Upgrade charts for mileage awards no longer need as American Airlines upgrades instantly
American Airlines is changing the way Miles upgrades. Unfortunately, according to our first glance, this seems to be depreciating in most cases.
Similar to what Manchester United announced a few weeks ago, American Airlines Mileage Upgrade Awards are also disappearing.
Instead, it has been replaced by instant upgrades that are already available for many reservations that you can purchase when ticketing.
Americans have been offering cash upgrade offers for some time. Now, when you see the offer, it will also be priced at miles.
According to the AA.com website, you can still use the rewards table to upgrade until August 11. This rewards table is a great way to upgrade flights, with up to 5,000 American Airlines AADVANTAGY MILEs available.
“With Miles’ instant upgrade, new requirements for using mileage upgrade reward sheets will no longer be accepted, starting from August 12, 2025, CT,” the U.S. website said on its website.
Related: How much should you pay for top-notch upgrades
While it’s nice to be able to use mileage upgrades right away, we’re seeing a value of about one mile per mile… very similar to what you’re buying for an upgrade on Delta Skymiles. Our calculations show that the upgrades in the Delta usually sell for around 1.07 cents per mile.
On the upcoming Chicago flight, I could upgrade my trip for $291 or 27,100 Aadvantage Miles, which is not a great reward for the US Aadvantage Miles.
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New upgrades to Chicago. aa.com
TPG’s Nick Ewen received an upgrade offer of 76 or 7,100 miles on the upcoming flight. Similarly, given TPG’s valuation as of June 2025, TPG is worth 1.5 cents.
The good news is that these changes will not affect system-wide upgrade rewards. You can still use a system-wide upgrade to change paid fares to up to three parts per way for the next class of services (even two categories on some itineraries).
Bottom line
This will be a hard pill to swallow for those who want to squeeze the maximum value from the Aadvantage miles to get a better seat.
It’s especially painful if you’re used to using U.S. mileage on international flights for relatively cheap mileage upgrades. Personally, I was able to upgrade flights to Europe using less than 25,000 AA miles and $350 in cash copays, from economics to business class, which is after August 11.
The Fort Worth-based airline did not respond to a request for comment, but will update this article if we get more details.
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