American Airlines adds online award booking for 18th airline partner
Last week, American Airlines added online award bookings for Cathay Pacific flights. Now, AA is back again with another partner addition to its online booking system — albeit a much less significant one: Seaborne Airlines.
The San Juan-based Seaborne Airlines operates just four 34-seat Saab 340B aircraft to 11 destinations around the U.S. Virgin Islands. That makes this online booking addition great for hops around the northern Caribbean, such as from San Juan (SJU) to St. Thomas (STT). Since many of these flights are under 500 miles in length, awards price out at just 7,500 miles each way:
Unfortunately, this doesn't make booking award flights from the U.S. mainland to these Caribbean destinations any easier. When I search award flights to a destination that American Airlines doesn't serve, such as the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, AA automatically breaks the award search into two different searches with each pricing separately. A message at the top notes that "additional mileage is required when using a MileSAAver award for this itinerary":
Related: How to redeem miles with the American Airlines AAdvantage program
The 11 destinations that Seaborne Airlines currently serves are: Anguilla (AXA), Antigua (ANU), Tortola (EIS), Dominica (DOM), Santiago de los Caballeros (STI), San Juan (SJU), Nevis (NEV), St. Kitts (SKB), St. Maarten (SXM), St. Croix (STX) and St. Thomas (STT)
With this addition, there are now 18 partners that can be booked through AA.com, with almost all of them having been added in the last two years:
- Air Tahiti Nui — added Oct. 24, 2018
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
- Cape Air — added Dec. 6, 2018
- Cathay Pacific — added Sept. 19, 2019
- Etihad — added May 3, 2019
- Fiji Airways — added Sept. 18, 2018
- Finnair
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Iberia — added Jun. 12, 2017
- Japan Airlines — added July 11, 2019
- Malaysia Airlines — added Sept. 18, 2018
- Qantas Airways
- Qatar Airways — added Oct. 24, 2018
- Royal Jordanian Airlines
- S7 Airlines — added Dec. 6, 2018
- Seaborne Airlines — added Sept. 26, 2019
- SriLankan Airlines — added Oct. 24, 2018
This addition shortens the list of partners that can't be booked online to just three airlines: China Southern Airlines, Interjet and LATAM Airlines.
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