chrisny2

On March 1, American Airlines Vacations updated its earning - no longer do you earn 1000 bonus miles per trip. Instead you earn either 1 loyalty point (non-elite) or 5 loyalty points (elite) per dollar. At first I thought this was great, but now I'm wondering if this means they will no longer award any separate miles for the AA flights like they used to (typically distance based). Will be glad to hear any data points on this! I'd love it if it's 5LP/$ + the air miles, but I'm not optimistic on that.

https://www.aavacations.com/en/aavaadvantage

eltoddo22

Hmmm.... this is interesting. AAvacations used to be my favorite way to trick the system and earn based on distance rather than fare. Many AAvacations fares have a * next to it and earn based on "special fares" chart: https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...cial-fares.jsp

Does this mean you earn 5 LP / AAvacations booking + also then more LP for the flight? I did a search now and found fares on AAvacations with a * which means they should earn on distance. Definitely will be interesting to hear datapoints on this.... AAvacations is dead to me if it only earns a flat 5 LP / $ now.

NYC Flyer

This seems to be replacing separate AAV bonus+separate flight credits, with LPs based on total spend and evenly distributed across each traveler's account. I cannot envision AA offering 5 LPs on total package spend (including air cost) plus LPs based on distance flown, but would love to be wrong!

Seems to neutralize any remaining LP arbitrage from AAV bookings with bulk fares. Hopefully consolidator fares will continue to earn LPs.

According to the FAQs on the linked page, earnings are calculated as follows:

How do I earn miles?
Every passenger that is included in the air portion of the booking will earn miles. The miles earned will be based on the status of the lead traveler multiplied by the total package price excluding taxes and fees, divided by the number of air passengers on the booking.

Are these miles loyalty points eligible?
Yes. AAdvantage� members earn at least 1 base mile per dollar spent. Members with AAdvantage Gold� status or above earn 5 base miles per dollar spent (1 eligible AAdvantage� base mile = 1 Loyalty Point)

VFR

Why aren't Gold members earning 7 points per dollar, etc.?

I'm cautiously optimistic that this may be in addition to normal earning.

coleslaw

I would be pretty surprised if it's 5 LP per $1 total with no LP earned on the airfare component. If this was the case then they would be discouraging elites from booking via AAH - e.g. an EXP would get 11 LP per $1 spend on flights. That's a pretty big difference vs 5 per $1, even if the 5 also covers the hotel and/or car amount.

NYC Flyer

Yeash, I'm now thinking there is some hope, given the LPs awarded are based on average per person cost. The vast majority of packages are likely to be at the 1x earning rate, so perhaps it's just low cost spiff to bring more elites to the product.

logicalrealist

The communication here overall feels very sloppy. Several parts of the website still list the 1,000 mile guarantee instead, and there's no clarification about packages purchased before 1 March. I guess time (and subsequent posts) will tell.

JJeffrey

This is just par for the course when it comes to AA and aa.com marketing...

pharmflyer

Does anyone have any recent experience with this? Flew last week ORD-SJD on an AAV package booked back in August 2022 and just see flight miles/LPs with Gold bonus in my account. I know it's only been 7 days since we returned but I'm not even sure what the right posting should even look like in the first place haha

JJeffrey

Given that your flights posted normally under the old method (special fare / distance) I'm guessing you won't see any additional LP's, although keep an eye on it and let us know if that isn't the case.

If it stays as-is then that's a pretty good data point that packages booked prior to the changeover on March 1 will continue to post like they used to.

Under the FAQ's at the vacations site there's now a point that says flights will likely post immediately but with zero LP's, and a separate posting will be made within 2 weeks with the correct LP earning for thr package spend.

pharmflyer

Awesome - thank you! I saw the FAQ too, but I didn't see any 0 postings, they seemed to post like that right away (and I'm a psychopath who checks it right away haha). I also didn't get the 1000 miles under the "old" way, so who knows! I'll update if anything happens!

pharmflyer

Just got the 1000 miles for the package, so looks like it earns the "old" way, at least for those booked before March 1st.

Jss0316

AA special fares chart is still up with a last update showing 3-1-23, all details regarding AA vacations flight selection with � * � indication still showing same info as previous charts for past several years.
I had a AAV trip just completed 4-24, with special fare segments, 2 of 4 total posted correctly (per AA special fares chart) 2 didn�t and posted 0s� trying to correct now but only going to the negative side for RM, LPs, and Even MM accumulation!
several calls to AA CR and AAV cust srvc. They corrected it to normal, then backed all out completely� about 30k LPs went to ~ 3.5k LP! Assume that�s the AAV bonus, not sure
how they calculated that they don�t even seem to know???
EXP here but status doesn�t seem to apply if this is the new rules for AAV�
Be easier to fly oneworld partners and credit to AA especially international flights for max LPs.

CruisingAltitude47

Any updated info on this? Is it now just 5x the package price, or do you still earn for the flight segment too?

Kankou

We took an AA Vacations package (flight+hotel) back in June of this year. I can confirm the Base Mile earnings was 5X the package price. Note that the total Base Miles is then divided by the number of people in your vacation package. No additional flight earnings.
I also had the 30% LP bonus applied to my portion of the base miles.