If you’ve been following along, you probably know that Tuesday March 22nd was the date that American Airlines drastically changed their award chart (mostly in bad ways)
(SEE ALSO: 5 countries that are changing their region as part of the AA devaluation)
If you didn’t book your trip in time…
If you didn’t book your trip in time, well….. you’re pretty much out of luck. One of the worst devaluations was First Class flights from the US to Asia. Whereas it used to cost only 67,500 miles one-way, it now costs 110,000 American AAdvantage miles. We ended up booking our award to fly first class in Japan Airlines from Chicago to Tokyo as part of our round the world trip
(SEE ALSO: Help! I’m “stuck” in Emirates First class on ONLY a 777!!!)
… but there are a few awards on American still bookable at the old mile prices
I first saw this on Running with Miles, but you can still book the old American Airlines off-peak awards … with Alaska miles! American off-peak awards were one of the nicer parts of the American Airlines award chart, but with the devaluation, they’ve changed quite a bit. Costs are higher and dates are less. But the Alaska partner award chart still has the old values for travel. Here’s travel in Europe using Alaska miles to travel on American Airlines
And here’s the Alaska chart for travel on American Airlines to South and Central America. Note that American’s new chart doesn’t even HAVE an off-peak to lower South America – it’s 30,000 miles all the time now.
Alaska still has the off peak award charts for other regions too including travel to Japan and Korea on American Airlines. MileValue reports that you can also use Etihad miles (a Citi ThankYou partner) to book flights at the old American off-peak rates and dates.
Some notes
Even though it looks similar, this is NOT the same thing as the old American off-peak awards. There’s a few things to keep in mind
- American miles do not transfer to Alaska miles so if you have a big stash of American miles, you can’t use them to book off-peak awards on the Alaska chart
- With the American off-peak chart, you could fly off-peak on any of American’s partners – with the Alaska chart, it only works on American Airlines flights. (Though as part of the American devaluation, you can now only use partners on flights to Europe)
- IMO this is unlikely to last forever. On the other hand, Alaska still prices Delta awards as roundtrip only, whereas Delta has been offering one-ways for quite some time now, so apparently someone at Alaska doesn’t mind having separate redemption values than their partners.
Good luck out there and happy booking!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
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