American Airlines has routes to many Caribbean islands and some good award availability from various North American hubs. The two main mileage programs I use to book these flights are American Airlines AAdvantage miles or British Airways Avios. American Airlines charges a flat 17,500 or 12,500 miles each way in economy (depending on season) for flights from anywhere in North America to the Caribbean. British Airways, on the other hand, will charge by distance per segment. A non-stop flight of fewer than 650 miles (from Miami to Grand Cayman, for example) will cost just 4,500 miles each way.
Additional Reading:
British Airways Miles to the Caribbean: As Few As 4,500 Miles Each Way!
How to Redeem British Airways Miles on American Airlines Flights
From Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles TOTAL
I’ll go over the options miles to use at the end of the post. But before we can plan any trips, we need to first find award space. With so many islands, it can be a daunting task to have to check award availability for each one. Fortunately, we won’t have to! I am going to explain how to use the American Airlines AAdvantage Award map to search availability every island at once in a single search. This handy tool was just released earlier this year and it makes my Caribbean award search far more efficient!
Searching for Award Availability with the AA Award Map
The AA Award Map will let you enter your home city, your dates, a region for where you want to go and how many miles you’re willing to spend. If you have a specific weekend (or a few weekends) in mind, it will quickly find every island in the Caribbean where you can use your miles for award tickets. You can also use it to search for destinations in Europe or Hawaii or the U.S., but we’ll focus on the Caribbean in this post.
As my example, I am going to take a look at the islands I can visit from Miami on a random weekend in March.
You will want to start by visiting the AA Award Map Website.
American Airlines Award Map Search
You then have a chance to enter your home city, region for destination, departure date, return date and total miles you’ll use. If you choose additional options, you can then select the maximum number of stops you want in your award search. When searching for tickets to the Caribbean, you will want to enter the following numbers for Total Miles to Use to make sure you see SAAver availability only:
One-way in Economy: 17,500.
Round-trip in Economy: 35,000.
One-way in Business: 30,000.
Round-trip in Business: 60,000.
It’s important you enter the correct numbers so you only see SAAVer availability awards, which are at the low level. These are the only ones you can book with British Airways miles.
There is a slight bug in the system in that, when you enter more than 1 passenger, you will not see any availability at all. So even if you’re searching for 2 or 3 or more tickets, you need to search for one first and then check for more.
Once I click Search, I can see a ton of availability from Miami to just about every island you can think of in March. So if you live in Miami or can find award space to Miami, you’re in luck! The islands with non-stop availability on those dates are in blue and the available destinations are listed on the left hand side.
American Airlines Award Availability to the Caribbean
To look at the actual available flights, you can select your island and click on Book Now. You can either book your flights right there online if you’re using American Airlines miles. If you’re using British Airways miles to book, you will need to go to the British Airways website for this. Read my guide on: How to Redeem British Airways Miles on American Airlines Flights.
Also, if you want to search for more than one ticket, you will have to go to the Award Search on the American Airlines website front page. But now you know there is at least one ticket so there may be many!
Booking the Tickets and Which Miles to Use: American Airlines or British Airways
British Airways
In my guide for using British Airways Avios to the Caribbean, I went over the costs to the Caribbean using British Airways miles on American Airlines flights. British Airways charges based on distance per segment so these are great if you happen to be lucky enough to live in a city with non-stop flights to the Caribbean. Read: British Airways Miles to the Caribbean: As Few As 4,500 Miles Each Way!
American Airlines
American Airlines award chart will charge 17,500 in peak season for any flights to the Caribbean and 12,500 in off-peak.
However, the big benefit with American Airlines is the ability to add free one-way flights on transcontinental awards. American Airlines prices all awards as one-way and allows a stopover in the international gateway city for up to a year from the date of ticket issue. If you live in an American Airlines gateway city, you can add a one-way award flight within North America without using any extra miles. The Caribbean (as is Mexico, Hawaii, Canada) is considered North America.
Additional reading: From Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles TOTAL.
Which miles to use?
Whenever I have the opportunity to add free one-way flights to my American Airlines itineraries, I take it. This is usually determined by which international trips I am planning. I can also combine an American Airlines free one-way in one direction and use British Airways miles to get back.
Summary
American Airlines flies to many Caribbean islands and SAAver award space can be redeemed with American Airlines miles or British Airways miles.
The American Airlines Award Map is extremely useful to quickly search award space to every Caribbean island at once.
British Airways Executive Club Avios has a distance-based award chart and these miles are great for non-stop flights.
American Airlines offers the opportunity to add free one-way trips to or from the Caribbean onto transcontinental trips by creating a stopover in the the international gateway city.
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