Limin'Tig

All right guys, kind of a tricky problem:

Trying to get from Dallas to Cabo. Obviously, American Airlines is the easiest way to go with several direct flights daily.

Problem is we have American Express points that we want to use to get the tickets, but AA is not an American Express partner airline, so you can't convert AMEX points directly into AA frequent flier miles.

However, you CAN convert American Express points directly into Mexicana Frecuenta miles, and it appears from the Mexicana website that the Frecuenta miles can then be used to get American Airlines tickets from Dallas to Cabo.

Has anyone else used Mexicana Frecuenta miles to purchase American Airlines tickets? Is the process as easy as it looks, or are there other restrictions/limitations I should know about? Is this the best way turn AMEX points into American Airlines miles?

Thanks in advance!

CMCFlyer

A friend of mine did a similar conversion to Frequenta for flights on Air NZ. You need to evaluate their booking system for AA. At least with flights he was trying to book, he had to call their office and make a request for flights - no possibility of using the website. He then had to call back two days later only to be told there was no availability. So he made a request for another flight, waited two days, and then called back. It was a very tedious process, granted he was trying to book business class - usually he would give up and pay for the ticket, took him one year to successful use the miles. It may be different with AA, and availability should be better if you are booking Y, just be sure to check the procedures before you transfer the miles.

JDiver

I can't see the advantage in buying the AA tickets with Frecuenta miles; why not just "buy" the MX award seats on the MX codeshares to begin with? (All three AA DFW-SJD M80 flights fly with MX codeshares.) Of course, I'd check with MX to see what availability is to begin with.

Limin'Tig

JDiver - I guess that's what I'm asking, and forgive me for my lack of knowledge about the lingo. What I'd like to do is redeem my Frecuenta points (as transferred in from AMEX) to get free tickets on the AA DFW-SJD flights (whether those count as MX codeshare tickets or AA tickets I don't know). So I guess you're saying that can be done without any problem?

olimaspecto

I'm not sure exactly what JDiver is suggesting either, but I do get that you (the OP) want to redeem Amex points for Mexicana frequent flyer miles and then use those Mexicana miles to get a ticket on American. If that's the case then I would go ahead and call Mexicana ahead of time to check availability on AA and then transfer the miles (assuming they will let you do this). You may also want to use AA.com to check availability on those flights ahead of time to see if anything is open for FF tickets, because if there is not anything open to AAdvantage members on those flights for awards, I would highly doubt anything will be open to someone trying to redeem Mexicana miles for an AA ticket. Also, be aware that even if AA.com shows award seats as being available on those flights it does not necessarily mean that those seats will be available to someone trying to book the ticket with Mexicana miles; this happens with AAdvantage members trying to redeem miles for seats on CX flights, as CX does not open up their entire award inventory to its partners, so that even if seats show as available on AsiaMiles, they may not be available to AAdvantage.

JDiver

Sorry for my lack of clarity.

AA 1225, 865 and 875 (DFW-SJD) also fly as MX 3047, 3049 and 3051.

AA 1630, 2438 and 864 (SJD-DFW) also fly as MX 3046, 3048 and 3050.

So, I'd check to see if MX has the seat(s) available on their codesahre and use the AMEX miles transfer to get MX seats on the AA M80s and forget about trying to make things more complicated by trying to snag AA seats through MX. (That assumes MX has some award inventory in the block of seats it has on those flights, of course.)

magic168

DANGER: Frecuenta points cannot be transferred out UNLESS THEY WERE EARNED BY FLYING!!!! At least that's what happens with Frecuenta --> HHonors.

olimaspecto

What do you mean transferred out? Do you mean that you cannot use Frequenta points on a partner airlines ticket unless they were earned by flying? This doesn't seem to make sense to me if this is the case.

Dudleydog73

I believe what they are saying is once they are transferred into Frequenta, that program does not allow you to then transfer those points into another partner plan (in his example Frequenta->Hilton HHonors) unless you are transferring Butt In Seat miles.

For you this wont be a problem as you plan on using the miles for flights.

--DD73