American Airlines Frequent Flyer

donalg1

Does anyone know if there are any charges involved with joining american airlines frequent flyer club? It says on the website that it is free to join but I am just wondering if there are any costs once you are a member is it always free to be part of it?

ProudDUB

Nope. Always free.

However, AA operate one of the most restrictive miles programs out there. If you don't use your air miles within one year & 6 months from when you first earn them, you lose them.

lc180

ProudDUB wrote: »

Nope. Always free.

However, AA operate one of the most restrictive miles programs out there. If you don't use your air miles within one year & 6 months from when you first earn them, you lose them.

Which airline or alliance would you recommend for the frequent flyer program? Cheers

ProudDUB

I am fan of the Delta Skymiles program. Their air miles have no expiration date. They are also partners with Air France who I fly a lot on too. I have scored lots of free upgrades to first class over the years with them too.

steve-o

ProudDUB wrote: »

However, AA operate one of the most restrictive miles programs out there. If you don't use your air miles within one year & 6 months from when you first earn them, you lose them.

Not true. AA miles last indefinitely. If you have no activity on your account for 18 months (no miles earned or spent with AA or any of their zillion partners) then your account expires.

Delta miles are pretty worthless because they charge huge fuel surcharges on any award bookings from Ireland.

Savman

Delta Skymiles only useful when your flight originates in the US, it's true that there are huge "International Booking Surcharges" which makes them difficult to redeem on this side of the pond.

That said, if you can get yourself to the states then you can get to some top destinations using miles. You really need to be hitting the 50K miles mark before you see a free flight IME.

zagmund

I signed up to Continental a few years ago after falling foul of the American Airlines 18 month rule and losing a load of points before I got to use them.

It may seem trivial, but it has cost them several flights over the years. I know they have hundreds of thousands of seats on flights every single day and a few lost sales on tickets to me isn't going to hurt them, but at the end of the day it's a few grand spent with Continental instead of them.

Anyhoo - you can redeem Continental/United points against return flights within Europe. You still pay airport charges, but that's it. I think I got about 7,000 miles per return economy trip to the US and it costs 12,500 (or is it 15,000) to redeem against an economy single flight to anywhere in Europe on Star Alliance airlines including British Midland who fly to (for example) Moscow and Turkish who fly to Istanbul.

So, my vote goes to Continental.

z

Savman

Just to clarify the above, United/Continental and US Airways are in the Star Alliance with Lufthansa etc.

Delta are in Skyteam which has Air France KLM and a few others.

AA are in OneWorld which is little use to anyone on this island from what I can see. Not to mention AA are an absolute dog of an airline.

acquiescefc

i have some search bar where i earn AA miles, its from the AA shopping site.. Think its only meant for americans but ive been getting the points.

Bear in mind its only a few as in not many but its good enough to keep moving the expiry date forward each month if youre getting close to expiry.