What is the most effective way to use the points? For travel? (most bang for my points)
THANKS,

AA points are good for flights to Asia. For anything to Europe you will be stuck paying British Airways fuel surcharges or some horrible routing. Occasionally you can find decent deals for domestic flights such as Jackson, WY or MT airports that are usually pricier to fly into.

First thought was Alcoholics Anonymous has a credit card?!

I pretty much use mine exclusively for long domestic or international flights. Book way in advance for most bang for the buck.

Can you explain why booking in advance gets the most bang for the buck?

I just booked a trip to Cozumel for me and the kids (yeah I know, we'll be sold into slavery by the cartel). Each leg was 15,000 pts. I thought it was a pretty good deal. If you can be flexible on which day you travel, it can help. Some days were double that.

Red Ranger, I'm guessing Airline points are like hotel points. They only let so many seats be taken by point users. They probably discourage the use of points by upping the fare (in points) so fewer can qualify. Some of the flights I looked at were significantly more points on other days of the week. I'm sure the closer to departure and more full the flight is the point cost goes up or completely away.

AA Executive / Southwest Miles - Airfare (mostly domestic)
Amazon Prime Points - Purchases

Because the airline only makes a small subset of seats available for "miles based" travel at the Economy MileSaver level of 12,500 miles per leg. Once those are gone you can still redeem miles at the regular Economy level (20K per leg) or Business class level (25K per leg). I try to book my nice destination vacations 6 months in advance to snag the 12.5K seats.

That suxs

I have a Delta CC and when I am done booking flight I can pay with either miles or dollars or a combo.

THANKS to ALL for the replies!!!!!! Does anyone use them for hotel stays or rent a cars?

When I've looked at the AA vacations with using miles it seems like a ripoff, so I only use them for flights.

I have but it is a horrible redemption. Basically you are getting .6 cents per point when used for hotel rooms. If you need to burn them you can do it but you can get a much higher redemption rate on flights. Business Class overseas is where you get the greatest value. The credit card is really worthless other than the free bag. It only earns 1 mile per dollar on purchases and if you are getting .6 cents for the mile there are much better cards out there.

I use for hotels quite often.. really depends on the city though.. you can find cheaper rates in dallas vs NY or LA.. Miles/night does fluctuate sometimes daily. Never rented a car with miles because we get a killer deal at work..
Rule of thumb for me to use on a flight is if it’s longer than 2.5 hours..but always do the math beforehand.