American Express points
 

Hey,
I live in a city that is mostly serviced by American Airlines. I have a bunch of Amex points/miles. Is there a way I can use them for American Airlines flights.

Thanks

The Hawaiian transfer is now gone, so that leaves transferring to BA Avios as the most likely best value proposition.

Yes. Amex has several transfer partners whose miles can be redeemed for travel on AA -- subject to AA's making award seats on a particular flight available to partners. The best partner for redemptions on AA can vary, depending on what route and class of service you wish to fly on AA.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Or just use the Amex points to book a flight as cash, not a "good" redemption, but not subject to availability constraints

If only you'd asked this a month ago when we could transfer to Hawaiian and redeem on Alaska as a OneWorld partner (55,000 points business class PHL to LHR). The problem with BA redemptions are the carrier surcharges they add to award redemptions. They're insane sometimes. While you will often find 57,000 point business class redemptions on BA, you'll also pay $800 in fees.

We still don't know whether the OP lives at an AA hub or an AA spoke; whether he is looking to fly domestically or internationally; whether he wants to fly in Coach or in premium cabins; etc. All of these things can affect which Amex transfer partner is best for redeeming for travel on AA.

BA or IB Avios can offer very good value for travel on IB for nonstops from the U.S. to Madrid. BA Avios can also be transferred to Finnair Plus, which offers decent redemptions on AA between the Mainland U.S. and the Caribbean, Central America, and Hawaii.

Charlotte, NC is an AA hub I think. Coach internationally.

Finnair award chart here:

https://www.finnair.com/us-en/finnai...-with-partners

BA Avios can be transferred to AY (Finnair), and vice versa.

But a few caveats:

1. I don't know whether Finnair collects carrier surcharges on AA international redemptions.

2. You will only be able to book those AA flights for which AA has released partner availability to Finnair.

3. You cannot check Finnair's AA award availability online: you must call or chat with a Finnair agent.

Once in Europe, you may find that BA Avios offer good value for travel to or from London.

Good luck!

Edited to add: For roundtrip international Coach travel, I would always check cash fares via the Amex travel portal. In some cases, you might get better value from your Amex MR points by using them as cash to buy a ticket from the portal, rather than transferring them to an airline to redeem for an award ticket.

Ah memories of the TWA play, ~ 25 years ago. Cleaned out my account, 300k MR points -> TWA -> AA. MM credit too :)