American Airlines Hotels: Earn AAdvantage Miles and Loyalty Points

If you’re a fan of American Airlines, you may be curious about AAdvantage Hotels. This booking platform, also referred to as American Airlines Hotels, was introduced in 2023 as a way to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points by booking hotels — up to 15,000 per stay.

In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about AAdvantage Hotels, including how to use it to earn lots of AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, how to book hotels using your miles, and whether or not those are even good ideas in the first place.

Let’s get to it.

What Is AAdvantage Hotels?

AAdvantage Hotels is an online travel agency that allows you to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points by booking hotels.

AAdvantage Hotels vs. Rocketmiles

There used to be 2 leading platforms to earn AAdvantage miles by booking hotels — bookaahotels.com (powered by Booking.com) and Rocketmiles. However, in mid-2023, changes were made. Bookaahotels.com became AAdvantage Hotels, and the earnings from Rocketmiles were drastically reduced.

To confuse things even more, the AAdvantage Hotels website is powered by Rocket Travel, which also powers Rocketmiles. You can still earn AAdvantage miles through Rocketmiles, but at a lower rate than you can earn through AAdvantage Hotels (if you have an American Airlines credit card and/or elite status).

How To Use AAdvantage Hotels

Earn AAdvantage Miles and Loyalty Points With AAdvantage Hotels

AAdvantage Hotels offers a way to earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points by booking hotels. The earn rate is most impressive for those with both American Airlines elite status and an AAdvantage co-branded credit card — up to 15,000 miles per stay.

Using AAdvantage Hotels works the same as any other online travel agency you may be familiar with. First, you’ll need to enter your destination city and travel dates, then click Search hotels.

Your search results can be filtered to find exactly what you want. If you are looking for the hotels offering the most piles per stay, you can sort the list by Most miles earned.

Most reservations through AAdvantage Hotels require advance payment (although they may still be cancelable); however, some locations offer a Pay Later option.

If your stay is paid for at the time of booking, you should receive your miles within 3 to 4 weeks. If you pay for your stay upon check-in, your rewards should post within 4 to 6 weeks.

If the hotel you book has a resort fee, it needs to be paid at check-in and will be disclosed before confirming your reservation.

How Many Miles Will You Earn?

The number of miles and Loyalty Points you can earn through AAdvantage Hotels varies based on a few factors.

If you have either American Airlines elite status or an American Airlines credit card, you can earn up to 5x more miles. If you have both American Airlines elite status and American Airlines credit card, you can earn up to 10x more miles. The 5x or 10x is based on what an AAdvantage member without status or a credit card would earn, not the cost of the hotel room.

Each hotel listing will display multiple mileage amounts if you’re not logged in (usually the lowest and highest possibilities). After logging in, you’ll see exactly how many miles per stay you can earn.

Redeemable Miles vs. Loyalty Points

When booking a hotel through AAdvantage Hotels, you’ll earn redeemable base miles and Loyalty Points. You can use redeemable miles to pay for flights, while Loyalty Points determine your AAdvantage elite status.

What’s the Best Credit Card To Use With AAdvantage Hotels?

You can earn even more miles using the right credit card with AAdvantage Hotels.

The Citi^®/AAdvantage^® Executive World Elite Mastercard^® earns 10x miles on eligible hotels booked through AAdvantage Hotels. Remember that even though you’ll earn 10x miles per $1, you’ll only earn 1 Loyalty Point per $1 with the AAdvantage Executive World Elite card.

If you don’t have that card, look for one that awards bonus points for travel booked through online travel agencies. The Chase Sapphire Reserve^® and American Express^® Green Card* earn 3x points on travel.

*All information about the American Express^® Green Card has been collected independently by Upgraded Points.

Downsides To Booking Through AAdvantage Hotels

While there’s an opportunity to earn lots of AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points through AAdvantage Hotels, there can be some downsides to using this platform.

The most important thing to remember, and a reason you may want to shy away from booking chain hotels through AAdvantage Hotels, is that when you use a third-party booking site, you won’t earn any hotel points or elite night credits. Not only that, any hotel elite status you may have won’t be recognized by the hotel, which means you could be giving up valuable benefits.

Additionally, when you book a hotel through AAdvantage Hotels, you give up the opportunity to use a specialty booking platform that may offer elite-like perks, including Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts and Chase’s Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection.

Regardless of where you ultimately end up booking your hotel, be sure to price out your stay on a few different websites to ensure you get the best price and benefits for your needs.

Redeem AAdvantage Miles for Hotels

You can also redeem AAdvantage miles for hotel stays through AAdvantage Hotels. The number of miles you’ll need to spend is determined by your AAdvantage elite status and whether or not you have an American Airlines credit card. There are also cash + miles options.

Make sure you’re logged in to see the most accurate prices.

In this example, the cost in miles varies, but the cash cost was the same for everyone at $288 per night.

An AAdvantage member would get between 0.57 and 0.74 cents per mile in value, while an elite member or credit cardholder could get between 0.98 and 1.1 cents per mile. Considering we value AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents each, neither of these options is very exciting.

If you want to get maximum value from your AAdvantage miles, consider booking business and first class flights instead of booking hotels.

Final Thoughts

AAdvantage Hotels is a booking platform that allows you to earn or use AAdvantage miles to book hotels. While the prospect of using miles for hotels isn’t super exciting, there is some good potential to earn lots of miles through a hotel booking — up to 15,000 per stay! Miles earned through AAdvantage Hotels also count as Loyalty Points, which could be a valuable tool for anyone seeking to achieve AAdvantage elite status.