32 Ways to Earn American Airlines AAdvantage Miles

Looking to fly for free with American Airlines? If you have a stash of American Airlines AAdvantage miles, then you can turn around and redeem them for free American Airlines flights.

American Airlines is one of the largest global airlines and a founding member of Oneworld alliance, which makes it easy to use American miles to book through partner airlines including Alaska Airlines, British Airways and Japan Airlines. On its own, American flies to 350 destinations in 50 countries — and through Oneworld, passengers can fly to over 1,000 destinations worldwide. One of the best things about the airline is how easy it is to earn AAdvantage frequent flyer miles. If you're not a member, you can sign up for American's frequent flyer program, called AAdvantage, here.

Here are 32 ways to earn AAdvantage miles with the airline (even some pretty obscure ones) so you can maximize mileage earning opportunities. (Psst: You can figure out how many American miles you need to earn for your next trip with our Points Planning Tool).

Credit card welcome bonuses offer one of the best ways to jump-start mileage earning. American Airlines is pretty good about offering high sign-up bonuses on its co-branded credit cards, with recent offers ranging from 10,000 to 75,000 miles. American Airlines credit cards are issued by two banks: Citibank and Barclays. All current offers are as follows:

American Airlines personal cards

AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard® (annual fee: $99): Earn 60,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles after making your first purchase and paying the $99 annual fee in full, both within the first 90 days.

» Learn more: 5 things to know about the AAdvantage Aviator Red and Silver Mastercards

Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® (annual fee: $0 intro for the first year, then $99): Earn 50,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $2,500 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.

» Learn more: Citi AAdvantage Platinum Card review: Worth the fee for airline loyalists

Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (annual fee: $595): Earn 70,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $7,000 within the first 3 months of account opening.

» Learn more: Citi AAdvantage Executive review: Your key to the club

American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® (annual fee: $0): Earn 15,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after making $500 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.

» Learn more: Citi AAdvantage MileUp review: No fee, but no free bags

AAdvantage® Aviator® Silver Mastercard® (annual fee: $199): No longer accepting new applicants.

AAdvantage® Aviator® Blue Mastercard® (annual fee: $49): No longer accepting new applicants.

Citi® / AAdvantage® Gold World Elite™ Mastercard® (annual fee: $0 for the first year, then $50): No longer accepting new applicants.

American Airlines business cards

CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard® (annual fee: $0 intro for the first year, then $99): Earn 65,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $4,000 in purchases within the first 4 months of account opening.

» Learn more: CitiBusiness/AAdvantage Platinum review: A must for American Airlines loyalists

AAdvantage® Aviator® World Elite Business Mastercard® (annual fee: $95): N/A

The best option

If you want to earn the maximum number of American Airlines miles from a credit card application, the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard® would be the card to go with given its high welcome bonus. Earn 65,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $4,000 in purchases within the first 4 months of account opening.

Although this is a business card, you don't necessarily need a formal registered business to open the card. Even if you have a hobby business in your name (maybe you sell things on eBay or Etsy), you can qualify. In the application field that asks for the name and address of the business, use your first and last name and your home address. In the Tax ID field, add your Social Security number.

Even if the revenue you’ve earned from your business is low, you'll still need to input your total annual income, including employment income. The total income figure will be considered as part of your entire application. The application will also ask for your name and home address, which can be the same as the information for your business. This is completely logical given that if you have a hobby business, you’re likely running it from home anyway.

If you’re having trouble deciding which American Airlines card is best for you, check out our handy guide.

American Airline credit cards allow you to not only earn AAdvantage miles each time you swipe your card, but to also earn additional miles for spending in specific categories. All of the above-mentioned credit cards earn 2 miles per $1 on American Airlines purchases, except for the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®, which earns 4 miles per $1 on American Airlines purchases and 10 miles per $1 on eligible hotels and car rentals booked through American Airlines.

In addition, these cards earn 2 miles per $1 in the following categories:

If you want a credit card with no annual fee that earns extra points at grocery stores, consider the American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp®.

If you'd rather earn the bonus points at office supply stores or on communications expenses, consider either the AAdvantage® Aviator® World Elite Business Mastercard® or the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard®, as they offer extra points in those categories.

Many people pay their phone bill using their bank account, which usually earns nothing. However, if you put a $100 monthly phone bill on a card that earns bonus points, that's an extra 2,400 AAdvantage miles per year.

Although it may seem like a relatively small number of miles, they add up quickly. An extra 2,400 miles are worth about $30, but that can be the difference between having enough miles for an award ticket or being slightly short on miles and needing to top up your account through a miles purchase (which can be rather expensive).

Get into the habit of strategically thinking about which credit cards you use for purchases.

Unfortunately, American Airlines is not a transfer partner of any credit card transferrable point programs (e.g. Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles) so your only opportunity to transfer points at a decent ratio is from Marriott.

Marriott Bonvoy points convert to American Airlines miles at a 3:1 ratio. So if you transfer 60,000 Marriott points to American Airlines, you will have 20,000 AAdvantage miles. Although Marriott offers a 5,000 point bonus on transfers of 60,000 points to certain airlines, American Airlines is no longer included on this list of airlines.

In addition, you'll want to keep in mind the valuation of each program before doing any transfer. American miles are worth 1.7 cents each, so 20,000 American miles are valued at $340. Marriott points are worth 0.8 cent each, resulting in a valuation of $480. When comparing the valuations, 60,000 Marriott points are worth more than 20,000 American Airlines miles, which is something to be mindful of when considering a transfer.

However, the valuation is completely based on what you plan to do with the miles. If those 20,000 American Airlines miles will allow you to redeem for a first class international flight, you’ll most likely get way more value out of those American miles than $340.

In instances like this, if you’re a few miles short of an AAdvantage award ticket and have some extra Marriott points, a points transfer may make sense.

» Learn more: Here's how much your points and miles are worth

Additionally, Marriott is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, which has run bonuses in the past on point transfers from AmEx to Marriott. If the stars align and your transfer timeline coincides with a transfer bonus, you could really maximize the transfer to get the most American miles.

Ahh, the old-school way of earning frequent flyer miles. Despite the fact that earning miles by flying is one of the easiest ways to get them, so many people miss out because they simply forget to add their frequent flyer number to their reservation. To make sure that doesn’t happen, first register for an AAdvantage account.

After registering, you will receive an AAdvantage number, which will be the frequent flyer number you’ll want to make sure is synced to all your American Airlines reservations. Miles can be earned on flights with American Airlines, Oneworld and partner airlines.

On American Airlines

Obviously you can earn American Airlines miles by flying with American Airlines. The number of miles earned depends on the price of your ticket and your elite status level:

AAdvantage miles earned per $1 spent

American recently announced updates to its elite status program for 2023. See what's changing.

To see how quickly the mileage bonus adds up, consider this chart from American Airlines, which shows how many AAdvantage miles can be earned on a round-trip flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to London-Heathrow.

The higher-earning rate is one of the reasons why aiming for status with an airline you often fly with can be advantageous.

On Oneworld and partner airlines

American Airlines allows you to earn AAdvantage miles while flying with about two dozen different airline partners:

Each airline has an agreement with American that governs how miles are earned. The earn rate depends on the distance flown and the fare class of the ticket. For example, here's the earning rate on flights with British Airways.

A flight from New York to London is 3,451 miles long. If you book a first class (F) ticket with British Airways but elect to earn AAdvantage miles, you will earn 10,353 AAdvantage miles. However, if that same ticket is booked in economy (G), it will only earn 863 AAdvantage miles.

You can earn American Airlines by shopping online at many major merchants, by shopping through the AAdvantage eShopping mall.

All you need to do is sign up for an account using your AAdvantage number and find a participating merchant. The mall offers bonuses for shopping at specified merchants. The screenshot below shows various online merchants along with the earn rate (note that these rates change often, so you may see different offers):

So if you make a $100 purchase at Sephora, you'd earn 500 AAdvantage miles by simply clicking on Sephora through the AAdvantage eShopping mall and completing your purchase. It typically takes a few days for the miles to post to your account, but can take up to 15 days.

SimplyMiles offers extra AAdvantage miles for in-store purchases. To earn miles through SimplyMiles, register for an account with your AAdvantage number and link an American Airlines co-branded credit card and activate your targeted offers.

» Learn more: Another way to earn American Miles by shopping - SimplyMiles

American Airlines also allows you to earn AAdvantage miles when staying at participating hotels. There are a bunch of different hotel partners, including some of the largest chains, like Marriott and IHG.

Generally, you could either earn hotel points or airline miles. Deciding whether to earn hotel points or AAdvantage miles is a matter of personal preference.

One interesting booking platform is Rocketmiles, which allows you earn airline miles for hotel stays. Below is a screenshot from Rocketmiles of a three-night stay in Miami Beach, Florida.

If you were to stay at the Nautilus by Arlo, you would earn about 15 AAdvantage miles per $1 spent — a great return. And if you’re looking to maximize your AAdvantage miles for hotel stays, using Rocketmiles would be the way to go.

It is worth noting that the hotel prices on Rocketmiles can sometimes be higher than on other online travel agencies (OTAs). This is probably because the site trying to recoup the cost of the miles they need to purchase to reward customers. It’s definitely worth it to compare rates to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible.

Similar to earning AAdvantage miles for hotel stays, you could also earn miles for car rentals. Participating car rental companies include Avis, Budget, Payless, Alamo, National, Dollar, Hertz, Thrifty, Carmel, Europcar and Sixt.

Avis and Budget are preferred rental partners with AAdvantage, which means — depending on your AAdvantage elite status — you could earn up to 5 base miles per $1 spent.

To earn the miles, click "Book now," and you will be taken to the car rental company’s webpage. You will be prompted to input the relevant discount code and your AAdvantage number when making the reservation.

American Airlines Vacations is a booking platform that lets you earn AAdvantage miles when paying for airfare, hotels and/or car rentals. There are also opportunities to earn additional miles for booking vacation deals to selected destinations. We've seen promotions of up to 25,000 miles for booking at specific resorts.

If a cruise is your type of vacation, American Airlines makes it easy to earn AAdvantage miles through its cruise booking platform. The site is often running various promotions where you can pick up extra AAdvantage miles.

American Airlines offers a dining program where you can earn AAdvantage miles at participating restaurants (and it's considered one of the best dining programs out there. To earn miles, register for an account with AAdvantage Dining and add any credit or debit card to your online profile (you don't necessarily need an American Airlines credit card to participate). Every time you eat at a participating restaurant and swipe your card on file, you’ll automatically earn AAdvantage miles.

If you’re not yet registered for an account, AAdvantage Dining usually runs a promotion that can earn you extra miles.

The number of points you earn depends on your membership tier. Points earned range from 1 point per $1 spent (basic member) to 5 points per $1 spent (VIP member). That's a roughly 6% return on bills at eligible restaurants for members with VIP status. Plus, you can almost always double dip on rewards earned by paying with a dining rewards credit card. If your credit card earns bonus points for spending at restaurants, you’ll be able to collect those and the rewards you’d earn through AAdvantage Dining.

American Airlines allows you to earn miles with a selection of retailers offering business products, financial services, home insurance, electricity, flowers, wine purchases and concert tickets.

American HomeMiles is an organization that offers services related to mortgages, real estate and moving. You can earn bonus miles when you buy a home, sell a home or arrange moving services through HomeMiles:

• 5,000 AAdvantage miles for every $25,000 of the sale or purchase price when you buy or sell a home.

• 1,250 miles for every $10,000 on a financed house.

• Earn 5,000 miles when you complete an interstate move.

Bask Bank is a digital bank that awards AAdvantage miles for depositing money and maintaining an average monthly balance. The bank also runs different promotions throughout the year for new and existing customers to earn bonus miles.

e-Rewards is a platform that allows you to earn AAdvantage miles for taking surveys. Be aware that this is a tedious way to earn miles. Do you really want to spend 15 minutes of your time to earn 250 miles? then again, it's fairly mindless and something you can do if you're, say, watching TV on a lazy Sunday.

Seems like e-Rewards isn’t accepting new members at this time, but if you already have an account, this could be a way to earn miles.

Miles of Opinions is similar to e-Rewards in that it provides an opportunity to earn AAdvantage miles for taking surveys.

LendingClub is a lending institution that offers personal loans, auto refinancing loans, business loans and medical loans. You can earn 1 AAdvantage mile for every $1 borrowed, up to $40,000.

If you’re considering taking out a loan, shop around to make sure you get the best rate, regardless of the number of miles offered. However, if you find that the rate from LendingClub is competitive, then it’s a great opportunity to pick up some extra AAdvantage miles.

Miles From Home is a service that will match you with a real estate agent near you to help you sell your home. You can earn 2,000 miles for every $10,000 of your home’s sale and/or purchase price. To be eligible, you need to register with Miles From Home and meet certain criteria. The program is not available for homes purchased or sold in Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma or Oregon. The real estate program isn't available in Iowa.

PreFlight Airport Parking offers an opportunity to earn 1 mile per $1 spent on airport parking. The company operates 14,000 parking spots at seven different airports, including Atlanta, Boston, Houston-Intercontinental, Houston-Hobby, Chicago-O'Hare, Philadelphia and Phoenix.

SuperShuttle provides shuttle service to/from airports. You can earn 50 AAdvantage miles for each one-way ride or 100 miles round-trip. SuperShuttle operates in numerous domestic and international locations.

Emergency Assistance Plus (EA+) offers 24-hour emergency medical and transportation help when you’re at home or traveling. Services include medical evacuation and transportation home, medical assistance and travel assistance for you and your companions. The service starts at $169 per year, and you'll earn 1,200 miles for signing up and renewing annually.

Although this sounds like a good service, you may already have this type of protection if you have a premium travel card. For example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® includes $2,500 of emergency medical coverage when you’re on a trip as long as it's paid for with the credit card. If you have a premium travel rewards card, double-check the credit card’s fine print before paying for an additional service.

» Learn more: 4 best credit cards for travel insurance benefits

NRG Home is a supplier of energy and electricity. The company’s services are used with your existing utility provider. You can earn up to 10,000 AAdvantage miles, plus 2 miles per $1 spent.

Reliant is an energy provider in Texas. You could earn 15,000 AAdvantage miles for switching to Reliant plus an extra 500 miles for each month you’re registered (for the next 24 months) for a total of 27,000 miles.

Xoom supplies electricity (in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island) and natural gas (in California, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Virginia). After two months of signing up for an account, you can earn 10,000 AAdvantage miles as an electric customer and 5,000 AAdvantage miles as a natural gas customer. Thereafter, you can earn 2 miles for every $1 on the energy portion of your bill.

Make sure to read the provider’s terms and conditions, because many of these independent energy providers offer electricity at variable rates, which can introduce volatility into your monthly bill.

SimpliSafe is a provider of home security systems. The company is currently running a limited-time offer in which you could earn 7,000 AAdvantage miles for purchasing a home security system. If you’re considering buying a security system, this could be an opportunity to bank some extra AAdvantage miles.

Buying flowers is a great way to earn lots of American Airlines miles. Partners on the eShopping portal include 1-800flowers.com, FTD, ProFlowers and Teleflora. We've seen promotions of up to 25 miles per $1 spent.

You can earn AAdvantage miles for buying wine through Vinesse, an online wine store. Vinesse is currently offering 2,000 AAdvantage miles on your first shipment, plus 5 miles per $1 spent on every shipment thereafter.

Vivid Seats is a ticket broker that lets you earn 3-5 miles per $1 spent on concert tickets, sporting events and comedy shows.

American Airlines has partnered with Shell's Fuel Rewards program to offer 2x miles on every gallon of fuel purchased at Shell gas stations. When AAdvantage members link their account to Fuel Rewards, they'll receive 100 miles after their first fill-up at a Shell.

American Airlines has partnered with Stand Up to Cancer to offer 10 AAdvantage miles for every $1 you donate to the charity on donations of $25 or more.

American Airlines has partnered with several hotel programs that allow you to convert your hotel points into AAdvantage miles. Although a conversion from hotel points into airline miles is usually at a poor ratio and not advisable, this is a case-by-case scenario.

In addition to the hotel partners displayed on AA’s site, the airline has agreements with several other hotel partners:

• Fiesta Hotels: Convert 10,000 Fiesta Rewards Points into 3,000 AAdvantage miles.

• Wyndham Hotels: 6,000 Wyndham Rewards Points for 1,200 travel partner points, 16,000 Wyndham Rewards Points for 3,200 travel partner points or 30,000 Wyndham Rewards Points for 6,000 travel partner points.

For example, if you earned 30,000 points with Wyndham from several years ago and you have no plans to stay again at a Wyndham property, then converting those points to airline miles can make sense. Wyndham points convert into AAdvantage miles at a 5:1 ratio, so you'd end up with 6,000 AA miles on that transfer.

World of Hyatt and American Airline’s AAdvantage program have teamed up, allowing reciprocal benefits for elite status members. Plus, you can earn 1 AAdvantage miles for every $1 spent at Hyatt. To earn those points, you have to link your American Airlines and Hyatt accounts. AAdvantage members who have ConciergeKey, Executive Platinum, Platinum Pro or Platinum status can receive additional perks.

Oh, and likewise, Hyatt elite members, can earn 1 Hyatt point per $1 spent on American Airlines flights. These points are earned in addition to the normal miles earned through American, effectively double-dipping your rewards.

American Airlines enthusiasts can collect miles on any Alaska Airlines flight, no matter which airline is marketing or operating the flight.

This is a huge opportunity for earning miles, particularly for West Coast-based travelers. Under normal circumstances, Alaska Airlines operates more than 113,000 flights per day to 115 destinations.

Last (and certainly least) is purchasing American Airlines miles. As a general rule, miles purchases make sense only in very limited circumstances: Topping up your account to book an award ticket, purchasing miles for a premium award or buying miles as a transaction to keep your miles from expiring. Members under age 21 are exempt from mileage expiration.

Buying miles at a discount is the main instance in which it can make sense to purchase miles.

Here's an example of a past promotion that could make a miles purchase worthwhile:

If you purchased the maximum of 150,000 miles, you would get a 120,000-mile bonus, for a total of 270,000 miles.

This purchase would set you back $4,794.50, which comes out to 1.8 cents per mile. NerdWallet values American miles at 1.7 cents each.

In other words, the value doesn't outweigh the cost, and we’ve outlined so many cheaper ways to acquire AAdvantage miles that buying miles ought to be your last resort.

These mileage earning opportunities won't apply to everyone, but try to incorporate the ways that work best for you. Getting into the habit of earning miles for everyday activities can help grow your AAdvantage balance faster and bring you closer to that award ticket that you’ve been planning for.

The information related to the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® has been collected by NerdWallet and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service.