After American Airlines announced its award devaluation, business class between China and the U.S. increased from 55,000 miles one-way to 70,000 miles one-way. So if you currently have AA miles and happen to need a business-class award ticket, it’s best to book before the devaluation takes effect in March! In my previous post, I explained how to use ANA miles to book a round-trip business-class ticket between China and the U.S.. In this post, I’ll explain how to use AA miles to book a one-way business-class ticket between China and the U.S. This time, I used 100,000 AA miles + $150 to book two one-way business-class tickets for family members, departing from a secondary city in China and arriving at a secondary city in the U.S. I’m sharing the process here as well.
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Background
This time, I needed to book two tickets from China to the U.S. in May for my parents-in-law. Since their return date had not yet been determined, I decided to first use AA miles to book two one-way business-class tickets. Here’s why I chose AA miles:
- AA miles were about to be devalued in March, with business class going from 55,000 miles one-way to 70,000 miles one-way, so this was a good chance to use them up before then
- I needed one-way tickets, so I couldn’t use the better-value 95,000-mile ANA round-trip award
- If you have the Citi AAdvantage Platinum credit card, you can get a 10% mileage rebate each year on redeemed miles (up to 10,000 miles back)
I booked at the end of December and spent 110,000 AA miles, which worked out perfectly to receive the 10,000 AA miles back for 2015. Then all I needed to do was book the return award ticket from the U.S. to China in 2016 and get another 10% mileage rebate. So if you have the Citi AAdvantage Platinum credit card and need to redeem for two round-trip business-class tickets, consider redeeming one at the end of the year and one at the beginning of the next year, so you can enjoy the 10% rebate twice. Of course, if you were already planning to redeem for business class, it may be worth doing so before this March. If your plans change, you can call AA and change the ticket for free!
One thing to note is that even though you are using AA miles, the ticket you book does not necessarily have to be operated by AA. As long as the flight is operated by a oneworld member (AA, JAL, CX), and that partner has released award space to alliance members, you can use AA miles to book it. Also, the number of miles required is determined by AA’s award chart (business class between China and the U.S. costs 55,000 AA miles one-way).
Steps for Booking an Award Ticket
Here’s a quick overview of the basic process for booking an award ticket with AA miles:
- Use British Airline’s search engine to search segment by segment for oneworld partner award space (see Chapter 4 for details)
- Call AA, provide your membership number, and book using AA miles (see Chapter 5 for details)
- After ticketing, use the operating airline’s record locator to select seats on that airline’s website (see Chapter 5 for details)
Since booking for family members with AA only requires the passenger’s name, gender, and date of birth at the time of ticketing, and is not nearly as complicated as the ANA award booking process in the previous post, I won’t go into more detail here.
AA Award Booking Basics
First, we should be clear on one point: although we are using AA miles, we can choose from all airlines in the oneworld alliance when booking. One important thing to note is that when using UA miles to book Star Alliance tickets, it is possible to route via Europe, but that is not allowed when booking with AA miles. So for routes between China and the U.S., the relevant airlines are:
- American Airlines (AA): generally nonstop between China and the U.S.
- Cathay Pacific (CX): generally requires a connection in Hong Kong
- Japan Airlines (JAL): generally requires a connection in Japan
For nonstop China-U.S. award tickets operated by AA, you can search directly on AA’s website. So if you want a nonstop flight between China and the U.S., you can search directly on AA’s website and book online with AA miles. However, if there is no AA nonstop award space available, you’ll need to use Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines for a connecting itinerary between China and the U.S. These two airlines’ flights cannot be found on AA’s website, but if you call AA customer service, you can still book them with AA miles. Fortunately, while AA’s website cannot directly find award seats on these two partners, British Airways (British Airline, BA, also a oneworld member) can search both of them on its website. So when using AA miles to book partner awards, we generally use BA’s search engine to find availability, then call AA to book with AA miles.
In my ANA award booking post, I mentioned that the biggest trick to award tickets is searching segment by segment. For Star Alliance, this is no longer especially important because UA’s search engine is relatively advanced and can already list most connection options. But for oneworld, since we rely on BA’s search engine (which is relatively outdated and often fails to show all possible combinations), you need to use your imagination and piece together the itinerary one segment at a time. Want to see the craziest award ticket? Check this out:
Searching for Award Space
As I mentioned in the previous post, award-ticket searches are generally divided into three segments: the domestic China segment, the transpacific segment, and the domestic U.S. segment. When using AA miles, the combinations are as follows:
- Domestic China segment: buy your own ticket to a major city, or use partner airline Dragonair to get to Hong Kong for the next segment
- Transpacific segment: fly nonstop from China to the U.S., or connect in Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific, or connect in Japan on Japan Airlines
- Domestic U.S. segment: connect on AA flights
No matter how complicated an award ticket may be, it ultimately comes down to linking these three segments. Of course, you also need to consider:
- Connection time (allow 3 hours when clearing immigration and customs upon entering the U.S.; generally allow at least 2 hours when connecting in another country; 1 hour is usually enough for domestic U.S. connections)
- Whether an overnight stay is required (many itineraries connecting in Japan require an overnight stay and possibly a visa)
- Business-class quality (fully flat or angled seats? How is the food?)
- Number of connections
Of course, finding award space is the first step; comparison only becomes meaningful when you have several options.
Searching the Transpacific Segment
As mentioned earlier, the transpacific segment is the toughest part of a China-U.S. award ticket, whether in economy or business class. So when searching award tickets, we generally start with the transpacific segment and then work out the domestic U.S. and domestic China connections. I mentioned several options above; let’s look at them one by one:
Cathay Pacific nonstop from Hong Kong to the U.S.:No availability! Cathay Pacific business class is certainly drool-worthy, with top-notch service and food. And since it is, after all, a Hong Kong airline, there should also be staff who speak Mandarin. So it is fairly suitable when booking award tickets for parents. Unfortunately, when I checked the BA search engine day by day for early May, there were no Cathay tickets on HKG-ORD/LAX, although there were quite a few economy seats. This also matches what OneMoreDay said: Cathay likes to hold back award space and release it only in the final few weeks. So for now, this option is off the table.
Japan Airlines connecting in Japan:Connection times were terrible! I’m not sure whether it’s for security reasons, but most Japan-to-U.S. flights depart in the morning, while flights from mainland China cities like Beijing and Shanghai to Japan generally arrive in the afternoon, making it hard to find flights with suitable connection times. I checked Japan’s three main connecting airports—NRT, HND, and KIX—and none had suitable connecting award tickets. Of course, since I was booking for parents, I wasn’t going to use the killer route from Nagoya (NGO) to Hawaii (NHL).
Cathay Pacific + Japan Airlines: A clever red-eye option! My rule when booking tickets for parents is to avoid overly long layovers and avoid overnight connections. But when flying from a second-tier city in China to a second-tier city in the U.S., connections are unavoidable, and that often means either an overnight stop or a very long layover. So that basically means one of the transpacific segments needs to be a red-eye flight. So I kept using the BA search engine and happened to find a red-eye flight from Hong Kong (HKG) to Tokyo Narita (NRT)!
Arriving in Japan at 6 a.m. opens up lots of onward flight options to the U.S.
So for the final transpacific routing, I went with HKG-NRT-DFW. Although the HKG-NRT business class seat is the older angled-style product, the NRT-DFW segment is said to feature the Sky Suite!
Domestic China segment
If you also want to book the domestic China segment with AA miles, your only real option is Dragonair. As it happened, there was a Dragonair-operated flight from Changsha to Hong Kong. Even though only economy class was available, the flight is short enough that it is still acceptable. Also, Dragonair may release business class award space in the final two weeks, so you just need to keep checking.
Domestic U.S. segment
After the merger of AA and US Airways, domestic U.S. segments became much easier to piece together, with plenty of award availability. So there is really no need to worry. And since arrival in Dallas is at 8 a.m., there are tons of connecting options.
Overall itinerary
There are quite a few connections, but with business class for most of the journey, you can basically sleep through it. You can also check out the lounge in Hong Kong and even enjoy a massage at the airport in Japan.
Calling in to book the award ticket and select seats
Using the BA search engine, we can confirm that each segment has business class award space, but in the end it still depends on whether AA can actually ticket it. So once you confirm that space is available, you can call AA right away and put the award ticket on hold. AA has a Chinese-language reservations line, and I recommend using it because the agents are generally quite good.
- 1-800-492-8095 (Chinese) 7 days a week (7:00-24:00 U.S. Central Time)
When calling to book, you only need to give the agent the flight details you already found. If the agent confirms that every segment has award space, they can issue the ticket for you. Of course, if one segment does not have business class availability, it can still be ticketed in economy, though the total mileage cost will still price at the business class level.
Tips for putting an award ticket on hold
If you have already finalized your itinerary and have enough miles in your account, you can simply book the ticket directly. But if you still want some time to think about it, or if you do not yet have enough miles in your account and may need to transfer points from SPG, then putting the award on hold is very useful. During the call, you can first build the itinerary and then place the award ticket on hold. One thing to note is that the maximum hold time is 7 business days. If you do not ticket it within those seven days, the held itinerary will automatically be released. Once you decide to go ahead, just call back and provide the record locator from the hold.
While the ticket is on hold, you do not need to pay taxes and fees, and the miles will not be deducted from your account. So if you need to transfer Starpoints to AA in order to book, the safest approach is to search for space first, put the ticket on hold, and then transfer the points.
Selecting seats on partner airlines
After you ticket by phone, you can ask the agent for the partner airline confirmation numbers. For example, Cathay Pacific and Dragonair only require the Cathay confirmation number, Japan Airlines has its own confirmation number, and AA has its own as well. Once you have all the record locators for the airlines involved in your trip, you can go to each airline's website to select seats.
At the moment, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific both have issues on their U.S. websites that prevent seat selection. I recommend going to their Chinese-language websites and using your confirmation number and name to choose seats there.
The NRT-DFW segment here is on Japan Airlines' Sky Suite, which looks absolutely amazing.
The food looks stunning too. For details, see the official page: JAL Business Class
Award ticket taxes and fees
Since this booking used AA miles, there were no large fuel surcharges (YQ). However, because this itinerary went through both Hong Kong and Japan, airport construction fees and similar charges were unavoidable. Each business class ticket came with about $75 in taxes and fees, which is basically negligible.
Summary
Cost breakdown
For these two one-way China-U.S. award tickets, the total cost was:
- 110,000 AA miles, from the sign-up bonuses and spending on the following credit cards
- Citi AAdvantage Platinum credit card (earns AA miles directly)
- AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest credit card (transferred to AA miles)
- About $150 in taxes and fees (paid with Premier Gold Rewards, earning 3x points)
Because I had the Citi AAdvantage Platinum credit card, I received a 10% AA mileage rebate (capped at 10,000), so the final total was 100,000 AA miles + $150 in taxes and fees.
Not even factoring in the value of flying Japan Airlines business class, if you use a typical one-way business class cash fare of about $3,000 per person, the redemption value comes out to:
- ($3,000*2-$150) /100,000=5.9c
Award booking takeaways
- Being able to build your own connecting itinerary is extremely important. Focus on a few key connecting HUBs and search segment by segment; eventually you will find something that works.
- You can simply call AA's Chinese-language customer service to book; they are very experienced.
- BA is a very useful tool for searching award space, but the downside is that you have to check day by day.
- It is not enough just to find business class award space; ideally you want it on a top-tier airline.