The airline industry has been hit hard by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and with many travelers still hesitant to get on a plane, carriers will likely need to offer more than updated cleanliness procedures. Today, American has announced a new, major promotion to help spur new bookings — double miles on all paid flights through September 30, 2020.
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You can find full details on the promotion at this link, but it's pretty straight-forward. If you register and book your flight by June 30 for travel through Sept. 30, you'll earn an extra 5x miles for every dollar you spend on the base fare of your ticket — up to 10,000 miles in total (which equates to $2,000 in spending). We peg AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents apiece in our monthly valuations, so this is like an additional 7% return. If you max out the promotion, the 10,000 miles you'd earn are worth $140.
More importantly, this also comes on the heels of American extending its coronavirus change-fee waiver through June 30. As a result, you can currently make new reservations and avoid change fees if you later need to adjust them — though be aware that a fare difference may apply. The terms of the promotion even includes the following:
"You can make changes to your travel under the original booking (record locator) after June 30, 2020, and remain eligible for this promotion."
In other words, as long as the original flight is booked by June 30 and you complete any applicable flights by Sept. 30, you'll still earn the bonus miles — regardless of when you make the change.
Here are the other important details on the double-miles offer:
- You must register before booking travel, so this will not apply to previously-booked reservations.
- The offer doesn't apply to AAdvantage award tickets.
- You'll only earn double miles on flights marketed and operated by American and/or American Eagle — so no codeshares.
- The bonus miles don't count toward AAdvantage elite status, nor do they count toward Million Miler status.
This is the second promotion we've seen from American in an effort to spur new reservations, though it's a big step up from the 500-mile bonus announced last month. It's yet another incentive to book travel for the summer and early fall, but be sure to register before purchasing your ticket. To do so, log in to your AAdvantage account and navigate to the promotions tab.
