How to Book American Airlines Flights to Vegas With Miles

Everyone has a different Vegas style. All-you-can eat buffet or Michelin-starred chef experience? World-class shows or out-of-this-world people watching? No matter how you Vegas, it’s always nice to have some extra cash. So if you can pay for your flight using miles, you’ll have more to spend once you’re there.

American Airlines flyers don’t have a ton of flight options to Sin City. Only 10 cities have direct American Airlines flights to Vegas: Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, Charlotte, Washington-Reagan, Philadelphia, New York-JFK and Chicago-O'Hare.

If you’re set on using miles to book an American Airlines flight to Vegas, here’s how.

Booking a Vegas flight with American Airlines miles

Even though American Airlines has an award chart, the number of miles you need can change rapidly. It’ll usually range from 7,500 - 30,000 AAdvantage miles for economy and 15,000 - 55,000 miles in business and first class if you’re flying within the contiguous U.S. Start scoping out your options even before you’re ready to book so you’ll know what to expect.

» Learn more: Our guide to the American Airlines AAdvantage program

To search for American Airlines award flights to Vegas, go to aa.com, enter your dates and route (the airport code for Las Vegas is LAS). Then click the “Redeem miles” box and hit the “Search” button.

You’ll get a list of flight options, along with the number of miles you need to book. Note the cost on different travel dates, too, so you can see whether you could save miles by changing your dates.

At this search results page, you can also see which seats are available on each flight by clicking “Seats.”

How to earn American Airlines miles

If you don’t have enough miles to book an American Airlines flight to Vegas, there are a few different ways to earn miles:

• Flying on American Airlines or one of its partner airlines.

• Booking a hotel, car rental or vacation package through American Airlines.

• Shopping online through AAdvantage eShopping.

• Eating out or ordering takeout from restaurants in the AAdvantage Dining program.

• Using an American Airlines co-branded credit card.

The best way to earn a lot of AAdvantage miles fast is to sign up for an American Airlines credit card that’ll earn you thousands of miles as part of the welcome bonus. Here are some of the current welcome offers and other benefits you’ll get as a cardholder. Don’t forget you’ll earn miles for every dollar you spend on the card, too.

Choose your card carefully. Annual fees, like the $450-a-year charge for carrying the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®, can cost you more than you’ll earn back in value.

» Learn more: The best airline credit cards for casual and frequent flyers

Book American Airlines flights with British Airways Avios

Don’t want to open an American Airlines card? Unfortunately, none of the major travel credit cards can transfer points directly to American Airlines, but some of them do transfer to British Airways (a Oneworld alliance partner of American Airlines).

Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express Membership Rewards and Capital One all offer British Airways as a transfer partner. So you can transfer the points from your travel credit card to British Airways, and use British Airways Avios to book an American Airlines flight.

To book American Airlines flights with British Airways Avios, log in to your British Airways account and search for flights to Vegas to find seats on American Airlines. For example, we found a flight on American Airlines from Dallas to Las Vegas in January for 9,000 British Airways Avios one way. The catch? These partner flights are hard to find. So search early and often.

Other ways to book American Airlines flights with points

You can convert any Marriott Bonvoy points you have into either American AAdvantage miles or British Airways Avios, but at a 3:1 transfer ratio, this isn’t a great deal.

Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express Membership Rewards, Bank of America Preferred Rewards and other credit card rewards programs also let you redeem points for flights within their own travel portals. They often list flights on lots of different airlines, including American.

Keep in mind that stricter cancellation policies may apply to flights booked through a travel portal.

» Learn more: The cheapest American flights to book to Vegas

Should you book an American Airlines flight to Las Vegas?

If you have AAdvantage miles or points that can transfer to British Airways, you don’t have to pay cash for your flight to Vegas. Search for award flights on American Airlines’ website, and look for ideal routes and low redemption rates. We have a calculator to help you figure out whether you should book your flight with cash or points. And you’ll be hitting the Strip in no time.