quick question - AA Mileage Multiplier?

I'm always confused on this - whenever I check in or book a ticket, this pops up on my screen - pay so much for more AA miles. The latest one is $282 for 8700 miles. Is that a good deal? I never can figure out how people apply $ = miles...:confused::confused:

Thanks. (so I guess my question is - should I buy these 8700?) :)

I'm always confused on this - whenever I check in or book a ticket, this pops up on my screen - pay so much for more AA miles. The latest one is $282 for 8700 miles. Is that a good deal? I never can figure out how people apply $ = miles...:confused::confused:

 

Thanks. (so I guess my question is - should I buy these 8700?) :)

You can purchase AA miles from AA for around 3 cents per mile, but in one of AA's (fairly frequent) sales the price goes down to less than 2c per mile. $282 for 8700 miles works out to 3.24c per mile, which in my view is a terrible deal.

My own metric for when to use miles as opposed to cash is when the value of the miles exceeds 2.5c per mile. In other words, if it takes 30,000 miles to book a flight that costs less than $750, I'll pay for the trip rather than use the miles. Others use different standards, of course. So if you buy, say, 110,000 miles for $2200, then can turn around and redeem them for a business class round trip ticket to Europe that would cost $3500 to purchase, then IMO that's a good deal.

Thank you! I'll pass on this then.