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Understanding AA’s Maximum Permitted Mileage
I’ve been looking to route myself home from Southeast Asia. Long ago, when AA still priced their first class awards at 62,500 from Asia 2, I booked an award ticket from Hanoi to Indianapolis. Soon, I will be leaving on this trip and I’ve been looking for a way to get back. One of the issues I’ve been running into is figuring out how stay under the Maximum Permitted Mileage, fly in great products, and route in a way that is permitted. It has resulted in a lot of online searches, phone calls with AA, and ultimately – seats on 3 outstanding products! Here’s a little guide to help in understanding AA’s Maximum Permitted Mileage.
Every route has a Maximum Permitted Mileage that is allowed in a booking.
American Airlines will allow you to exceed that Maximum Permitted Mileage by 25%.
Where do we find the Maximum Permitted Mileage?
I use expertflyer…this is how
Go to Max Permitted Mileage
Enter your details
Here are my results for January 6th, Hanoi to Indianapolis. The MPM is 9842
This date is purely for editorial purposes. Since we can exceed it by 25% we are going to look at the 25M column, in the second row.
MPM AT means: Maximum Permitted Mileage via the “Atlantic”
- We cannot route this direction as it violates the routing rules of origin and destination
MPM PA means: Maximum Permitted Mileage via the “Pacific”
- This we can do…we are flying from Asia 2 to USA. We can do this by routing through Asia 1.
- The only two locations in Asia 1 are Korean and Japan. Everything else is Asia 2
The routing I found was…HAN-BKK-NRT-ORD-IND
This clocks in at…10,280
Knowing that you can fly 25% over the MPM came in very handy.
Since my flight path and route was over the MPM it required multiple phone calls for my buddy, Dave. He already had a flight from Han-Nrt-Ord-Cmh booked and wanted to match mine. It was only on the third call and using my itinerary ( which was booked through the Executive Platinum line) as a template, did he have success getting it changed. In fact, he called the Exec Plat line and they worked it out for him…in total – about 2 hours on the phone ironing out the details.
I have to say…we are ecstatic that we’re going to fly these incredible products:
Qatar Business Class 777-300ER from Hanoi to Bangkok
Japan Airlines 787 Business Class Bangkok to Tokyo
Japan Airlines First Class Tokyo to Chicago
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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Welcome Offer
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Annual Fee
$95
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Main Cast:
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Supporting Cast:
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The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
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