This past weekend I met reader Carberrie in Shanghai, and among our topics of conversation were… miles and points (shocker, I know). Anyway, one of the topics that came up was American’s OneWorld distance based award chart, and while I’ve mentioned it many times in the past (including in this TravelSort article), I do think it’s worth highlighting what an amazing value it can be one more time, especially in business class for further distances.
American’s all partner award chart doesn’t allow any stopovers except at the international gateway, so it really limits the number of destinations you can visit on a single trip. However, American also has a OneWorld award chart, which is a distance based chart, with the following costs:
There are a couple of interest things to note about the chart. First of all, it’s interesting how the premium for business class over coach is minimal, while the premium for first class over business class is substantial, especially as you go further down the award chart.
I think the real value in the award chart comes with the zone 6 and zone 7 awards. Let’s look at the zone 6 award, for example. You can fly between 14,001 and 20,000 miles in business class for a total of 130,000 miles. A simple roundtrip business class award to Australia would usually cost you 125,000 miles, and you couldn’t include any stopovers (except at the US gateway airport). Instead, for a premium of only 5,000 miles, you could fly business class from Los Angeles to Brisbane to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare. Alternatively, you could fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Melbourne to Sydney to Los Angeles on a zone 6 award, stopping at each airport. Those are just a couple of examples, as the possibilities are endless.
If you go up to a zone 7 award for only 150,000 miles in business class, you can really thoroughly explore both Asia and Australia (or Europe and Asia). For example, you could fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Singapore to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare.
In some instances you can even save miles by using a OneWorld award over a partner award. For example, American usually charges 135,000 miles for business class to the Middle East, while you can almost always get there in fewer than 20,000 miles, which would only cost you 130,000 miles on a OneWorld award.
Anyway, if you have a lot of time on your hands and want to visit lots of destinations, the value of a OneWorld award can’t be beat.
The basic restrictions are as follows:
- A maximum of 16 segments are permitted
- You need to fly at least two OneWorld airlines
- Can’t connect in any city more than twice
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February 3rd, 2012 at 10:29 am
Brian said,
Do you know if a stopover is allowed, on a traditional award ticket, from Canada? Can I fly from Chicago to Toronto, then to NYC, stop for 2 days , and fly back to Chicago, for the price of one round trip award?
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:31 am
lucky said,
@ Brian — Unfortunately not on a 25,000 mile North America award. If you have the stopover it would “break” the ticket and be billed as two separate one ways.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:44 am
Dale said,
When you say you have to fly at least 2 OneWorld Airlines, American doesn’t count as one right? But you can include them in your ticket?
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:47 am
lucky said,
@ Dale — That’s correct, you can include American, though there need to be at least two other OneWorld airlines.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:49 am
FF said,
So I can fly JFK-AUH(stopover)-DEL-JED-AUH-JFK all for 130k in Business? Am I understanding this correctly?
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:49 am
Alex said,
OneWorld awards are the best use of AA miles, period. I just flew SAN-LAX-NRT-HKG-DPS|BKK-DEL-AMM-SSH-AMM-CAI-MAD-LAX-SAN in business for 150,000 miles. I believe the mileage was right around 24,900. If I would have purchased each of these tickets separately it would have cost approximately $27,000.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:49 am
FF said,
Sorry – should have put a stopover in JED as well in my previous comment.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:50 am
lucky said,
@ FF — Almost, though the issue is that Etihad doesn’t belong to OneWorld, so you can’t include them one a OneWorld award.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:58 am
Label said,
I am from YVR. To get to any international gateway on OW, I would have to fly to either NYC or Dallas. Is it possible to combine Alaska Air on the OW award so I can fly from YVR-LAX to get to Australia/Asia (minus the YVR-HKG trip on CX)?
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:59 am
Michael said,
1) when you stay stopping at each airport, are you saying you can stop for 23 hours in each city if you could plan it that way? I mean, the value would be being able to see each city on that chart, right?
2) Can you really find business class award availability on Qantas?
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:59 am
lucky said,
@ Label — Unfortunately you need to stick to OneWorld airlines only, so Alaska, Etihad, Air Tahiti Nui, etc., are all excluded.
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:01 am
lucky said,
@ Michael — I’m saying you could stay for as long as you want. Stopovers are allowed at each of the cities, so you could stay in each city for a month if you wanted to. The only limitation is that travel needs to be complete within a year from the date the ticket is issued.
Qantas space can be tough to come by, though it’s not impossible. I swear!
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:04 am
Carberrie said,
I think the value here can be great, but unfortunately I don’t have the time opportunity to use this award chart very often… Where’s my vacation?
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:09 am
Silvia said,
How do you book one of these fares, such as the one described by Alex?
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:10 am
James said,
Wow I wish Skyteam had one of these
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:11 am
lucky said,
@ Silvia — You need to call AAdvantage at (800) 882-8880.
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:14 am
brahms77 said,
Since you cannot connect multiple times in a same city, its use in Asia can be a bit limiting… but once MH joins and Kingfisher finds a way to survive, this indeed is a very nice type of award to maximize the value of your AA miles. I wonder if this type of award is available on *A (UA/CO) – NH does, but fuel surcharges can be a bit annoying -… it would make a great use of miles!
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:18 am
MichaelW. said,
This option seems kind of like a modified around the world ticket with lots of other rules to consider. Looks like an amazing value!
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:45 am
egwg said,
I did jfk-cmn-fco-ist-cai-dar-bom-bkk back in 2006. I believe the mileage requirements have not increased since then. I had to go through hubs in MAD & LHR twice so it was an incredible value for that much business class flying.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Rik said,
Do you have to return to your origin on these trips? In other words can you make it a really long one-way trip with unlimited stop overs? That would be amazing value as well.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:03 pm
lucky said,
@ Rik — Open jaws are fine, so no need to return to your origin.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:03 pm
ikonos said,
I have plans to go for a AUS/NZ/Fiji trip in the next couple of years and I was thinking I would have to fly to SYD RT and then buy alternate tickets for the rest of the segments. You really saved it pointing this value. I guess I can start dreaming about Cathay F to HKG and Quantas F back to US. Thanks Ben for pointing values time after time.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:08 pm
ucipass said,
You need to fly at least two OneWorld airlines
instead
You need to fly at least two OneWorld (NOT AA) airlines
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:53 pm
eponymous_coward said,
I could see using the Zone 2 economy class award pretty creatively in Europe, given that you could connect in LHR, LGW, LCY, TXL/BER and DUS twice, and that’s only 35K.
Given that and given that if you have oneworld elite status, the only thing you’re missing is maybe a blocked middle and a onboard cold lunch from business class, it seems to me that might be a good award to use to tour Europe (depending on how the YQ and departure taxes mess you up).
You would also be able to use Rail&Fly with your AB tickets, in theory.
February 3rd, 2012 at 1:05 pm
nighttripper said,
real value opportunities here for US east coast-Europe in Biz, such as JFK-LHR-FCO-MAD-JFK which comes in at 8767 miles. OW award cost is 80,000 miles, vs. 100,000 AA miles from the All-Partner award chart. Use AA/BA/IB. Stopover in each city.
February 3rd, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Alex said,
Lucky, I’m pretty sure you can’t actually fly the first itinerary you gave as an example. That would be all Qantas, so you don’t have another non-AA partner.
“Instead, for a premium of only 5,000 miles, you could fly business class from Los Angeles to Brisbane to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare. “
February 3rd, 2012 at 1:52 pm
lucky said,
@ Alex — LAN flies SYD-AKL.
February 3rd, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Michael said,
Lucky,
I need to plan a one way continuous flight from Bali to Australia to new Zealand back to San Francisco in early May. Would greatly appreciate your thoughts on what airlines and cities you would personally route? Many thanks
February 3rd, 2012 at 2:33 pm
thrashsoundly said,
It seems like a trip to Europe only will be tough now if you don’t want shell out tons of fees with British Airways and Iberia. Finnair is a good option, though not easy to get J space, but now Malev is dead. Bummer.
February 3rd, 2012 at 2:54 pm
eponymous_coward said,
thrashsoundly: Air Berlin.
February 3rd, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Ryan said,
Recall too that actual mileage flown determines the miels needed for the award. It used to be that only miles between stopovers counted, such that JFK-LHR was approx. 3400 miles, even if you routed JFK-LAX-SYD-HKG-LHR without any stopovers.
Also while one can change dates and times, the routing cannot change, so you better be happy with it before you ticket. Traditional All-Partner awards, especially as an EXP (where change fees for re-routes are waived) are far more flexible.
February 3rd, 2012 at 3:25 pm
lucky said,
@ Michael — If you have time/miles to spare, I’d do Bali to Hong Kong to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles to San Francisco.
February 3rd, 2012 at 5:19 pm
ikonos said,
why DPS-HKG-SYD instead of DPS-SYD or DPS-AUK-SYD?
February 3rd, 2012 at 7:49 pm
thrashsoundly said,
@eponymous_coward
Ah yes, I forgot. Will have to check out routes. Thanks!
February 3rd, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Max said,
Sometimes I get upset when the good secrets get shared with the masses. If you do this award right (and spent forever planning) you can nab an amazing value.
DFW-SYD – Qantas 747
SYD – SIN – Qantas A380
SIN (Connect) HKG-CDG Cathay 747
CDG-BOS on a tired, old 757
All obtainable and ticketed in J for 150k!!
February 3rd, 2012 at 8:38 pm
NYBanker said,
This is a good value. Nice post.
February 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Kris Ziel said,
If would be so nice if United had this type of system. I wouldn’t mind burning 280k miles to do RTW in F.
February 4th, 2012 at 1:20 am
lucky said,
@ ikonos — I believe those flights are operated by Jetstar, and that’s something I’d rather avoid.
@ Kris Ziel — Though United has some truly phenomenal values that American doesn’t have, like US to Asia via Europe for 140,000 miles in first class. I could only dream of American offering such an award.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:41 am
MR H said,
@FF – Believe to AUH you could do JFK-LHR-AUH on BA vs. EY.
Or could do DXB on BA, just 1 hour down the street and open jaw are OK if you really need AUH for onward connection purposes.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:48 am
lucky said,
@ MR H — Exactly, though it is worth keeping in mind that AAdvantage redemptions incur fuel surcharges for segments on British Airways.
February 4th, 2012 at 7:37 am
MG said,
Hi, considering high surcharges on all AA partners what route to choose to visit india , australia and new zealand with a possibility to add TLV/Amm, IST and some Europe( MAD, BCN, LIS, TXL) from the east cost on zone 6 or 7 award? To minimize surcharges and find actuall availability? The only asian city could be added for the routing are SIN, BKK( HKG is a last resort)? Any suggestions, Please?
February 4th, 2012 at 8:02 am
lucky said,
@ MG — The only partner for which American imposes fuel surcharges is British Airways. Where are you originating?
February 4th, 2012 at 10:39 am
Raj B said,
This is wonderful. Where do you go to price/book these OneWorld awards? AA only shows their flights. Thanks!
February 4th, 2012 at 10:43 am
lucky said,
@ Raj — You would need to call American to book since they don’t show OneWorld award space online. You can use gcmap.com to figure out distances.
February 4th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
ffi said,
Lucky
it is 2 oneworld airlines EXCLUDING AA
This trip would not pass the test – All I seeis QF
“Instead, for a premium of only 5,000 miles, you could fly business class from Los Angeles to Brisbane to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare.”
February 4th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
lucky said,
@ ffi — LAN flies Sydney to Auckland.
February 4th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Silvia said,
Do you search first for award availability and then call AAdvantage desk? If so, where do you search for Qantas availability?
February 4th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
MG said,
hello, again. I live in cleveland, but usually flying from NYC, or other east coast cities. Chicago, toronto and detroit are very possible. Thank you
February 4th, 2012 at 11:54 pm
Michael said,
Thanks Lucky.
The first part of our trip is actually booked SFO to HKG to DPS flying Cathay First Class.
It seemed like such a massive detour DPS to HKG back to SYD. Are there any other alternatives? (e.g. a puddle jumper into Australia and then flying One World carriers through Australia, New Zealand and back to SFO?) Can use other groups (e.g Star Alliance) if that makes any more sense. Thanks again for your insight
February 5th, 2012 at 3:17 am
lucky said,
@ Silvia — Yes, you can first find the availability and then call American to book. For a tutorial on how to find Qantas award space, see this Travelsort post:
http://travelsort.com/blog/how-to-find-oneworld-award-space
@ MG — The only partner for which American imposes fuel surcharges is British Airways, so I’d stay away from them. Other than that, everything is fair game. I’d consider first going to Asia and then to Australia, and avoid India on the same ticket. Otherwise you could fly from the US to India, India to Asia, and then Asia to Australia, where you’d just have to pay fuel surcharges fro the flight from the US to India.
February 5th, 2012 at 3:19 am
lucky said,
@ Michael — You could book a separate ticket to Australia on Jetstar, and then from there fly from SYD to AKL to LAX to SFO (or add any other segments you might need).
February 6th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
D said,
I have two trips for the price of one spread out over 7 months (but could have gone out 12 mos., if I had wanted. The first trip last fall was BOS-MAD-BCN-JFK. Next month the second trip will be JFK-MIA-MVD(open jaw), EZE-MDZ-SCL-LIM(transit)-CUZ-LIM-JFK(transit)-BOS. Carriers are American, LAN, and Iberia. In J for 130K. Being BOS based I did have to spend $129 to position for the itinerary to work.
February 8th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
david said,
i need to go from jfk to hkg to mel to hkg to jfk and have aa miles and other airlines do you know what would be best and is it cheaper to do a oneworld vs a partner?
February 9th, 2012 at 11:30 pm
HoKo said,
@ Lucky – Is mileage calculated as actual miles flown if you have a connection? I.E. HKG-BKK-AMM (with a <23 connection in BKK) is priced at 5,305 miles even though HKG-AMM is only 4,750?
February 9th, 2012 at 11:33 pm
HoKo said,
@ Lucky – Ok just thought of another question, does flying KA and CX satisfy the 2 airline requirement or would KA and CX only count as one airline? Same question applies to JL & JC?
February 10th, 2012 at 1:38 am
HoKo said,
Just got the answer to my first question by reading your Travelsort article
February 10th, 2012 at 3:03 am
Travel and Credit said,
This is one of the best awards available for sure! I have been saving up my AA miles specifically to take a 35k RTW in Business Class on this award. Now I just need to find 6 months of time to do it!
To those of you with lots of questions – this award has been around for years and there is a maasssiiiiivvvveeeee thread on it in the AAdvantage forum on http://www.flyertalk.com
That’s a good thread to read if you’re wanting to book one of these and the users will help you out and critique your itinerary.
To book the award you have to call in. Best to research all possible flights. It’s a lot of research and planning, but that should be expect for a 16 segment RTW trip!
Also – most all airlines offer RTW redemptions like this. A few of you mentioned that you wished Delta or United had this option. They do, and it’s available on their website. The AA one is by far the best deal. For example the Delta one only allows SIX stopovers, but will still cost 180k miles. That’s 10 less stops than AA!
February 15th, 2012 at 10:52 am
BBD said,
So if I wanted to do DFW-MLE-DFW (19,613 miles) in F I would be better off using oneworld instead of AA miles? The routing is actually DFW-JFK-AUH-MLE-AUH-JFK. If oneworld doesn’t count change of planes (less than 24 hrs between flights)in the total miles calculation, oneworld is 180K miles vs 230K AA miles (50K + 180K). Does this sound correct?
February 15th, 2012 at 11:03 am
lucky said,
@ BBD — Unfortunately Etihad isn’t in OneWorld, so you couldn’t book any segments on them on a OneWorld award.
March 15th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Everett said,
So I’ve been trying to plan an Around-The-World flight for a few months ago and have been looking at this type of award redemption as my best offer. What I’m wondering is, say for the Zone 8 Economy class ticket for 140,000 miles, do these have to be AAdvantage miles specifically? Or can I use partner miles, such as using 140,000 British Avios miles? Or can I use some combination of the two? (70k BA Avios, 70k AA miles).
March 15th, 2012 at 11:26 am
lucky said,
@ Everett — They have to be AAdvantage miles. While most airlines in an alliance will have access to the same award space, they all price those tickets separately, so BA would have a completely different cost if redeeming Avios.
July 11th, 2012 at 9:49 am
sl4ppy said,
So a quick sanity check here to see if I’m understanding all this correctly. I’m trying to plan the following trip for my wife and I with our 375k AAMiles.
DFW->NRT (AA)
NRT->HGK (CX)
HKG->BKK (CX)
5 day stay
BKK->HKG (CX)
HKG->NRT (IB)
4 day stay
NRT->LAX (JAL)
LAX->DFW (AA)
The only way I can really do this is by converting miles to two OneWorld Zone 6 awards? Using straight AA miles wouldn’t allow the stopover in Tokyo and is a less efficient usage of miles? THe total trip is roughly 18k miles..
Thanks in advance!
July 11th, 2012 at 11:08 am
lucky said,
@ sl4ppy — Correct, American doesn’t allow stopovers on “all partner” awards, so you’d want to do a OneWorld distance based award. Otherwise you’d pay 55,000 miles for the outbound, 30,000 miles between Bangkok and Tokyo, and 50,000 miles between Tokyo and the US, so you’d end up paying 135,000 miles vs. 130,000 miles.
July 11th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Tao said,
Lucky, how about this SEA-LAX-HKG-PER-JNB-LHR-MAD-ORD-SEA? I’m trying to stop in HKG, Australia, JNB, and Europe. Which city in Australia and Europe is not important. I get this under 30k miles for 150k AA miles in J, but don’t know if it’s possible to ticket for August or September. I’m open to suggestion on the routing. Thanks.
July 11th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Tao said,
my bad, the limit for 150k AA miles is 25k flown miles, I need to rethink my routing. Sorry.
July 11th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
lucky said,
@ Tao — The major challenge is that you’re trying to book this for August/September. That’s going to be REALLY tough. If at all possible I’d highly recommend planning this further out.
July 11th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Simon said,
Ben,
What’s the best option to search for, and piece together flights/segments? For example, if we want to fly to Australia via Asia (LAX-SYD-HKG-LAX), is the most reliable approach to find space on QF’s website and then call AA?
Is the uplift to F (50k miles) really worth it to experience QF A380 & CX 773, in your opinion? I’ve only done QF F 744 and CX F 744. I did read your reviews on QF F A380 and if we were able to snare 2 x F seats on the SYD-LAX segment, that would be special!
Thanks, Simon.
P.S. Andrew (@Points Pros) is a rock star!
July 11th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
lucky said,
@ Simon — Happy to hear he was great for you!
Here’s a tutorial I wrote for finding OneWorld award space:
http://travelsort.com/blog/how-to-find-oneworld-award-space
You’re almost always best off searching it online and then booking via phone.
I would say it’s not worth connecting in Hong Kong unless you want to visit or unless there’s no availability on the nonstop (which is the more likely scenario).
July 12th, 2012 at 10:41 am
sl4ppy said,
I got the flight I mentioned above on 5-day hold pretty easily. Was actually surprised how easy it was when you have the availability and flight numbers already checked out before you call.
My one question is that they quoted me 160k miles for first class on all segments. That doesn’t seem to match up either with the straight up AA rewards OR any of the OneWorld award zones. It’s weirdly between a Zone 5 and a Zone 6 mileage.
Any idea what’s going on there? I don’t want to waste miles unnecessarily but at the same time it’s less than the Zone 6 mileage.
Tons of thanks for the help with this!
July 12th, 2012 at 10:52 am
Tao said,
Lucky, I did it! had to leave out JNB and PER though. Here’s my routing: SEA-ORD-MAD-PRG-MAD-VCE-MAD-FCO-AMM-CMB-HKG-SFO, all stopovers except the two latter MAD segments. All in biz class for 150k AA miles. Travel starts in mid September. Took two agents to put it together, the first one was not helpful at all, but it worked out! Thank you Lucky, you are my favorite blogger!
March 1st, 2013 at 5:24 pm
kitty said,
Lucky,
Thank goodness you are out there! I have about 350K in Amex Membership rewards and about 230,000 in AA. My husband and I would like to travel business class (or higher) LAX to AUK (cruise for 15 days ending in Sydney) SYD to Hong Kong or Bali or somewhere else in the south Pacific for a week and then home to LAX in January 2014. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
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