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American Airlines keeps making it easier to use AAdvantage miles. Over the past few years, AA has added new partners, strengthened partnerships with existing partners, and made it easier to search and book partner awards online. And, AA just took another step forward by adding the ability to book awards online for yet another partner.
An American Airlines spokesperson confirmed to AwardWallet that members can now search and book Royal Air Maroc awards on AA's website. This functionality was enabled on Wednesday afternoon.
At the beginning of 2018, AAdvantage members could only book award flights for 8 partner airlines online. With the addition of Royal Air Maroc today, AA members can now search and book 20 different partners online—including all 13 Oneworld members and 7 of AA's 10 non-alliance partners. This leaves just three award partners not bookable online: China Southern Airlines, Interjet, and AA's newest partner GOL Airlines.
Pricing of Royal Air Maroc Awards
In April 2020, American Airlines moved Morocco from Africa to Europe for the sake of AAdvantage award pricing. This is great news for those hoping to travel to Morocco, and it's also great news for award travelers looking for another option to get to Europe.
Before this change, award travelers would have to pay for two separate awards to book an award from the U.S. to Europe through Morocco. Now that Morocco is considered part of Europe, you can connect through Casablanca on an award to Europe. This gives award travelers another option to fly across the Atlantic using AA miles American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, and Iberia.
AAdvantage awards between the U.S. and Europe—including Morocco—cost:
- Economy Off-Peak: 22,500 miles each way
- Economy Standard: 30,000 miles each way
- Business Class: 57,000 miles each way
That's regardless of if you're flying nonstop on Royal Air Maroc's route between Washington DC and Casablanca:
Or flying from New York City through Casablanca to the far reaches of AA's Europe region. For example, you can fly from NYC to Istanbul for just $24 out-of-pocket:
Why This is Good News for All Award Travelers
The ability to search and book partner awards on AA's website is good news even for when you don't want to use AAdvantage awards to book an award. Royal Air Maroc awards are a perfect example of this.
AAdvantage awards between the U.S. and Morocco are affordable at 30,000 miles each way in economy or 57,500 miles one-way in business class. However, nonstop awards on Royal Air Maroc award flights cost even less when booked through Etihad Guest:
- Economy: 22,000 miles each way
- Business Class: 44,000 miles each way
Unlike American Airlines AAdvantage—which isn't a transfer partner of any bank program—Etihad Guest is a partner of American Express Membership Rewards (1:1 transfer ratio), Citi ThankYou Points (1:1 ratio), and Capital One Miles (4:3 ratio), as well as Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 ratio with a 5,000-mile bonus for transferring at least 60,000 points).
Before now, there wasn't an easy way to search Royal Air Maroc award availability. Even ExpertFlyer doesn't show the airline's award availability. With AA adding Royal Air Maroc award availability to its website, you can find award availability online before calling Etihad Guest to book the award.
Final Thoughts
It's great to see American Airlines add yet another partner's award availability to its website. With this addition, you can now book AAdvantage awards online for all 13 Oneworld airlines plus 7 non-alliance partners. That makes AA.com the increasing go-to for searching awards—regardless of which program you use to book the award.
While AA's new award search tool will show Royal Air Maroc awards, remember there's still a workaround to using the legacy award tool if you prefer that format:
Just make sure to double-check that there's not a cheaper way to book an award before booking it using AAdvantage miles.
What Royal Air Maroc awards are you going to book?
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