Earn free BA flights between London and Malta – with American Airways

This is a little bit of an unusual one, but well worth mentioning. I have just earned my first free flight with British Airways on its new Malta route, through American Airlines, and i) I live and work in Malta and ii) I have not set foot on an American Airlines plane in years!

 

 

 

 

So how have I achieved this?

Put simply, through signing up to AAdvantage, the frequent flyer programme of American Airlines, for which we set out an instant points bonus below.

AAdvantage is a partner of British Airways. Accordingly, you can make BA bookings by spending AAdvantage points, on the AAdvantage website. Flights between London and Malta with British Airways will cost you 10,000 AAdvantage points plus taxes, each way.

But how do I earn AAdvantage points if I don’t ever go near American Airlines’ planes?

A very reasonable question. The good thing is, there are a number of ways to earn AAdvantage points. One way is through various, occasional promotions they run (e.g. “’like’ something on Facebook, earn X points” etc) but one of the very best ways is through a hotel booking service called Rocketmiles, which gives you large quantities of AAdvantage points for booking your hotels through them (always compare hotel prices on other websites, of course, but the big advantage of Rocketmiles is that prices are also very competitive).

You can, of course, book hotels worldwide with Rocketmiles, including in Malta and the UK. It is not simply an American booking site.

Rocketmiles claim the average customer earns 7,000 AAdvantage points per booking, so that is 70% of the cost of a one-way ticket to London on BA, simply for booking a hotel stay. Points earned will of course depend on the cost of the hotel and length of stay, but even low cost hotels will get you around 2,000 points (a decent haul to get you towards that magical 10,000 point LGW-MLA flight redemption threshold).

The good news is, you can also get a 1,000 point bonus by signing up to Rocketmiles through this link*. That’s an instant 1,000 AAdvantage mile haul, which will vest when you make your first booking with Rocketmiles (in addition to the points you will earn.

Obviously, Maltapoints will keep you up to date on any easy AAdvantage earnings opportunities, but we do recommend that you consider Rocketmiles as an option when booking hotels – it may be a very easy route to free flights between Malta and London, on BA.

*Maltapoints will also receive 1,000 miles for this referral. It is small commissions like this that enable us to keep operating, so we are very grateful for your support. If you wish to join Rocketmiles without this commission link, you can of course do so at www.rocketmiles.com, but please note that in this case you will not earn the 1,000 mile bonus.