American Airlines has revealed that it’s changing how members can redeem American AAdvantage miles for upgrades. I suspect that some people will like this change, while others won’t.
American rolls out instant upgrades with miles
Effective immediately, American has rolled out instant upgrades using American AAdvantage miles. As most travelers are probably aware, American has been selling upgrades for cash through both the website and app for quite some time, for those who have already ticketed their itineraries.
The airline is now taking this to the next level — when you see the option to upgrade with cash, you’ll also see the option to upgrade with miles. As you’d expect, these upgrade offers are dynamic, so you’ll find vastly different pricing depending on the flight you’re on, and you’ll even find that the cost for an upgrade on a particular flight can change significantly as the departure date approaches (both up and down).
A couple of data points I’ve seen suggest American is generally offering just under one cent of value per mile for these upgrades, in comparison to paying cash. That’s not exactly a great use of miles.
This replaces American’s mileage upgrade award chart
There’s nothing wrong with American giving customers the option to pay cash or redeem miles for upgrades, but here’s the bad news. Previously, American AAdvantage published an upgrade award chart, so as long as confirmable upgrade space was available, you could confirm an upgrade.
The bad news is that the new instant upgrade program is replacing the old system for upgrading. Any new requests using the mileage upgrade award chart will no longer be accepted starting August 12, 2025. So that means upgrading American flights with miles will go fully dynamic in terms of pricing.
American will continue to honor confirmed mileage upgrades and continue working to confirm existing waitlisted requests, even after this date. Note that none of these changes impact how systemwide upgrades can be used, or how complimentary upgrades for elites work. This strictly applies if you’re looking to redeem miles for upgrades.
With this change, it’ll certainly be easier than before to upgrade with miles, though the value often won’t be as good. Furthermore, it won’t be possible to confirm an upgrade during booking, since you need to ticket your reservation before you seen any upgrade offers (previously you could call and have an agent help you do both at the same time).
I can’t say I’m surprised to see this change. Frankly, American made the process of upgrading with miles ridiculously complicated — most members couldn’t actually see upgrade availability online, and then you needed to call to actually confirm the upgrade.
So for those into maximizing value, I’d say this is bad news. But in terms of making upgrades easier for more people (who aren’t obsessed with maximizing miles), this is probably good news. As you might expect, I’m not a fan of this change, because I have no interest in redeeming miles for just a penny each.
Bottom line
American is overhauling its system for mileage upgrades. Effective immediately, American is offering upgrades with miles for existing itineraries through the website and app, just as you’ll see an option to upgrade with cash. This is coming at the expense of the existing mileage upgrade award chart, which has fixed costs for upgrades, but more capacity controls.
What do you make of these changes to American’s upgrade program?
