American Airlines One-Way Rewards Tickets!

American Airlines is revolutionizing the frequent flyer business with the new AAdvantage One-Way Flex Awards. Rewards tickets, since the beginning of time, have been a thorn in the side of the one-way traveler. Yes, you could book a free flight for as few as 25,000 miles, but that ticket would always have to be round trip. So what if you want to fly in to one location, travel overland, and then depart from another? It was a no go. Until now.

The spanking new One-Way Flex Awards offer you a whole new way of booking awards travel. With this option, you can book a trip using miles on a one-way basis. The number of miles needed is calculated at one half the round-trip mileage requirement. That couldn’t be more reasonable. For those of you who do want to travel round trip, American is offering you the ability to combine different types of one-way awards on a single ticket. Huh? That means you can, for example, now book a MileSAAver awards for one way and a AAnytime award for the return. You can book a First Class ticket for one direction and Steerage for the other, if you so desire.

American is the first major domestic airline to offer a one-way award ticket at a true one-way price at just one-half the amount of the required round-trip miles.

“Since the AAdvantage program was launched in 1981, American has continuously made improvements that make the program more valuable for our members and ensure our industry leadership position,” said Rob Friedman, President – AAdvantage Marketing Programs. “Our One-Way Flex feature takes frequent flyer award travel to a whole new level by offering customers unprecedented options and flexibility.”

How does this work? Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth…

• One-Way Flex Awards give AAdvantage members the flexibility to combine different one-way awards on a single itinerary. For instance, a member may travel outbound on an Economy Class MileSAAver award and return on an economy class AAnytime award. Or, a member may choose to travel in different classes of service on a trip, such as traveling outbound in Business or First Class and returning in Economy Class.
• AAdvantage members can now redeem one-way awards at a one-way price. If a member is only traveling one-way, or doesn’t have a return date in mind, the member can simply book one-way travel for half the round-trip miles. For example, a customer may fly one-way using a domestic MileSAAver economy class ticket for 12,500 miles – half the amount required for a round-trip domestic award, which currently requires 25,000 miles.
• AAdvantage members may book One-Way Flex Awards by using the newly enhanced, easy-to-read, color-coded availability calendar on AA.com, allowing members to determine the dates, flights and award types that work best for them.

Awesome!