[Updated 2021.11] You can now call in to redeem AA miles for JetBlue award tickets. The award chart is similar to those for other partner airlines. Direct online booking should be rolled out over the next few weeks. Looking at the chart, standard cabin redemptions are decent, but premium cabin redemptions are not especially attractive, and transoceanic itineraries are not allowed. The one-way award chart is below.
- ‡To book award travel in the JetBlue Mint cabin, there's an additional 15,000 miles required for each transcontinental flight between Los Angeles (LAX) or San Francisco (SFO) , and Boston (BOS) , Fort Lauderdale (FLL) , Miami (MIA) , New York Kennedy (JFK) , New York LaGuardia (LGA) , Newark (EWR) or West Palm Beach (PBI) .
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How to Redeem AA Partner Airline Awards
In a previous post (Introduction to American Airlines Miles (2) - Using Miles (Beginner Edition)), we covered the basics of using American Airlines (AA) miles to book flights. But that was really just beginner-level redemption knowledge, and it is fully sufficient for redeeming flights operated by AA itself. However, AA miles can be used not only for AA-operated flights, but also for partner awards, including both oneworld airlines and AA’s non-alliance partners. Some highly regarded options for flying back to China include Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and Cathay Dragon, among others. At present, the following airlines can be booked on the AA website or by phone:
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
- Finnair
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Qantas
- Royal Jordanian
- JetBlue
- Japan Airlines
- Cathay Pacific / Cathay Dragon
The award charts are generally similar (though some airlines and routes may have exceptions). Pricing depends only on the origin and destination regions and the cabin class. You can also find AA’s region definitions at the link below.
AA Redemption Restrictions
Routing restrictions
All itineraries must be as direct as possible. In practical terms, this means that for an international award from Region A to Region B, you cannot transit via Region C. Otherwise, AA will price it as two separate awards, A-C and C-B.
Of course, for real-world reasons—such as when there are no nonstop flights between two AA-defined regions, or when service is very limited—AA has very generously left the following exceptions in place for award bookings.
- North America–India/Middle East may connect in Europe
- North America–Africa may connect in Europe or Doha
- North America–Asia Region 2 may connect in Asia Region 1
- Central America and South America to Africa, the Middle East, and India may connect in Europe
- South America Region 2 to Africa may connect in Doha
- Central America and South America Region 1 to the South Pacific may connect in South America Region 2
- Europe to Asia Region 1 may connect in Doha or Asia Region 2
- Europe to Asia Region 2 may connect in Doha
- Europe to the South Pacific may connect in Asia Region 1 or 2
- India/Middle East to Asia Region 1 may connect in Asia Region 2
- India/Middle East to the South Pacific may connect in Asia Region 2
- Africa to Asia Region 1 may connect in Asia Region 2 or Doha
- Africa to Asia Region 2 may connect in Doha
- Asia Region 1 to the South Pacific may connect in Asia Region 2
So which countries are included in each region? The list is below. There are too many countries to translate one by one, so I’ll leave them as is. (AA’s official definitions are here; click “region definition” at the bottom to view them.) Commonly used regions are as follows:
- North America: U.S. (including Hawaii and Alaska) , Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, The Bahamas and the Caribbean.
- Asia Region 1: Japan, Korea, Mongolia
- Asia Region 2: Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Saipan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
- Europe: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia
- South Pacific: Australia, Easter Island, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Tonga, Republic of Vanuatu, American Samoa and Samoa.
In short, because of the rules above, U.S.-China itineraries can connect only in countries in Asia Region 1 or Region 2; connections elsewhere are not allowed. In other words, under AA’s award rules, U.S.-China awards can only go across the Pacific and cannot cross either ocean freely the way UA awards sometimes can.
Segment limits
Within the U.S. and Canada, an award ticket can include at most three segments, meaning no more than two connections. Other international itineraries can include at most four segments, meaning no more than three connections.
How to Search Award Space on Some Partner Airlines
After all that explanation, the key point is this: if you want to use AA miles to fly back to China for free, you will generally need help from Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon, or Japan Airlines. But these airlines may not always show up on the AA website, so what should you do? In practice, there are three common ways to search:
- Search on the British Airways (BA) website
- Search on the Qantas (QF) website
- Search on the Japan Airlines (JL) website
For searching on the JL website, you can read OneMoreDay’s article (Introduction to Japan Airlines Miles (1) – A Powerful oneworld Award Search Tool), which explains the process in more detail.
Here, to keep things simple, I’ll just briefly explain how to search using the British Airways (BA) search engine. Searching on Qantas is broadly similar, so I’ll leave that part for you to explore on your own.
Searching for awards via BA
First, go to the BA website, and you will see the following page.
If you already have an account, you can log in here. If not, go ahead and register for one.
In any case, after logging in, you will see this next.
Select book with avios in the red box, and then you will see the following menu.
Enter your origin, destination, and dates, then start searching. (Here, I recommend searching segment by segment and setting the number of passengers to 1, because the BA engine is not very smart when it comes to routing. It only shows a limited number of route options, so search segment by segment! Also, when there are only a few seats left, it will display exactly how many award seats remain, so setting passengers to 1 is enough.)
After that, you may see a page like this:
Just choose NO, then click continue.
If the search is successful and there is award space that day, you will see this page:
That means this segment has award space. Oh yeah.
Then continue using BA to search the remaining flight segments. For example, if the trip you want is PHX-CTU, the full itinerary could be PHX-LAX-HKG-CTU (though other routings are possible too). In this example, PHX-LAX is operated by US/AA, LAX-HKG by CX, and HKG-CTU by KA.
Using this example, the next step is to check whether PHX-LAX and HKG-CTU have award space for the corresponding dates. If they do, you can call AA, give the CSR the segments one by one, and ask him or her to ticket the itinerary for you.
P.S. For domestic US segments, just use American Airlines' own search engine. Even though it is kind of dumb, it works much better than BA for searching US domestic flights.
Examples of redeeming CX and JL online with AA
AA.com now allows online redemption for Cathay Pacific and Dragonair tickets. After earning so many AA miles, having a few more convenient redemption channels is a nice improvement—though it could also be a bad one, since more people will be booking these awards. If you need them, redeem sooner rather than later. Cathay Pacific + Dragonair + AA can basically cover award redemptions between smaller cities in China and the US, which is especially nice. Will China Southern online redemption be far behind?
- Hong Kong HKG-Shanghai PVG:
- Hong Kong HKG-Los Angeles LAX
【2019.7 update】You can now search for Japan Airlines award tickets directly on the AA website. Previously, these awards had to be searched on British Airways—sometimes segment by segment—and then booked by calling AA. Being able to search and book directly now is undoubtedly much more convenient for beginners in the miles-and-points game. Hopefully AA will soon add similarly useful online booking for CX Cathay Pacific awards as well, so phone bookings will mostly no longer be necessary.
Tips
Here are a few tips to share:
- The hardest part of redeeming awards between China and the US, especially during peak season, is usually the transpacific international segment, because that is where capacity is the tightest, so award seats get snapped up the fastest.
- Some transpacific segments that are relatively easier to redeem, based on my own experience, include JL's SAN-NRT, BOS-NRT, HNL-NRT/NGO, MH's LAX-NRT, and CX's YVR-HKG. These tend to have a better chance of award availability during peak season.
- For CX/KA, it is common for a large number of award seats to be released within two weeks of departure (assuming the flight has not sold out). So if you want to travel back to China during peak season and your schedule is flexible, you may want to wait and ticket shortly before departure. Of course, the $75 close-in ticketing fee per ticket would then be unavoidable. Weigh the tradeoff carefully.
- If you are not very confident in your English, you can call AA's Chinese-language customer service to book. There will be agents who speak Mandarin to help you.
Summary
This article briefly explained how to use British Airways BA to search for partner award space for American Airlines AA within the oneworld alliance, expanding the ways you can use AA miles to fly back to China. At this point, the basic methods for redeeming American Airlines AA miles have been covered. In upcoming articles, I will focus on some special redemptions, as well as the restrictions and tips related to AA mileage redemptions, so stay tuned!