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Next month, my family of six is flying from Los Angeles to Tokyo for a two-week trip to visit all three Asia Disney parks. It started with the question, “Where do you want to go for your 16th birthday?” to which my son immediately responded, “Tokyo.” To be more specific, Tokyo Disneyland.
We're big Disney fans in our family, and we've had a long-standing goal to visit all six Disney parks around the world. His birthday was the perfect excuse to make it happen.
As a points and miles enthusiast, I immediately began planning and researching the best flight options to Asia for our trip. Since there are six of us, I knew we'd need a lot of points. Ideally, we wouldn't also have to pay a lot in taxes, because everything times six can add up quickly!
Thankfully, I found a great option for us. I was able to book six tickets from Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo Haneda (HND) through American Airlines for a total of 210,000 miles and just $33.60.
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Why American Airlines AAdvantage Is Great for Families
As I was doing my flight research, I kept seeing American Airlines listed as a good option for flights to Asia. As I continued to explore options, I quickly decided that it would be the best choice for us. Here's why.
Good availability
One of the biggest motivating factors was that American Airlines tends to have a solid amount of award availability. Since we needed six seats, I wanted to ensure we wouldn't have any issues booking our whole family. American usually has 9+ economy award seats available, as you can see in this screenshot from PointsYeah, one of the award search tools I used to find the best flights.
Low taxes and fees
Based on prior experience, I knew that American Airlines generally does not pass on fuel surcharges for most of its flights. As a result, many award flights cost just $5.60 per ticket, as was the case with our flights.
The only exception occurs when booking partner flights through American Airlines that are operated by British Airways or Iberia. Since our flight was both booked through and operated by American Airlines, our total taxes came out to just $33.60 for all six of us.
Ease of booking
There are many complicated ways to book award flights. You can earn points through a card, transfer those points to a bank partner, then book an alliance partner flight with the points. However, if you want to keep things simple, you can earn airline points directly with an airline, then use them to book flights on that same airline. This is exactly what I did for our trip, because it was the easiest way to book our tickets. No transferring points or partner airlines involved.
Positive reviews
Part of my research into flights was reading reviews about the most common award flight carriers for trans-Pacific flights, including JAL, Cathay Pacific, ANA, American Airlines, and United. The Asian airlines have the best reviews in terms of comfort and service. However, with the goal of keeping flight taxes low and the ease of using the points I had available, I decided to go with a domestic carrier. American Airlines fit that bill, as it generally has a slightly wider seats and more pitch (legroom) than United.
How to Earn American Airlines Miles
I had a stash of American Airlines miles on hand, but once I landed (pun intended) on our flight choice, I knew I needed to bump up my stash. There are a variety of ways to earn American Miles.
Co-branded cards
The fastest way to earn a large amount of miles is by opening new credit cards and earning the big welcome offers. American Airlines currently has five co-branded cards, all of which are issued by Citi.
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®
- Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard®
- AA Executive Card
- American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® Card
- Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard®
For our trip, my husband and I both opened the Citi AAdvantage Business Card. We earned a total of 130,000 miles between our two welcome offers and the miles earned from required spending.
In addition, I also opened the AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard® to help earn the rest of the miles needed for our six tickets. Unfortunately, the Aviator Red closed to new applicants earlier this year, as Citi is in the process of becoming the sole issuer of AA cards.
Transfer bank points
In prior years, American Airlines was not a transfer partner for any of the major banks' programs. However, in July 2025, Citi added American Airlines as a brand new partner. This is exciting news because it opens further opportunities to earn American Airlines miles, as there are several cards that earn ThankYou® Points.
- 12X – Earn 12 Points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com.
- 6X – Earn 6 Points per $1 spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com.
- 6X – Earn 6 Points per $1 spent at Restaurants including Restaurant Delivery Services on CitiNights℠ purchases, every Friday and Saturday from 6 PM to 6 AM ET. Earn 3 Points per $1 spent any other time.
- 1.5X – Earn 1.5 Points per $1 spent on All Other Purchases.
- 10X on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked through CitiTravel.com
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Restaurants
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Supermarkets
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Gas and EV Charging Stations
- 1X – Earn 1 Point per $1 spent on All Other Purchases
- 5X – Earn 5 ThankYou® Points for each $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals and Attractions booked on Citi Travel℠ via cititravel.com
- 3X – Earn 3 ThankYou® Points for each $1 spent in an eligible Self-Select Category of your choice (Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment, Cosmetic Stores/Barber Shops/Hair Salons, or Pet Supply Stores). Choose your eligible Self-Select Category on Citi Online or by calling customer service. The default Self-Select Category is Select Streaming Services.
- 3X – Earn 3 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent at Supermarkets
- 3X – Earn 3 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent on Select Transit purchases
- 3X – Earn 3 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent at Gas and EV Charging Stations
- 2X – Earn 2 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent at Restaurants
- 1X – Earn 1 ThankYou® Point per $1 spent on All Other Purchases
Once you have a sufficient balance of Citi Points, you can then transfer the points to American Airlines to book flights.
Some of Citi's no annual fee cards offer transfers to AA, but do keep in mind that the transfer ratio is 1:0.7 — not 1:1.
Other ways to earn miles
Credit cards and transferring are the ways that we earned the miles for our trip. However, there are additional ways to earn American Airlines miles.
- Fly with American Airlines or one of its partners
- Book a hotel through AAdvantage Hotels
- Do your online shopping through AAdvantage eShopping
- Reserve rental cars through AAdvantage Cars
- Book vacation packages through AAdvantage Vacations
- Set sail on a cruise booked through American Airlines Cruises
Booking Tips for Big Families
Booking award trips for a big family requires extra planning and coordinating. With six years of experience under my belt, I know a thing or two about making it go as smoothly as possible.
First, award search tools are your best friends. These help you find flight options and get ideas about the price of specific routes and times of year.
Some of our favorites are:
Second, booking early is the key. This ensures the most availability for both the flights and the seats. We aim for booking our trips 9-11 months in advance, which means we are earning the points and miles needed well before that.
Lastly, you don't have to book all of your tickets through one account. As I mentioned, both my husband and I earned points for this trip. American Airlines doesn't allow you to combine points with other members without paying a fee ($5 per 1,000 miles transferred), so it wasn't an option for us to book all six tickets through either mine or my husband's accounts. Instead, we each booked three tickets, then I contacted American Airlines and asked them to link our reservations so they know we're traveling together.
Related: Which Flight Availability Award Search Tool Is Best?
How We're Getting Home
I've talked about our outgoing flights, but you might be wondering how we plan to get back to the U.S. For our return flight from Hong Kong (HKG) to Los Angeles (LAX), we booked Cathay Pacific flights through British Airways. We used American Express Membership Rewards transferred to British Airways and paid 36,250 points plus $170 in taxes and fees per person.
Both British Airways and Cathay Pacific are Amex transfer partners, and British Airways has notoriously high fees. However, when I compared both options, the flights on Cathay Pacific were around the same price. Additionally, points transferred from Amex to Cathay Pacific can take up to 48 hours, so I didn't want to risk award space disappearing in that time.
The cash price for those flights would have been nearly $4,000, and our outgoing flight taxes were so inexpensive that I felt okay about paying a little over $1,000 for six return flights since we were still saving a lot of money.
(Terms apply)
- 4X Membership Rewards® Points at restaurants worldwide, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S. (on up to $50,000 per year in purchases, then 1X)
- 4X Membership Rewards® points at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per year in purchases, then 1X)
- 3X Membership Rewards® points on flights booked directly with airlines or on amextravel.com
- 2X Membership Rewards® points on prepaid hotels and other eligible travel booked on amextravel.com
- 1X on other eligible purchases
(Terms apply)
- Earn 5X points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel® (up to $500,000 in purchases per calendar year).
- Earn 5X points on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel®.
- Earn 5X points on Fine Hotels + Resorts® and The Hotel Collection bookings.
(Terms apply)
- Earn 5X points on flights and prepaid hotels on AmexTravel.com.
- Earn 2X points on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more.
- Earn 2X points on each eligible purchase with U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers.
- Earn 2X points on each eligible purchase with U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers.
- Earn 2X points on each eligible purchase with U.S. shipping providers.
- 2X earning rates are subject to a cap of $2 million in purchases per calendar year.
Related: All the Cards That Earn Amex Membership Rewards Points
Wrapping Up
Traveling on points and miles when you have a bigger family takes strategy and planning, but it’s always worth it. What started as a simple birthday wish turned into a dream trip across Asia. By leveraging credit card welcome offers, utilizing award search tools, and booking early, we were able to turn a bucket-list trip into reality while saving thousands of dollars in the process. This trip is a perfect example of how maximizing points and miles can make even the most ambitious travel goals achievable.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (Rates & Fees), Citi Strata Premier® Card (Rates & Fees), Citi Strata℠ Card (Rates & Fees), American Express® Gold Card (Rates & Fees), American Express Platinum Card® (Rates & Fees), and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees)
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