I have several trips booked this year on AA through award travel. My question is, do you earn miles when you are flying on award travel or just on purchased tickets?

No, you do not earn miles while flying on award travel.

If you use AA or partner miles, no. But if you use a 3rd party reward credit card that books through that 3rd party, then it depends on the fare class being booked into.

Ray, how does that work? I've never heard of this, and I often won't use reward travel because I want to earn miles for my elite status.

lcuy - I have the USBank Flexperks card, which was developed after USBank lost NW's CC business. You got a point for each $1 spent, and then I can exchange 25,000 of their points for a variety of domestic tickets booked directly by the Flexperks program. That books into regular tickets on the airline, and earn regular miles and EQM.

I assume the CapitalOne cards that plenty of people use work the same way.

Thanks. I'll have to see if my Chase sapphire card works that way. i know I can use points to buy flights, but I usually just take the cash equivalent and buy my own ticket.

www.capitalone.com Venture Visa book your award travel cost

through them for FF miles works best for me.