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American Airlines has been making waves lately with a series of Web Specials to highly desirable vacation spots. Australia and New Zealand were the first destination made available, followed by Hawaii. While both of those Web Special deals have all but disappeared, flights from coast to coast are available as low as just 5,000 miles. Rates this low won’t last, so book as soon as you can to take advantage of this opportunity!
Transcontinental Flights Available
While availability is disappearing quickly, coast-to-coast flights can still be booked for just 5,000 miles. This includes highly trafficked routes, like New York to Los Angeles. Limited days with 5,000 mile flight options exist, but many more show award prices under 10,000 miles. Although many of the transcontinental flights to New York have been booked solid, there are still plenty of 5K awards for Boston and Philidelphia, and there are likely other options to be found with a bit of searching.
Although the examples we've shared are for spring of 2020, some routes have availability starting as early as mid-November.
New York to Los Angeles
Boston to Los Angeles
Philadelphia to San Francisco
What are Web Specials?
Web Specials represent discounted economy award flights that American Airlines make available on select routes. To find them, just select the “Economy Web Special” at the top of the award calendar showing search results.
Sometimes these Web “Specials” cost more miles than a standard sAAver award fare, but other times American prices them far lower. These types of awards do come with restrictions, but not quite the rigid basic economy type of restrictions.
When booking Web Specials, American Airlines displays a pop up to remind you of the restrictions on these awards:
Our Take
5,000 miles for coast-to-coast travel is as good as it gets, though rates this low are now scarce. Even at 10,000 miles, this represents a 20% discount on a regular sAAver level award. If Web Special availability lines up with your travel dates, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of a fantastic deal. Be sure to act fast, because these deals will not last!
Pro Tip: American allows you to place awards on a five-day hold as long as you aren't booking within a week of departure. If you aren't sure if you can make plans work, use a free five-day hold to buy yourself some time.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I have booked some fabulous 10k round trip flights from Midwest small airport to DC using web special. Last week I didn’t have as great of luck, but noticed that their site only let me hold free for 24 hours….. and had a staggered scale of prices for holding longer. Those flights are not until March. Today I held a different flight that leaves on Feb 5th…. and, no staggered scale. Just free until January 19th. I like AA, but I still cannot figure out how to get the same web page style consistently. I like the old rewards pages better when booking…. but, certainly doesn’t always come up that way…. even between refreshes, it may take you to the new style.
A great find. Travelling with 2 kids that now passed the magic age of 2 makes family vacations (er, i mean trips) a lot more expensive, so even the reduced miles at 10,000 helps make our miles go further!
Have will there be any promotion for US Continetal to hawai?
Amazing promo !! Ganga fron argentina ..
How does one go about finding out about these deals and promotions? It seems like I sign up for all the rewards groups and e-mails, but I always hear about promotions and sales on travel after the fact when the deals are no longer in effect.
Oh i absolutly love this deals!!! I recently found one from Buenos Aires to miami for 15K on one-way specials instead of 30K!!
Just booked web special award fare on the busiest day of the year, Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. It was 75% of the miles needed on United and no extra same day booking fees. So glad i thought to check if I could use award miles today.
Opps I meant 25% of United award fare.
Just booked web special award fare on the busiest day of the year, Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. It was 25% of the miles needed on United and no extra same day booking fees. So glad i thought to check if I could use award miles today
You can’t beat 5k for Transcon
Maybe I’m too late or they aren’t offering deals during the summer vacation. Hawaii would be awesome if they are available again later… worth checking.
This is a great deal. Thank you for letting us know about this.
It’s a great opportunity.
5,000 miles for coast-to-coast is hard to beat
I wish more airlines would have ‘sales’ like this.
Always prefer 50k miles for first class from Australia to Asia 2.
Does anyone know if there will be promotions for South America too? Thank you
wish u had posted the city pairs.
Niceee!!
wow i didnt know this was a temporary web special. i just happened to look at going to hawaii a week ago and couldnt believe there were tickets for 9k each way. should have snagged those
good deal! Thanks for information!
Only in USA?
Yes.. and Canada flights too.
Wow! I wish I had known about this sooner. Does AA do this frequently?
It seems to be expanding.
I wish more airlines would have ‘sales’ like this.
So hard to catch these on time!
Watch out for the taxes in addition to the mileage required. Most trips only charge $11.20 in taxes and fees, but LAX-ISP (Long Island) is $86 in taxes and fees!
Nice! I wish American would send out emails about particular sales as I can never seem to catch it at the right time.
I wish I had gotten in on this deal!!
Any chance that AA will show some reduced fare love to their homebase in DFW?
Nice way to use some miles up if you don’t mind economy.
Thanks for the tip! Now the problem is just… work.
How do you access these deals if you are not American?
You need to earn AA miles. You can credit flights from Oneworld Airlines, but it may not be worth it unless you live in the USA.
Good deal to spend some of my AA mies.
Another good deal missed. Unlike the NZ deal, transcon in economy is actually doable. Haha. Well, better luck to me next time.
I saw this post and was excited. I went to look and had no luck for anywhere I’m traveling but this is good to see. I hope this means it’s a tryout and maybe will offer more of these in the future. I’ll have to read up on the stipulations though. I have seen AA and other carriers do web specials now. I think they are all trying to get as much of the holiday money just like the stores.
I wonder what Black Friday could bring then.
If you’re flexible with travel dates and check very regularly, amazing savings on miles can be had
Wow, this is a really great deal. I hope everybody could find the seats with this deal.
Awesome promo! Thanks for the information.
That’s right folks! This is as good as it gets, grab it! I have my 2nd child attending college & working on the west coast so for me this comes in handy VERY MUCH! Thank you!!
I tried to find any such deal from ORD but no luck… anyone tried?
I wish they have such deals from ORD. It would be totally awesome.
So i found a web special round trip that is 5,000 miles cheaper than using the reduced mileage award from my aviator card.
is the web special worth it if i have to cancel for some reason? I don’t think the redeposit fees are worth 5K?
Looks like deal too good to be true. Hope they keep coming.
Love the fact that AA is so generous on award tickets! Thanks for the information!
Will American airlines make that offers to europe trips?
Pretty good deal. I didn’t realize they had a these promos. Pretty good.
good deal. too bad I don’t know when I’ll be travelling.
I live in Colorado. This special doesn’t do me any good. Wish it wasn’t Coast to Coast, but other locations, Would love to flt from Denver to either the West or East Coast for 5000 miles
If I’ve an award ticket in J or F class in a transcontinental flight, do I’ve access to American Airlines’ lounges?
5,000 miles for coast-to-coast is hard to beat!
We’d need to be more spontaneous to do this.
Finally, I found a great deal I actually wanted (NY to San Francisco, roundtrip for 10,000 miles).
Hmmm. These deals never seem to come across my desk when I am in a position to plan a trip.
Retire, like I did. Then, you won’t have a desk, and you’ll always be in a position to plan a trip.
Well, of course some luck is needed in order to find the trip that suits you.
All right. Let me see what flights I can find.
Unfortunately their regular pricing and availability is no better and often worse than before, so these specials may just be a way to generate some positive buzz to distract from that reality. Nevertheless, if you can take advantage of one, that’s a win. I almost pulled the trigger on the NZ deal, but decided not to overburden my travel schedule just because. Hopefully it’ll pop up again when I have more time.
Does anyone know if these offers for US continental routes are available to Canadian, i.,e. from a US departure city to a US destination? I see lower mile totals but never the same as the ones advertised.
Any thing for Hawaii???
Looking for going there too!
Excelentes tarifas teniendo en cuenta los destinos a los que se llega con ellas! Gracias por la info!
*Goes to check availability*
Muy buena la info quebrindan!
A free five-day hold tip is great!
Awesome promo!!!!
Looks like I need to go check out the web specials. Im sure my wife and I can find somewhere we need to go.
Is there any way to predict these Specials? For us, it’s kinda random, right?
I stumbled across these fares by mistake, but quickly booked 2 of them. It’s a steal!
5,000 miles for coast-to-coast travel is PHENOMENAL.
I wish more airlines would have ‘sales’ like this.
For some routes the web specials represent a possibility with an incredible value.
If one person has some flexibility they are also quite simple to find and use.
You can’t get much better than 5k miles on a redemption, thanks.
Exactly! While I generally try to spend as little time as possible in Main Cabin, when available, this is too good a deal to pass up.
Actually, you can. If you got your mother to apply for the Barclays Red Aviator Card with the 60,000 mile bonus upon one, no minimum purchase, with the first year fee waived. And, had her use her miles to reserve the 10,000 miles transcontinental roundtrip to a destination you just received a very good (map still attached) condition, year old Fodors guide to (which you purchased for $1.18 on Ebay after Ebay Bucks).
Coast to coast for “for just 5,000 miles.” This I have to see to believe. i never seem to have enough miles. Maybe this deal will be the one to jump on.
AA miles are crazy easy to come by
I tried to find 5K AA awards from ORD for late March. I tried in a number of domestic destinations without any success.
Ugh I wish I needed to fly somewhere right now. Awesome promo!
just book a trip somewhere
If only it was so easy!
Does American allow for free holds on paid tickets?
No sorry.
any thing from Atlanta market ?