American AAdvantage Bolsters European Award Travel

American Airlines AAdvantage has re-designated Morocco from Africa to Europe, a move that will be an objective net positive for most AAdvantage members. You’ll now have more options for using your miles to travel between North America and Europe at cheaper prices.

American offers a region-based award chart with fixed costs on partner awards. But the definition of regions is vital, as we’ll see below. Also note that Royal Air Maroc recently jointed oneworld and is now a full-fledged AA partner.

Cheaper Award Prices For Most Travelers

With Morocco now moved from Africa to Europe, you can fly to Morocco on Royal Air Maroc or connect to any point in Europe for:

• 30,000 AAdvantage miles in economy class (one-way)
• 57,500 AAdvantage miles in business class (one-way)

This is region change is particularly important because American Airlines generally does not allow transit through third regions on a single AAdvantage awards. For example, if you want to take British Airways from New York to Bangkok via London, American will charge you for two awards; USA to Europe and Europe to Southeast Asia.

So in the past, it was certainly possible to route on Royal Air Maroc from New York to Frankfurt via Casablanca, however that would not be one award, but two. Let’s say you did this trip in business class. Before, flying New York to Casablanca would run 75K miles and Casablanca to Frankfurt would cost 55K miles. Granted, spending so much made no sense, but you can now get both flights for 57.5K miles in business class, a savings of almost 56%.

Europeans Also Win

For those based in Europe, you can now travel between Morocco and Europe for 12,500 miles one-way in economy class or 2,500 miles in business class, a huge savings off the former rates of 30K and 55K (respectively). Theoretically, you can even use Morocco as a transit point between two continental European destinations (I say theoretically because American does have MPM limits).

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The only “losers” here are those who wanted to use Royal Air Maroc to travel within Africa. Since Morocco is now considered part of Europe, you’ll pay more if you want to travel from Morocco to Africa (from 17.5K to 30K one-way in economy class and 35K to 55K in business class).

Lastly, note that AA has a few exceptions to its rule prohibiting transit between two zones via a third zone. One such exception is from the USA to Africa. Transits in Europe and in Doha (Middle East region) are allowed, meaning trips between North America and Africa that include Royal Air Maroc will not cost more than before, even with the change in region designation.

CONCLUSION

American Airlines is not the only airline that treats a country in Northern Africa as part of the European region for purposes of award. Air France also does this, even including Israel in its broad Europe category. And it just makes sense…a flight to most of continental Europe from Morocco is much shorter than flying to southern Africa. This customer-friendly change will not lead to more award space, but cheaper award prices. That’s something to celebrate.

(H/T: One Mile At A Time)

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