tl;dr – American Airlines runs this type of sale usually only once a year.
The Sale
From Nov. 28 2025, through 11:59 p.m. CT on Dec. 2, 2025, you can purchase American AAdvantage Miles with up to a 50% bonus. A few things to note about this sale:
- The bonus is staggered and you’ll need to purchase 500,000 miles to get the highest discount of 50%.
- The annual cap on miles you can purchase has thus been raised to 500,000 for this sale.
500,000 miles will cost you $9506.25, which admittedly is pretty steep. Luckily there’s value to be had in this sale without going ‘all in.’
As mentioned in the post title, American Airlines doesn’t put miles on sale as often as its counterparts (usually only once a year around this time of year) and instead insists on having a general 35% discount (on the maximum available miles you can purchase) that is always available. However, purchasing less than maximum allotted miles any other time of year usually only nets you a 15% discount. As the bonuses for these lower thresholds have been increased in this sale, you can purchase a more accessible/affordable amount of miles and net some outsized value. Let’s take a look an an example:
Saving More Than $2000 off the Cash Rate of Air Tahiti Nui Fares
I can point to several examples of how to work this sale to reap outsized value but in the interest of time just drop one quick one below. Let’s say you were plotting an ambitious trip, traveling to French Polynesia and then continuing onto Japan. For the Japan leg, you identified a Premium Economy fare on Air Tahiti Nui for your and your plus one. The cash price of this ticket (for one person)?:
Yikes, $2091 for premium economy is steep.
Via seats.aero, I can see that this same same flight/same seat is available for just 35,000 AAdvantage Miles.
Since you need to purchase two seats, that would cost you 70,000 AAdvantage Miles in total. How much does those miles cost during this sale?:
$1843.63 – Wow. So you can pay (plus less than $100 in taxes and fees for both award tickets) or drop upwards of 4K in cash for those same two tickets.
Easy decision in my book. Enjoy the Japanese Breakfast.
BTW, if you’re looking to fly lay flat business class on JAL to or from Japan, this American AAdvantage sale is a great opportunity to make that a reality for less than $1600 in cash. If you’re starting from zero points, I’d argue that just buying the 60,000 miles for a saver fare you’ve identified is a lot quicker, easier, than pursuing a credit card sub and meeting the minimum spend. More on that in a future post!
