Reader Success Story: $7,200 worth of flights for 132k AAdvantage Points

During my extra time at home, I decided to plan an amazing winter holiday trip for my family using points and miles. After narrowing down the options to two amazing Southern hemisphere destinations, South Africa and New Zealand, my family and I made our final decision where to go based on saver award availability. From past experience, I know that finding savor availability is difficult during December, not to mention finding flights to Oceania from the opposite side of the world. I came across an American Airlines Web Special Award that seemed too good to be true with the exact flights I wanted from Reagan National (DCA) and a reasonable connection in Los Angeles (LAX) to Auckland (AKL), all for the low one-way economy ticket price of 33k AA miles and $27.40 in taxes and fees. I immediately investigated the cash price of the ticket and found it to be just around $1,800. 

Before I went to book these flights, I took one more look at additional flight options. Low and behold, I found the same flights home for 33k points as well. However, I learned that if I booked these flights together as a roundtrip, the cost dropped to 28k miles each way for a total of 56k miles ROUNDTRIP to New Zealand during peak season, which is a steal!! In comparison, United Airlines is charging 80k for a one-way flight. After further digging, I found that if I booked the original ticket as a multi-city ticket, with any other flight, the price remained at 28k miles for the one-way to New Zealand. 

After all this research, we decided to stop in Tahiti on our way home from New Zealand in order to go to Moorea or Bora Bora. Unfortunately, there is no savor availability in Tahiti. Not knowing any multi-city trip I could have attached to the reservation, I decided to lock in the one-way tickets for 33k miles and $27.40. I got 5.5 cents per point on an economy flight with AA miles, which is almost 4 times better than a common value of 1.4 cents. This goes to show that you can still get phenomenal value with your points, even in economy. 

For the flights home, if I had bought the flight from Auckland to Papeete, Tahiti and the flight from Papeete to D.C. separately, the price would have come to over $1,800 per person one-way in economy. However, by booking as a multi-city with Air Tahiti Nui, we will be able to fly from Auckland to Tahiti and from Tahiti to Los Angeles on their 787 Dreamliner, before connecting home to D.C. on American Airlines for just under $600. The price only appeared on third-party booking systems such as Expedia and Orbitz, so I booked at the same price with Amex Travel in order to get 5x back using my Platinum card. 

Although I didn’t use award availability for the return flight, I was able to save over $1,200 by booking a multi-city journey. Now, I get to experience an unbelievable trip to New Zealand, spend four nights at the amazing Hilton Moorea in Tahiti, and make it home to be with family and friends for New Years. 

Just goes to show that resourceful planning and using some miles can significantly cut down on the cost of a trip, especially when there are four people involved. It is always worthwhile to play around with the itineraries and routings to see if you can save points, miles or dollars here or there. You should use your points and miles and your current time at home to plan the amazing trip you’ve been dreaming about….now is the time! 

Authors note: this article was written during the original onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and was not published at the time. Unfortunately, this trip was canceled due to the pandemic, however it will hopefully happen when New Zealand opens their borders. Nonetheless, the lesson is to play around with the dates and/or times to see if you can get a better price.