Use 40k AA miles or 3,000 BE points? Your thoughts?
 

Background:
16,736 BE points current balance
2,477 BE points are expiring at end of 2018
I am AA EXP with 25,158 EQD an 131,522 EQM for 2018
Over 2 million lifetime miles. Over 1 million award miles left to spend

Scenario:
4 of us going to Hawaii in March 2019
I have 4 confirmed seats DFW-OGG 20,000 AA miles x 4 people = 80,000 miles going and 4 confirmed seats OGG-DFW 20,000 AA miles x 4 people = 80,000 miles returning = 160,000 miles total for all 4 of us. I worked very hard over a long period of time to research and find and book these. You know how hard that is for Spring Break to Hawaii.
BX2A PlanAhead NorthAmerica & Hawaii is 3,000 points per person x 4 people = 12,000 points

Decision:
keep Door #1 : spend the 160,000 miles as these are cheap 40k miles roundtrip per person
or go for Door #2 : spend the 12,000 points for DFW-OGG roundtrip. BE desk and EXP desk said no problem returning 160k miles to me and BE desk can convert to BE award. ( I know there is discussion below about them not being or being in the same buckets but these two agents agree it was doable, but that is not the discussion )

Discussion:
I say keep door #1 . These are 40k per person roundtrip. If these were 80k or 120k or 180k per person roundtrip, then that would be a different story. 40k is much less valuable then 3,000 BE points
BE currency is MUCH more valuable than AA miles currency

Your thoughts?

I would use the miles as well, although if you have some BE points expiring and no other use for them then maybe book one of the tickets with BE points and the other 3 with miles?

That said, are your mileage tickets already booked or just on hold? If they're booked, I would triple check with the agents again on if it's even possible to just "switch" the award to BE points from AA miles (I'm doubting this). In order to technically do this and get your miles redeposited you'd need to cancel the awards, and there's no guarantee and I certainly wouldn't plan on the award space going back to inventory, so that you could then book the award using BE points. Maybe a good EXP agent can work some magic but again I'd be cautious.

I can find the plan ahead awards on the calendar, but they disappear when I get to the select flight screen. Looks like its not very accurate yet.

Oh, interesting. Thanks for the heads-up.

I plan on using expiring Business Extra points to maintain Gold status for next year. I understand I have to use the points before the end of the year to prevent them from expiring. However, I am currently Platinum (very little flying this year, so without BE I would drop to no status). Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with the program regarding whether my current Platinum status would be affected by redeeming this award? That is, would this somehow cause me to drop from Platinum to Gold right aware? Or can I expect to retain Platinum through the end of January and drop to Gold February 1?

If you have 2477 BE points expiring at the end of the year, I would get the 3000 mile award for one person.

Of course, that will leading to seating and other issues if they aren't elite.

I have a quick question, can I use my BXP1 certificate for my sister in law and present the original at my local airport (MIA) instead of hers (LGA)?. TIA

Fed

I know this has been answered here - but just wanted to triple check - BXP3's work the same exact way as SWUs right? Same priority, automatic reticketing, etc correct? Literally the same instruments in the eyes of AA (assuming of course the applicable fare code has been booked to use?)

I am headed to Shanghai for the holidays and trying to upgrade from PE to J and one way is still waitlisted. I called the EXP desk who told me SWUs take priority over BXP3 which I am pretty sure is not the case. However since I will be traveling from China to the USA (on 1/1 which will be a rough day as is) I did not want to risk and swapped the BXP3 for a SWU. Was that a mistake? This was an SWU expiring Jan '20 whereas the BXP3 expires in May '19 - clearly I would like to use whatever expires first if all else is equal. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!

Wow! Have other people had the same experience? I am wondering if I should just burn this on a J to F upgrade (which I dont like to do but may be best use)

We opted to use a bxp3 for j to f upgrade lax to hkg.. points were expiring so it seemed like the best use.

I'm planning on opening a new BE account. Does anyone know if there are any active promos or referral codes that offer a signup bonus? Thanks

Thanks for the feedback here. One more question - if there is confirmable upgrade space on a flight can I use a BXP3 now to confirm even if the flight is after the expiration date on the cert?

You no longer need to present the paper certificate. Just call Business Extraa to upgrade your SIL and give them the certificate number. You should have no issues.