nfpa70e

Let's say each of the spouse in a household has 50K AA miles and certain Air ticket requires 100K miles. Can you combine miles? without transferring etc which costs hefty fees.

rjw242

Nope. If it's 100k roundtrip, each spouse could purchase one way, though.

JDiver

Each spouse can use their miles their own award tickets; one spouse can use their miles for awards for both. Some "buy" outbound from one spouse's account, the other "buys" thevreturn - that is OK.

But there's no way, on AA, to combine two people's miles.

BStrauss3

Not strictly true... you can - for an exorbitant fee - transfer miles between accounts to bring one up to the 100K.

https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/e...gift-share.jsp

Transferring 50K costs $625.

Using each account to buy a 1-way ticket is far more reasonable...

JDiver

The OP wanted alternatives other than that one.

billgrates3

There's one other useful tweak to the 2 x one-ways method, i.e. having some AA-Citi credit cards gets you a 10% miles rebate (up to 10K miles). So 2 x 50K one way tickets would cost only 45K miles each.

For example, I just purchased 2 o/w bizclass saaver tix from SFO-BCN for Mrs.G and myself, one on her account, the other on mine. We each have AA-Citi cards so we were charged 45K miles each, net after rebate.

With frugality then setting in, I purchased 2 o/w econ saaver tix for BCN-SFO on my account for 36K miles net (off-peak rate in early May). I used my account for these return tix as Mrs.G is currently without elite status, and buying on my account was the only way we could get MCE seats together. Otherwise, I would have used her miles for her ticket.

jtav559

It is interesting that AA doesn't have a program like BA where a family can pool their miles to book tickets, since there seems to have been big strides for OW matching in terms of lounge access, elite perks, etc.

There are some limitations to the program, but I think that it would be a nice feature for situations just like this.

Then again, maybe AA doesn't want a mass exodus of accrued RDM from their liabilities side of the balance sheet that they would have to pay out both in house and to partners. I can just see the scenario of families of 4 start cashing out 400K miles at a pop for 4 J tickets. Alot of negative cash flow there.

Of note, the rebate applies after you have paid the full mileage amount for the ticket. You cant "count" on the rebate when booking - you need the full 50K from the start.

nfpa70e

Award tickets are different than Cash purchased tickets in the sense that round trip chas purchased price is usually lot better than the one way. With award miles, you can choose the departure and return leg independently for the same miles. So this perhaps would be a better option.

Margo2004

Unfortunately you cannot, you can transfer the miles from one account to another, however that will cost you money and honestly sometimes is not even worth it.

satman40

Have her apply for another CC, or book a one way ticket..

We often go out one airline and return on another.