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Buy AA miles and get up to an 85k bonus

a seat on an airplane

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The monthly AA sale is on…this time around you’ll pay 1.83 cents

I think American has put their miles on sale every month this year. It reminds me of those stores you drive past that have a continuous “going out of business, everything must go” sale, but never go out of business. 1.83 cents is nothing to scoff at though. Is it the best offer ever? No, I believe the best ever was last month when miles were roughly 1.7 cents, but 1.83 is a darn good deal, and if you have a redemption in mind and are short…I’d go for it. As always, never buy miles speculatively, and also…AA sells their own miles, whereas airlines like United and Alaska use a 3rd party like Points.com to broker their sales. What does that mean? It means you can earn bonus points for the purchase by using a card that has a travel category bonus.

You have until August 31

an airplane in the sky

The biggest bonus occurs when you max the deal out at 150k

Always good to remember that AA has terrible award availability on their own metal

They do have great business class products if you can find them.

a stuffed animal in an airplane

One great award sweet spot is flying on LATAM in business from the U.S. to Central America/South America 1 for just 27.5k/30k miles each way, respectively. A great way to fly down and see Machu Picchu.

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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

2 Comments

  • Miles August 6, 2017

    Hey Mark – thanks for reading! AA doesn’t show LATAM avail on their website so you’ll need to search via the British Airways site. It can be a little arduous as it doesn’t show complete calendars, but you will see availability when it’s there. Then you’ll need to call AA to book and ask for any phone charges to be waived as you can’t book the ticket online.

    if you need help using the BA site to find availability check out my tutorial which uses AA as an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J97Ts_S44lE

  • Mark Lehman August 6, 2017

    We have a home in Chile and appreciate your advice that we might be able to use our AA Advantage miles to fly LATAM business class to South America; however I am having difficulty figuring out how to do that. When I try to book a flight to Chile using miles on the AA website it seems to only show me availability on American Airlines flights, not LATAM.
    Do I need to call American in order to use my AA miles on a LATAM flight?
    Is it possible to transfer my AA miles to LATAM to book on their website?

    If y0u could provide some advice on how to best do this we’d really appreciate it.

    Thanks.

    Mark

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