You Can Now Redeem American Airlines Miles for Inflight Snacks, but You Shouldn’t

Updated: March 18, 2025, 2:45pm CDT

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Redeeming Miles for Snacks and Drinks on American Airlines
Is It Worth It?
Final Thoughts

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American Airlines has introduced payment with miles for snacks and beverages on board. While it’s always positive to have a new way to use your miles, this particular case is unlikely to be a good use of your American AAdvantage miles.

Let’s see what’s new, and why we recommend using your American miles for something other than buying snacks and drinks on a flight.

Redeeming Miles for Snacks and Drinks on American Airlines

American Airlines has introduced the possibility of redeeming AAdvantage miles to buy snacks and alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine and liquor, on board.

There are 2 caveats: First, payment with miles is available only on flights operated by American Airlines. Flights operated by regional partners like American Eagle are excluded; on those, the only option remains paying with major credit cards or debit cards, whether with a physical card or a phone wallet.

American Eagle at Miami — Miles can now be redeemed for snacks and alcoholic beverages on AA-operated flights, but not on regional partners like as American Eagle. Image Credit: Daniel Ross

Second, you can redeem miles for alcoholic beverages on domestic flights over 250 miles and on snacks on select flights over 1,300 miles.

This new pay-with-miles development was first noted by One Mile at a Time, and appears on the American Airlines site.

There are 2 pricing tiers for drinks:

$9 or 900 miles for beer (12 fluid ounces):

Bud Light
Dos Equis
Truly Hard Seltzer

$10 or 1,000 miles:

Wine and sparkling wine
Beer (12 fluid ounces), including Goose IPA and Heineken
Spirits (50 milliliters) including Aviation American Gin, Bacardi Rum, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Dewar’s White Label, Disaronno Amaretto, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Snacks cost from $5 or 500 miles to $11 or 1,100 miles for a fruit and cheese plate.

American airlines onboard snacks — Image Credit: American Airlines

In order to pay with miles, you just need to make sure your AAdvantage number is on your reservation, and have your boarding pass (either the physical card or your American Airlines mobile app) ready when checking out with a flight attendant.

Is It Worth It?

Quite simply, the answer is no.

American prices those snacks and drinks at exactly 1 cent per mile. If a drink costs $9, then the airline wants 900 miles for it. We value AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents each, meaning that you can get 40% more value by redeeming them for flights, not drinks or snacks.

That’s a pretty clear difference in value.

Hot Tip:

If you’re buying food or drinks on American Airlines and have a co-branded American Airlines credit card, you can either save 25% on each purchase as a statement credit, or enjoy up to $25 back per day as statement credits on inflight food and beverage purchases.

Final Thoughts

You are now able to use your American Airlines miles to pay for drinks and snacks on board, but it’s not a good use of your miles. You can get 40% more value by redeeming them for actual flights.

The exception may be if you are an infrequent flyer on American, and have some miles in your account that may be close to expiration or would not be used otherwise. In that case, the 1 cent value of those miles is obviously preferable to receiving no value from them if they are never redeemed or expire.