt

American Airlines (AA) announced back in November that they are expanding its service in Canada, including more frequency of its existing routes (see “List of Destinations Departing from Canadian Airports” section). So I thought that this post was due for an update. AA is a member of Oneworld alliance and has a rewards program called AAdvantage. Unfortunately, their rewards program took a hit, as their redemption schedule has become more expensive. However, they are the Oneworld airline with the biggest presence in Canada.

15,000 American Airlines December Flights Have No Pilots

ByMatt

This is going to be a quick post, since December is in less than 2 days, I thought I’d get this notice out there as quickly as possible. 

Yes, you read the title correctly, there are over 15,000 American Airlines flights in December that are without pilots assigned because of scheduling glitch. Basically, American Airlines allowed too many pilots to take vacation at the same time. My understanding is that the system approved too many vacations clustered around Christmas time and did not account for the lack of available pilots. 

Rundown on American Airlines for Canadians (updated January 25, 2017)

ByMatt

American Airlines (AA) has a loyalty program called AAdvantage. It has been widely documented already that AAdvantage took a devaluation hit this past year in reward redemption. That being said, I still believe that there is still a lot of value to be had, especially for Canadians. There are some easy ways for Canadians to earn lots of AAdvantage miles, which would be an alternative to Aeroplan.