The Complete Guide to American Airlines Partners

As a founding member of the Oneworld alliance, American Airlines continues to grow its reach around the planet through its own flights as well as those of its partners. As is the case with many domestic airlines, travelers often find a better experience when traveling on foreign carriers. If you know where to look, you just might be able to earn and redeem more miles that way as well.

Here’s everything AAdvantage members need to know about American Airlines partners.

AAdvantage members can earn by flying the following Oneworld carriers and other partners. Flights on these airline partners are bookable with AAdvantage miles and many can be booked directly through the American Airlines website.

Oneworld

Other airline partners

You will have to call customer service for assistance to book partners that you do not see on AA.com.

In 2022, American Airlines overhauled how elite status is earned with the airline. EQMs, EQDs and EQSs are gone. Instead, flyers earn Loyalty Points, which can be earned when flying on American Airlines and its partners; spending through AAdvantage credit cards; and shopping, dining and making transactions with American’s other partners.

To learn all about how status is earned under the new program, check out our article on what to know about American Airlines elite status.

If you fly on a Oneworld partner airline, you can expect to earn Loyalty Points on the base miles earned according to the distance flown plus cabin bonuses where applicable.

If you fly on American Airlines or JetBlue, you’ll receive Loyalty Points for the base AAdvantage miles earned according to the ticket price (excluding government-imposed taxes and fees). No cabin bonus applies. If this sounds confusing, you're not alone — Loyalty Points are kind of hard to earn.

When it comes to earning AAdvantage miles that can be redeemed for award flights, know this: The number of miles earned will depend on your status level, with general members earning 5 miles per $1, to Executive Platinum Elites earning 11 miles per $1.

When it comes to redeeming AAdvantage miles, things can change quickly. While American still offers award charts for its own flights and those of partners, it also participates in a form of dynamic pricing. This gives travelers a baseline of how much they'll need to spend when following the chart, but flexibility is required to find dates for travel based upon those guidelines.

American refers to its lowest-priced awards as MileSAAver awards, and those priced at higher levels are called AAnytime awards (available on American Airlines-operated flights).

In this example of economy-class redemptions between New York and London, it's easy to see the variance in pricing depending upon the date. American offers good availability in economy class on flight redemptions (as seen here), but award flights are more limited when it comes to premium cabin awards, which you can see in the second image.

For business class redemptions on the same route, the pricing spans an even greater number of miles, from 42,000 miles to 169,000 miles for a one-way ticket.

Another example of a one-way AAnytime award in American’s business class shows some dates even going for a whopping 480,000 miles per person.

» Learn More: The complete guide to redeeming American Airlines miles

American’s website can be finicky. It's important to play around with it when looking for award availability since results can appear differently depending upon how you sort them on the page. As seen above, searching by number of stops is one option.

Also, beware of one caveat when booking British Airways awards through American AAdvantage: Taxes and surcharges on these awards are through the roof. The example below shows American’s 57,500-mile one-way business class award pricing (straight from the award chart), but when it comes with nearly $700 in fees, the value changes significantly.

American also offers Web Special awards, which come with much lower mileage prices. However, these also come with certain restrictions, like not being able to make any changes to a flight itinerary once booked. One perk of having American’s Executive Platinum status is that these awards can be canceled and refunded (other travelers do not have this privilege).

With this mix of dynamic pricing and award chart standards, it can be hard to gauge how many miles will be needed for an award flight. Still, American deserves accolades for not deleting its award charts entirely. American publishes “region definitions” at the bottom of this page if you are unsure of how the airline categorizes each country.

» Learn more: How to save on American Airlines flights by redeeming other miles

Since American’s website does not provide every possible route, a phone reservation agent might be able to search for more options. All Oneworld airlines appear in AA.com search results, but airline partners may not always appear. For airlines like Etihad, AAdvantage members should call American to redeem their miles.

To book flights, use the search tool from the homepage or select flights from the “Plan Travel” dropdown at the top of AA.com.

This will take you to a page where you can enter your travel information with the option to select “All Airlines” at the bottom of the page.

For the best results, use the calendar search. Another trick is to search for award space segment by segment using the form above.

Let’s say you are flying between New York and Helsinki. Try searching New York to a Oneworld hub like London or Madrid first. If you find space, then search for flights from that hub to Helsinki. Once you find both, try to see if you can price the entire itinerary together as one award. Sometimes, longer connections that don’t appear in the initial search might prove fruitful.

American is generous in that it allows travelers to hold award tickets, giving you more time to search for a better option or other parts of your trip. This means you can call American and have a specific award ticket set aside for you (without paying for it) while you finalize plans or search other options. The allowable length of hold times varies based on when the award flight is scheduled for departure and can last as long as five days. Not all award tickets are eligible for holds, so it's best to call the airline.

Once you purchase the award, changes or cancellations result in a fee for award tickets, which varies based on where the reservation was made.

One of the perks of achieving elite status is enjoying benefits when flying partner airlines. AAdvantage Gold members earn Ruby status within Oneworld, while Platinum and Platinum Pro members earn Oneworld Sapphire status. Executive Platinum members are awarded top Oneworld Emerald status.

Elite perks for Sapphire and Emerald members include complimentary lounge access when flying alliance partners internationally, priority check-in and boarding lines, and higher checked baggage limits. These perks can make international travel much more pleasant.

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