AA BUY miles promo

[DC3]

I've had no problems having the AA agents in the US accept my Australian credit card for taxes and charges. The details are in my AAdvantage account but I don't think that matters.

Would you be Platinum with AA? It may still be a Platinum benefit to use an Australian address credit card, from memory.

 

[NM]

The US phone operators cannot accept Australian credit cards so they put the reservation on hold and then you have 24 hours to ring the Australian office to pay. They they issue the ticket.

This is incorrect. I always call the US when making AAward bookings, and I always pay the taxes/fees wit my Aussie credit card over the phone at the time of booking. I never follow the hold process you mention.

 

[dfcatch]

This is incorrect. I always call the US when making AAward bookings, and I always pay the taxes/fees wit my Aussie credit card over the phone at the time of booking. I never follow the hold process you mention.

Same here.

And you only pay the $25 booking fee when booking with the US operators.

The "Aussie" one makes you pay $60 and recently they have become more useless than your average Telstra call centre based in Nepal.

 

[NM]

Would you be Platinum with AA? It may still be a Platinum benefit to use an Australian address credit card, from memory.

I have paid with Aussie card as both Platinum and Exec Platinum. The only "restriction" I have found is that some agents don't realize that in Australia we have 4-digit post codes and the AA system requires 5 digits. They need to enter the Aussie post code with a leading zero, otherwise the system rejects the process and an AAgent may interpret that failure as rejecting Aussie cards in general.

 

[sr81]

Great, thanks for the posts.

I am right when I see 17.5k one way for travel within Australia in J? Looking for MEL-DRW and this promo makes J possible.

 

[dfcatch]

Great, thanks for the posts.

I am right when I see 17.5k one way for travel within Australia in J? Looking for MEL-DRW and this promo makes J possible.

Yes - anywhere in Aus/NZ to anywhere in Aus/NZ one-way is 17.5K plus taxes plus booking fee.

 

[JohnK]

Probably a stupid question and has been answered somewhere before, but what is the advantage of buying AA miles??

One can then book an award travelling Oneworld as opposed to *Alliance, e.g Qantas A380, with hardly any taxes and surcharges involved.

Also for this Platinum it means access to the First Class lounges in SYD/MEL/LHR.

 

[ozdunker]

thanks for the information guys.

I am buying points for the reason mentioned about flying from aus to usa direct.

I thought there was also a good deal to fly business class around the world?

 

[serfty]

thanks for the information guys.

I am buying points for the reason mentioned about flying from aus to usa direct.

I thought there was also a good deal to fly business class around the world?

Welcome to AFF;

With AA you can fly Business around the world for up to 220,000 AAdvantage miles (Depending on distance).

oneworld Alliance | Earn Miles | Redeem Miles | Benefits

 

[cove]

Serfty I can see the bargain in the J round the world on AA.
The short runs are pretty weak use of AA points that's for sure.

 

[burmans]

Serfty I can see the bargain in the J round the world on AA.
The short runs are pretty weak use of AA points that's for sure.

Agreed, $1660/$1700 for business class to Asia (when you can regularly get Y under $1K) doesn't really match the $1800 to US or $2000 to UK business class fares some have got on US (for the period I want to go to New York $2500 was the best Y I could find at the time on a decent airline). It's a no brainer when the business class airfare is at or very close to Y price but less so at these sort of levels.

Agree that direct flights to US is a bonus

 

[casanovawa]

At least one problem i could see with the 220,000 AA miles for the RTW award is that with only buying points, and the best offer usually ever around is 60k plus 20k bonus isn't it, your going to have to buy these over three consecutive years because of the cap they have on buying miles annually... Different if you are getting points from other avenues... With the more common 40k plus 15k bonus it would take you 4 years to collect enough points...

Do these mileage requirements apply to Qantas or are they AA specific? I did a Y 140k OW award up to 35,000 miles but i thought to do a J class would take 280,000 miles but according to the OW chart on that page its only 190,000??? And F class is 280,000???

 

[QF WP]

Looks like I did what others did (like JohnK and Gold Member). Waited until 31/12 to top up my account with an additional 20K plus bonus, as well as getting 60K plus bonus for Mrs LW.

One does need another source for getting AA points, unless you are looking to use for J class East/West coast or to NZ. Thankfully, some of us have Amex and Starwood accounts.

Think I will be loading up again at the end of January

 

[Pumbaa]

I've just booked 2 x J PER-MEL-AKL-SYD-PER tickets for 70 000 AA points. It roughly came to around $2000 for the points and taxes. Not too bad for 2 return J seats from Perth to Auckland! I did a quick look on the Qantas webpage, and it would have cost the same for the same tickets in whY so I think purchasing AA points are a pretty good deal!

The booking process was quite painless, find the seats on Qantas, call the US AA number, then pay with the Australian number. I tried a few of times trying to pay for the tickets with the US number, but no matter who I spoke to, they wouldn't accept my CC details and kept referring me to their aussie number. I ended up having to pay $60 per pax booking fee instead of the $25. I tried 3 different times with 3 different operators before giving up :evil:

Is it just me or are flights from Syd/Melb to either DFW or LAX very difficult to redeem? I've tried doing a few dummy bookings with the Qantas website, but I can never see any availability. It's very annoying because even when it appears J is available, what it really is J for the short domestic flight and Y for the long haul international! :evil: Is the best way to search for availability to use the paid expert flyer tool?

Lastly, is there more availability with CX and JAL when searching their individual awards program websites VS searching Qantas's?

 

[dfcatch]

I use expert flyer for my searches.

J and F availability for rewards to the US are more likely to be available around 330 days out.

Sooner is sometimes possible but especially for 2 or more seats.... You need to plan ahead.

 

[grussellt]

I use expert flyer for my searches.

J and F availability for rewards to the US are more likely to be available around 330 days out.

Sooner is sometimes possible but especially for 2 or more seats.... You need to plan ahead.

You can also search via Awardnexus
You have to register and receive a free points allocation each 90 days or just pay up for full service.

I found a good selection of J flights from Oz to Europe in September 2012 (searched as of late October 2011) which I couldn't see on QF. This included AF codeshare with JL.

 

[auriga]

The booking process was quite painless, find the seats on Qantas, call the US AA number, then pay with the Australian number. I tried a few of times trying to pay for the tickets with the US number, but no matter who I spoke to, they wouldn't accept my CC details and kept referring me to their aussie number. I ended up having to pay $60 per pax booking fee instead of the $25. I tried 3 different times with 3 different operators before giving up :evil:

My experience was even worse. One agent told me to go to the airport to pay for the taxes/fees. Another just told me to go a ticketing office. Neither mentioned calling the Australian number!

 

[grussellt]

My experience was even worse. One agent told me to go to the airport to pay for the taxes/fees. Another just told me to go a ticketing office. Neither mentioned calling the Australian number!

This seems odd. Have you tried entering your credit card details into the information for your AAdvantage account?

 

[QF WP]

I always book through AA USA and ticket through AA UK, their fee is less than AA Aust

 

[Gold Member]

Is the UK AA number (prefix 0844) free via Skype? The AA.com website states 5c/min... Might have to buy some credit on lay buy. Also, I assume theres no special instructions required for AU based credit cards when speaking with UK? How much do they charge per person?