I am planning a trip to Germany with my girlfriend in March. We both have about 100,000 miles on American. Flying from Chicago to Frankfurt will cost us 40,000 miles. Today, American announced a fare sale to Europe. We can get to Frankfurt for $470 RT -- a very attractive deal.
My question is, would it be more economical to spend real money for this than miles? I have a feeling there is a way to calculate this but I'm appealing to the wisdom of the internet to figure out the details.
Air miles ORD to FRA is 8660 round trip. The dollar fare works out to 5.427 cents a mile. Cheaper than driving!
Using miles, I'd be spending 4.189 miles per air mile traveled.
If we don't use the miles on this trip, we have some travel to the West Coast scheduled for April and June.
Better to spend the 40,000 now, or use them on a long domestic trip in the high season?
Thanks in advance, DuncanJay

Pay the fare, do a PLT Challenge, and reap the benefits of elite status until next March.

Once you are a PLT you'll rack up double miles and be on your way to 1st class tickets to Australia, which is more arduous flight than ORD-FRA.

That's what I would do.....

All the AA fares to Europe I've seen are in S,O,Q,N classes, which only earn 0.5 elite-qualifying points towards a challenge. So you'd have to make two trips for a PLT challenge.

Also, transatlantic Q fares used to be ineligible for challenges. Perhaps this is still the case?

Sorry to be dense, but what's a PLT Challenge? --DuncanJay

Welcome to FT DuncanJay! There's a great thread on AA challenges - the caveat now is that you have to pay for the challenge ($150 for the Platinum Challenge). Basically you have to fly 10,000 EQPs within 90 days and you obtain platinum status. Here is the link to that thread - feel free to ask any questions that you may have after you've read the thread.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...nges-more.html

As a newly ordained PLT, earned in early DEC through a Challenge done by way of a TATL, it is easily done. Pony up the telephone booking fee and set it up using a phone agent. Granted my phone agent was confused as to why I wanted to pay 40 bucks for the higher class ticket.

But you get what you pay for...

Double check the booking classes and check www.aa.com to make sure you get 100% EQP, it's the points that count not the miles. And yes, you do have to pay $150 to do a platinum challenge since Nov 2008. I was one of the lucky last few to squeak in for free. The double miles and upgrade stickers are a really nice benefit so to maximize the status, plan on paying for your tickets during the year you have platinum status, then start redeeming miles the following year. You can't use upgrade stickers on award tickets either.

This is interesting. If it could be done in one TATL run, that would be awesome.
When you signed up for the challenge, did you get an email spelling out the newest Terms&Conditions? Could you PM it to me, please?

Thanks!

It's a fast-track program to get Elite status with AA. If you pay a fee and fly a certain number of points in 90 days, you get status for the rest of the year. More info here for example.

Another suggestion for you, push your 100,000 AA miles into Hilton HHonors points. That is enough for 6 nights at Hilton hotel (if you have Hilton VIP status. If you don't have VIP status, then just open a Hilton AIX credit card). Hotel can be expensive in Europe.

I signed up for a PLT challenge this week due to some upcoming travel on American. During the signup process, the phone agent was kind enough to grant me complimentary gold status. That alone has already been of help in boarding and standby priority. As a Delta refugee I'm pleased so far.

Same as mine. On your profile you indicate AA and UA programs, both are strong in ORD, however I recommend you to decide on a primary carrier and try to get some elite level with them to maximize your benefits. You mentioned going to Frankfurt on March, and some travel to the West Coast for April and June. I strongly suggest you purchase your ticket, do not use miles, with AA for your March travel, enroll in the PLT challenge with AA, making your starting date on the 1st or 15th of March, depending on your travel dates, try to squeeze them so they fall within the 90 days. The 90 days challenge will take you through May, so if we add the miles to Frankfurt, plus the trips (no mention on how many or where to) to the West Coast that you should also book with AA you will be on your way to acquire PLT level with AA. Advantages of PLT or GLD level with AA are:
1) no check luggage fee ($15 for 1st, $25 for 2nd, $100 for 3rd)
2) better seat selection on flights, (Exit seats)
3) higher priority boarding, even though you are flying coach
4) higher security screening, even though you are flying coach
5) higher standby status
6) dedicated customer service
7) additional bonus miles for flight, 25% for GLD, 100% for PLT
8) accumulate 4 upgrade stickers per 10k miles flown to be used on domestic upgrades to 1st class while paying coach

Those are the benefits that I remember on top my head at this moment. Once you decide on which carrier to achieve your Frequent Flyer benefit I also suggest you enroll in their dining reward program and also get their credit card so you can accumulate more miles in the long run. Bottom line, try to maximize your flying experience. Currently, in order to mantain GLD with AA you need to fly at least 25k or 50k for PLT in a calendar year.

The other advantage of choosing American for Elite status is that the miles do start to pile up and all miles earned count towards lifetime Elite status at 1 million miles for Gold and 2 million for platinum. Not having to requalify year after year is a big plus.

there has been a fair amount of discussion on this in other threads. the following is my opinion, not meant to disparage others who have a different viewpoint on using miles.

for me, I find that using bonus miles to upgrade trans-oceanic or intercontinental flights is preferable to using said miles for buying domestic tickets or hotel stays, etc.

I base this (there's room for disagreement here!) on what I would have to spend in $ for the item obtained and the divide that by the miles. on AA I've been able to upgrade $800 tickets with an additional cash outlay of $700 plus 50k miles in lieu of paying $8000 for discounted business class tickets. simple math reveals that these miles trade in for $0.13, which far exceeds what I'd be able to obtain in terms of domestic tickets or hotel stays in the general case.

I also hope to use miles for award tickets to places AA doesn't fly. as I can't upgrade coach tickets on those flights (or some portion thereof) I view it as worthwhile to use miles. A partner award from US to Australia in business class takes 125000 miles, whereas a round-trip from LAX to SYD on QF is currently $17k. These awards are admittedly hard to get but the redemption works out to $0.14. I'd gladly fork over that many miles to avoid paying $17k!

This is how I look at using miles. I hope it helps the OP and others.

At this point in the year I'd buy the ticket. You can always use miles for tickets later in the year when you make your program goal.