My first award redemption—three one-way flights for $7.50

So, I took my first award flight a few months ago. The plan was to fly to Philadelphia (to visit family). I wanted to fly out on Saturday and return home on Tuesday.

I signed up for the AAdvantage credit card in January and was awarded 50,000 miles for spending $3,000 in four months (I did already have a few thousand miles in my account before getting the credit card).

A domestic award ticket in coach on American Airlines is 25,000 miles. Many miles junkies would say that’s not exactly the best use of miles, but that didn’t matter to me. Anyhow, fortunately I didn’t have to use quite that many miles as you will see.

Maybe you remember American’s stopover policy  I previously posted about. I most certainly took advantage (haha) of it since I was planning an international trip this fall (I’ll be posting more on my first European vacation soon).

Here’s how I booked my flights:

Booked one-way flight to PHL (in July) for 12,500 miles and $2.50

Booked a “multi-city” flight from PHL to DFW (in July) and DFW to MAD (in October) for 30,000 miles and $5 ($2.50 per leg).

A couple months later, I booked a one-way return trip to DFW from LHR (in October) for 20,000 miles (more on that soon).

The one caveat is that typically a DFW to MAD award flight in coach after October 15 is 20,000 miles since that date is considered off-peak. However, my trip originated during peak travel time so I had to pay 30,000 miles.

Still, I came out slightly ahead, considering two trips (one domestic, one international) booked separately would have been 65,000 miles. (25,000+40,000) Instead, my two trips came out to 62,500 miles (12,500+30,000+20,000), for a savings of 2,500 miles.

Contrary to popular belief that it’s hard to find availability on award flights, I had no trouble getting direct flights on my dates. I wasn’t too picky about time of the day, so that enabled me to take any available flight. I booked about a month before my trip to PHL (four months before my trip to MAD).

I’m still learning this points and miles stuff, but I’m pleased that basically I got three one-way flights for $7.50 (one of them being an international flight, at that!) Now that’s cheap travel!

Here are a few pics from my short trip to the Philadelphia area.