Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
TPG recently posted about round-trip flights to Aruba (AUA) from multiple US cities on American Airlines that are on sale for 20,000 AAdvantage miles between November 2022 and February 2023. Poking around further, there are also some discounted awards available to both of Aruba’s “ABC” island neighbors: Bonaire (BON) and Curacao (CUR). Aruba and Bonaire have the most availability.
Open awards in November and February seem to be primarily Sun-Tues departures whereas the first half of December is wide-open almost every day to Aruba. I was barely able to find any availability over the last two weeks of December.
There are seats on sale from most US cities, with availability far better from the Midwest and East Coast vs. the West Coast.
The Deal
- Award sale for 20,000 AAdvantage miles roundtrip from the US to Aruba (AUA), Bonaire (BON) and Curacao (CUR) on American Airlines between November 2022-February 2023.
- Flights are available from most US airports, with very spotty availability from the West Coast (LAX, SFO, SEA) and much better availability from the Midwest (ORD, DFW) and East Coast (CLT, PHL, BOS, LGA, EWR, MIA). Many regional airports have sale pricing as well.
Quick Thoughts
Milesaaver fares to the Southern Caribbean in the middle of winter don’t happen very often, making this a good opportunity if you’re looking for someplace sunny when it’s frigid up north. I’ve had my eye on Bonaire for some time, as it has the reputation of being one of the best diving spots in the Caribbean. It also has a cool-looking Courtyard that is usually an excellent points value (especially in comparison to award pricing on other islands).
Availability is from November to early February with the lion’s share appearing in early December and late January. Here’s December one-way from LAX-AUA
And here’s the same time period from ORD-AUA. Note that the availability is more robust and even includes a stray Milesaaver ticket over the holidays:
By far the broadest choice is going to be from the East Coast and the Southeast, especially for Curacao and Bonaire. Here’s January from NYC (includes EWR, LGA and JFK) to AUA, where Sun-Tues departures start to dominate:
Here’s the same time period from NYC-Bonaire:
It’s worth noting that it’s possible to fly between the ABC islands (primarily on Divi Divi Air), so it could be doable to fly into one of the islands and out from another, using a connecting flight in the middle. Flights to and from Curacao from the other two islands are around $100, double that between Aruba and Bonaire.
Normally, in the winter, these routes start at around 17,500 miles each way and go up from there, making this an excellent value sale if you can make the times work out.
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I find that when you click on a date for 10K, there are actually no flights at that price. This happens often with AA’s site.
This could be interesting in the cold of January. I’m not a diver, but where would you suggest I start looking for hotels or resorts with good point value?
Blech…overnight connections (from ord) for the dates I was interested, plus > $90 in taxes. I’ll call it a qausi-deal