How to earn tons of American Airlines loyalty points by booking with AAdvantage Hotels

I’ll be honest; when American Airlines overhauled the American Airlines AAdvantage program a few years ago to let you earn elite status primarily through spending with the airline, its co-branded credit cards, and other partners, I thought I’d rarely get beyond AAdvantage Gold or AAdvantage Platinum status. This is largely true.

I tend to fly a lot of different airlines, and at any given time I’m spending money on a variety of rewards credit cards, depending on what welcome bonuses and other perks I can get.

This year, however, by the time October rolled around, I was so close to AAdvantage Platinum Pro membership and its benefits that I started thinking about how I could cross that threshold and turned to one of my secret weapons on my trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina: AAdvantage hotel bookings to quickly earn tons of loyalty points.

AAdvantage Hotels: My secret weapon to elite status

You’ll find that you can earn thousands of bonus miles and loyalty points by booking with AAdvantage Hotels, even for a short stay.

For example, booking a two-night stay at Dream Downtown in New York City last year helped me earn 15,000 loyalty points, which earned me AAdvantage Platinum status after a year of flying and spending on my flights. Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® (See Rates and Fees).

Citi/AAdvantage Platinum Select card information is independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Loyalty points count toward elite status, and AAdvantage award miles are frequent flyer miles you can redeem for award tickets on American Airlines and its partners.

If you have AAdvantage elite status and hold an AAdvantage co-branded card, you tend to earn more loyalty points and AAdvantage miles when you stay at AAdvantage hotels. Luckily, I have both.

I wanted to take a quick trip to Buenos Aires in October, so in addition to looking for decent award rates at established TPG favorites like the Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, I decided to see what AAdvantage hotel bookings were available.

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Stay at just 1 hotel and earn 29,000 loyalty points and 23,000 AAdvantage miles

So, I stayed at the Park Tower Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Buenos Aires for two nights for $790 (including taxes and fees), earning me 15,000 loyalty points as an AAdvantage Platinum member with multiple AAdvantage co-branded cards. I paid for my reservation using my mobile phone Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (See Rates & Fees) I recently signed up for the program and earn 10 AAdvantage miles for every $1 spent on AAdvantage hotel bookings. Accommodation fees are refundable a few days before check-in, so there’s more flexibility.

The thing about airline co-branded cards and airline elite status is that they both allow you to increase your income in interesting ways, and my stay at the AAdvantage Hotel at Park Towers crystallized that for me.

First, I earned 15,000 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles during my stay, plus my Citi/AAdvantage Executive World Elite card earns 10 miles per $1 spent, giving me an additional 7,100 miles on top of the 790 additional miles earned on the $790 stay. Therefore, I ended up earning 22,890 AAdvantage award miles for my stay. Due to several charges at the hotel, the mileage totaled 23,000 miles.

I also earned 15,000 loyalty points for elite status due to the conditions of the reservation, plus 790 loyalty points by charging the stay to my AAdvantage card (I earn 1 loyalty point for every $1 spent).

This is where things get interesting, though. Since I have earned 60,000 loyalty points, I have unlocked some loyalty points rewards. This includes a 20% bonus on qualifying activity with partners, including AAdvantage hotel bookings, within six months of earning 60,000 loyalty points. This means that instead of 15,000 loyalty points, I earned 18,000 points during this stay.

What’s more, this hotel stay has allowed me to earn over 90,000 loyalty points this year so far. This triggered an additional 10,000 bonus loyalty points on my Citi/AAdvantage Executive World Elite card.

So when the final numbers came out, by the time I checked out, I had earned over 29,000 loyalty points (thanks to some hotel charges).

Disadvantages of booking AAdvantage hotels

For various reasons, I don’t often book AAdvantage hotels throughout the year.

First, in order to earn the most miles and loyalty points, you often have to stay at expensive hotels with higher nightly prices—sometimes well over $1,000.

Second, if you book at a hotel chain like Hyatt or Hilton, you can’t expect to earn hotel points or enjoy elite status perks. I was lucky enough that Park Tower honored some of my Marriott Bonvoy elite benefits, such as free breakfast and late checkout, but in the experience of TPG staff, this is often hit or miss.

Still, it’s worth giving up hotel points and elite perks to get a big payday of loyalty points and AAdvantage miles, like the one I enjoyed on this recent trip, especially when you can unlock certain perks, like Citi/AAdvantage Executive World Elite The card’s loyalty point boosts and loyalty point bonuses can further increase your earnings.

bottom line

My stay at the Park Tower in Buenos Aires brought me closer to AAdvantage Platinum Pro membership than I expected. Now, I think I might be able to book some AAdvantage hotels in time for AAdvantage Executive Platinum status before February 28, 2026, which is the end of the elite membership period.

Since I’ve earned over 100,000 loyalty points, I’ve unlocked another loyalty points bonus to earn 30% with partners over the next six months, which means my next AAdvantage hotel booking will likely be even more profitable. I have three months to strategize every hotel stay until American Airlines’ elite status year starts again, but some work and leisure travel might just be my ticket to AAdvantage Executive Platinum status in 2026.