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Understanding AA’s Maximum Permitted Mileage

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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

screen-shot-2016-12-27-at-3-29-40-pmGo to Max Permitted Mileage
screen-shot-2016-12-27-at-3-29-54-pm

Enter your detailsscreen-shot-2016-12-27-at-3-30-11-pm

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

screen-shot-2016-12-27-at-3-50-15-pm

The routing I found was…HAN-BKK-NRT-ORD-IND

This clocks in at…10,280

screen-shot-2016-12-27-at-4-10-34-pm

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

courtesy of qatar.com

Japan Airlines 787 Business Class Bangkok to Tokyo

courtesy of jal.com

 

Japan Airlines First Class Tokyo to Chicago

courtesy of jal.com
courtesy of jal.com

 

 

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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5 Comments

  • […] as long as the level of award ticket is the same (in this case SAAVER), it’s within their Maximum Permitted Mileage, abides by their routing rules, doesn’t have more than a 24 hour layover, and the cabins are […]

  • Christian December 27, 2016

    If AA allows 25m, why the difficulty for the other person to get the same routing?

    • Miles December 28, 2016

      Not sure..maybe it involved what Ryan was discussing, but not really sure. Mine was ticketed with no problem…

  • Ryan December 27, 2016

    You will not be able to ticket that award since Qatar airways is not a usable partner for Asia 2 to US. It will split and charge you an extra award. Well..it did to me anyway.

    • Miles December 28, 2016

      Hmmmm… hopefully this works for us. We’ve both received confirmation emails with tickets – not sure why they wouldn’t allow the routing. Most things I read ahead of time stated routing wasn’t avail via Doha, but nothing excluded routing via Asia on QR. Fingers crossed

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