Skip to content
Go to Home Page
News

AA's Reduced Mileage Award Airports for April-May 2016

JT Genter
JT Genter
Contributor
JT is a location-independent digital nomad traveling 250,000+ miles each year with his wife Katie.
Feb. 22, 2016
•
4 min read
American Airlines plane over mountains featured
AA's Reduced Mileage Award Airports for April-May 2016
The cards we feature here are from partners who compensate us when you are approved through our site, and this may impact how or where these products appear. We don’t cover all available credit cards, but our analysis, reviews, and opinions are entirely from our editorial team. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

American Airlines and Citi currently offer reduced mileage awards — the latest iteration of which allow you to book discounted travel through May 2016.

We covered the February-March airports in this post from December, so now we're going to focus on the April and May airports. Remember, the discount applies to flights both to and from the listed cities.

Who's Eligible?

If you have one of the following cards, you can save 7,500 miles off of a round-trip award ticket (or 3,750 off one-way):

  • Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard
  • Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard
  • CitiBusiness / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard

Or, you're eligible for 5,000 miles off of a round-trip award ticket (or 2,500 off one-way) if you have one of the following:

  • Citi / AAdvantage Gold World Elite Mastercard (as well as the old Visa and Amex versions)
  • AAdvantage Aviator Blue MasterCard (not accepting new applications)

The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Daily Newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts

If you have multiple types of cards (i.e. Executive World Elite and Platinum Select), you're only eligible to get one 7,500/5,000-mile discount. However, if you have a qualifying card, these awards are eligible for the 10% mileage rebate. So, your net mileage cost for a round-trip economy flight could be just 15,750 miles.

April Airports

Reduced mileage cities for April. Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper.

There are 84 airports on the list for April. Since that's a rather overwhelming list, we have mapped them for you. Not mapped (for space): Reno (RNO), Calgary (YYC) and Edmonton (YEG).

Some of the notable airports:

  • Asheville, NC (AVL)
  • Kansas City, MO (MCI)
  • Key West, FL (EYW)
  • Montreal, Quebec (YUL)
  • Reno, NV (RNO) — catch the end of ski season!
  • Gulf Coast: Mobile, AL (MOB), Pensacola, FL (PNS), Valparaiso/Destin, FL (VPS), Gulfport, MS (GPT)

May Airports

Reduced mileage cities for May. Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper.

May's list is shorter, but still includes 53 airports. Not mapped (for space): Palm Springs (PSP), Reno (RNO), Calgary (YYC) and Edmonton (YEG).

Some of the notable airports:

  • Fort Wayne, IN (FWA) — a short drive from Indianapolis (May 29: 100th Indianapolis 500)
  • Key West, FL (EYW)
  • Lexington, KY (LEX) — a short drive from Louisville (May 7: Kentucky Derby)
  • New Orleans, LA (MSY) — Jazz Fest ends May 1st
  • San Antonio, TX (SAT)
  • Tampa, FL (TPA)
  • West Palm Beach (PBI)

How To Book

You are going to have to call to book these award flights. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
You're going to have to call to book these award flights. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Once you've found MileSAAver award availability on American Airlines' website, call American Airlines at 1-800-882-8880 (or your elite reservations number, if applicable) to book the award ticket. As these awards aren't available for booking online, the booking agent that you speak with should waive the standard $30 phone-booking fee.

For February-May 2016 reduced mileage awards, the discount code that you'll have to provide the agent is:

7,500 mile discount award codes

  • First Class — UD21X2E / AVM13
  • Main Cabin — TD8X7E / AVM12

5,000 mile discount award codes

  • First Class — UD22X5E / AVM11
  • Main Cabin — TD10E / AVM10

Tips

Keep in mind the following as well:

1. The discount requires booking by March 31.

2. The $75 close-in booking fee still applies to award flights within 21 days — waived when American Airlines Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum are using miles from their account.

3. As you can tell by the codes above, the 7,500/5,000 discount is available for domestic first-class flights.

4. If you want to take advantage of the reduced mileage awards for flights to Canada, book by March 22 to get economy round-trip flights for 17,500 (after 7,500 reduction). If you book after March 22, flights to Canada will cost you 5,000 more miles per economy round-trip.

Are you planning to book any of these reduced mileage awards for April and May?

Featured image by The baby's citizenship partially depends whether the baby is born over water or land.