Best Aeromexico Rewards Sweet Spots

AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. Terms Apply to the offers listed on this page. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.

Aeromexico overhauled its loyalty program recently, making Aeromexico Rewards unrecognizable from its previous Aeromexico Club Premier. Among the many changes was renaming its point currency to Aeromexico Rewards points and eliminating award charts.

While the changes eliminated most of the program award sweet spots, the news is not bleak. Several sweet spots remain, especially if you fly on Aeromexico itself.

Two Award Pricing Models

The new Aeromexico loyalty program has two award pricing models: rewards ticket and rewards ticket with a dynamic fare.

• Classic Aeromexico rewards ticket: These are limited in number, and Aeromexico does publish an award chart for these awards. However, the published chart only applies to routes to and from Mexico.
• Aeromexico rewards ticket with a dynamic fare: These awards are more widely available, although no published award chart exists. The price you pay depends on availability, the cash price of the award, the route, and more.

Aeromexico business class on a Boeing 787. Credit: Aeromexico

Earning Aeromexico Rewards Points

Aeromexico has a wide range of partners with which you can earn points. Like most major carriers, these represent a wide range of activities, including:

• Hotel stays with brands like Accor, Best Western, and Hilton.
• Shopping, giving your opinion, and more.

Historically, Aeromexico used to have three U.S.-based co-branded credit cards issued by U.S. Bank. However, that is no longer the case. Currently, Aeromexico only offers co-branded cards in Mexico.

Aeromexico Points: Miles vs. Kilometers

Historically, Aeromexico ended up in a total mess with its points currency, which was Aeromexico Kilometers. It tried switching to miles to keep up with other carriers, which made things even more confusing through a weird conversion.

Now, all that is history, and you can ignore any mentions you see of Kilometers online; that's old information. The Aeromexico currency is Aeromexico Reward Points, and it is not related to distance in any way. That's good news since many of us are used to talking about “miles” while Aeromexico uses kilometers for its award chart.

Aeromexico Rewards Airline Partners

Aeromexico is one of the four founding members of the SkyTeam alliance, which includes the following airlines:

That said, Aeromexico also has a substantial network of partners outside SkyTeam. You can earn and redeem points with all of the following partners:

• Avianca
• EL AL
• GOL
• LATAM

How To Book Aeromexico Awards

Historically, booking Aeromexico awards, whether with partners or on its own metal, was challenging and involved calling the airline customer service number. However, all that changed when Aeromexico reintroduced its program as Aeromexico Rewards. You can now book awards online. The new booking system seems to apply to flights on Aeromexico and partner awards on Delta and LATAM, to name a few.

When you're ready to book, head to vuelaconpuntos.aeromexicorewards.com and log in. Then, click on the option to pay in points. Note that trying to access this page after changing your settings to English has repeated issues. You may need to conduct your searches in Spanish or use a browser extension like Google Translate to show you the original (Spanish) page translated into English.

Boosting Your Aeromexico Rewards Points Balance

Aeromexico Rewards is a transfer partner with several major flexible points currencies, as well as several hotel programs. You can transfer the following points to Aeromexico Rewards:

By far, the standout transfer partner is American Express Membership Rewards, with a ratio of 1:1.6. To work out the cost of an award in Membership reward points, all you need to do is divide the price in Aeromexico rewards points by 1.6.

For instance, if you are looking at an award that costs 160,000 Aeromexico points, this would work out at 100,000 Membership Rewards points.

Marriott transfers, on the other hand, are not nearly as generous. Members can transfer Marriott Bonv points to Aeromexico Rewards points at 3:1. Compared to Amex points, this is not a wise use of your Marriott points and not a transfer we’d recommend. You still receive an additional 5,000 points when transferring in batches of 60,000 Marriott points, but that doesn’t quite cover the value gap left by the 3:1 transfer and is not a wise use of your points unless you're just short of a valuable redemption and don't have other options.

The same logic applies to Citi ThankYou Points and Capital One miles. Since Aeromexico devalued its awards, transfers from both programs are not the best use of your points compared to transfers from American Express.

Aeromexico Award Sweet Spots

After the devaluation, most of Aeromexico's previous award sweet spots are dead. However, there are still a few gems to be had.

U.S. to Mexico for 18k in economy and 36k in business

Fortunately, if you are looking to head to Mexico from the U.S., there is still some value in awards on Aeromexico metal. Multiple route pairs are priced as follows:

• One-way economy awards for 18,000 Aeromexico points or 11,250 Membership Rewards points, plus taxes and fees.
• One-way business class awards for 36,000 Aeromexico points or 22,500 Membership Rewards points, plus taxes and fees.

The award pricing applies to multiple city pairs where Aeromexico operates a direct service. We found the pricing to include flights originating from the following U.S. cities:

• San Francisco (SFO)
• Los Angeles (LAX)
• Miami (MIA)
• Denver (DEN)
• Sacramento (SMF)
• Salt Lake City (SLC)
• Orlando (MCO)

In terms of destinations in Mexico, the pricing was available to the following:

• Mexico City (MEX)
• Guadalajara (GDL)
• Cancun (CUN)
• Cozumel (CZM)
• Tijuana (TIJ)

Mexico to southern South America for 50k in economy and 100k in business

If you can position to Mexico City, there is some excellent value in awards to southern South America. This includes Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

These awards will set you back 50,000 Aeromexico Rewards points (31,250 Membership Rewards points) plus taxes and fees for a one-way award in economy. Traveling in the front of the plane, one-way awards will set you back 100,000 Aeromexico Rewards points (62,500 Membership Rewards) plus taxes and fees for a business-class award.

For instance, the award from Mexico City to Sao Paulo (GRU) prices as follows:

The same excellent sweet spot exists on awards from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Again, one-way economy awards were priced at 50,000 points, with business-class awards at 100,000 points.

Remember that the above flights from Mexico City are 9+ hours, making the price in business class, especially if you are transferring Membership Rewards points, great value.

Partner Award Sweet Spots

When it comes to space on partner airlines, Aeromexico seems to have devalued its program as much as humanly possible. There are virtually no great deals in partner airlines' premium cabins with the new dynamic pricing models. We only found a couple of sweet spots for transatlantic routes in the economy cabin.

New York to Paris for 51,300 points (33,000 Amex points)

If you want to head to Europe and don’t mind flying economy, there are some excellent options between New York (JFK) and Paris (CDG) operated by Air France. One-way awards will set you back 51,300 Aeromexico points or 33,000 Membership Rewards points, plus taxes and fees.

One thing to note is that this award pricing seems unique to this route. The pricing did not appear on other routes operated by Air France from the U.S. East Coast to Paris.

New York to Amsterdam for 48,000 points (30,000 Amex points)

You can also get an excellent deal traveling with KLM from JFK to Amsterdam (AMS). One-way economy awards will set you back 48,000 Aeromexico points or 30,000 Membership Rewards points, plus taxes and fees.

Again, similar to the route from New York to Paris, the award pricing seems unique to this route and was not recreated on other routes operated by KLM.

No Options With Connections

One interesting item is that Aeromexico seems to have left the field entirely regarding awards between North America and South America. Either Aeromexico has a software glitch or no longer allows connections in Mexico City on its own metal.

Take a trip combining two sweet spots from earlier for a trip from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sao Paulo (GRU) on October 4, 2023, which requires connecting through MEX.

You have award availability from LAX to MEX, costing 36,000 points plus taxes and fees. Furthermore, the flight gets you into Mexico City a full five hours before Aeromexico's departure for Sao Paulo.

As a standalone search, what looks like a saver award is available for a flight from Mexico City to Sao Paulo on October 4, 2023, requiring 50,000 points in economy or an inflated 713,800 points in business.

If you try and book both flights as one itinerary from Los Angeles to Sao Paulo, Aeromexico never shows its own metal. In fact, a search for that specific date returns zero results when filtered for Aeromexico awards.

Instead, you are presented with 32 award options from LAX to GRU on either Delta or LATAM. Filtering for Aeromexico flights only removes all flights from the search results.

This is not a one-off; the same result happened in almost every route we tried. For some reason, you can't book an itinerary from North America to South America with a connection in Mexico City!

But that's not to say connecting awards are impossible, you just can't book them on Aeromexico flights, strangely. Searching for flights from Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) to Buenos Aires (EZE), you won't find any Aeromexico options, despite the airline serving both airports. But you could connect via Atlanta (ATL) with Delta.

Only time will tell whether this is a software/web issue that will be resolved or a new fare rule for Aeromexico awards.

Final Thoughts

Whether or not it's worth investing your time and effort into Aeromexico Rewards will depend on your travel goals and patterns. Considering the lack of earning via credit card spending in the U.S. and the limited sweet spots, putting all your award travel eggs in the Aeromexico basket may not be the best idea. That's especially true with the quirk regarding connecting itineraries.

However, if your travel plans mean you can take advantage of some Aeromexico sweet spots and have many American Express Membership Rewards points in your balance, the program can offer some excellent value.

If you have any experiences to share on Aeromexico Rewards or Aeromexico in general, we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

AwardWallet Tip of The Day

Did you know you can order an AwardWallet OneCard with up to 30 of your loyalty accounts printed on it? The card is only $10 and is shipped free of charge anywhere in the world. Plus, you'll get a bonus Balance Watch credit when paying for your OneCard.
Show me how

Hide image