High dollar value per mile on American
Many airlines use a fixed value of points per dollar when booking awards travel. Whatever a seat would cost in dollars, you can make the calculation to points/miles. You're not going to find amazing deals for awards travel that are any different from deals available with dollars.
However, American is an exception. They do not use a fixed calculation of miles to dollars. They have a very convenient calendar search interface and if you are flexible on travel dates, you can find some significant deals that are only available with miles.
This makes American miles more valuable than other airline miles because of the potential to get a very high value per mile. Whenever you are booking on American, check the awards travel interface because you might find some flights that are significantly cheaper when paying with miles versus dollars.
American Business and First Class Rewards
You should also check business and first class because that is where you will see the best value. You may be able to find business-class awards seats that are not much more than economy class awards seats.
These are not rare flukes. It is common to find these as long as you are flexible on travel dates. And these are not just inconvenient flights with connections. You can get the best nonstop flights for fewer miles than usual.
Example of American miles worth 13.5 cents each
Take this example of LAX-> London business class nonstops in November 2024. The most expensive days are 400,000 miles, many days are 100,000 miles, and one is amazingly 62,000 miles!
If we look at this flight in dollars, the value per mile is amazing. The economy seat is $593 or 27,000 miles. That's 2.2 cents/mile. The business class seat is $8,403 or 62,000 miles. That's 13.5 cents/mile!
Dollars:
Miles:
If you like traveling on business class lie flat seats to Europe, you should definitely get the American Airlines credit card. Where else can you get 13.5% rewards on all your credit card purchases?