using AA miles for vacation
 

Has anyone used their AA miles for Hotels rather than flights? If so,any advice - I'm having a horrible time using their website to figure out possibilities.

Thanks.

I would never use AA miles for hotels as it's offered on www.aa.com. Bad deal all around, but,

AA miles can be converted to Hilton HHonors points @ 1:2 exchange rate + $25 one time transfer fee.

You have to have Hilton HHonors account (easily done on www.hilton.com and it's free).

Hilton hotel family includes Waldorf Astoria, Conrads, Hiltons, Embassy Suites, Doubltree, Hilton Garden Inns, Hampton Inns, Hilton Grand Vacations and Homewood Suites.

The hotels range from Cat.1 @10K points a night to Cat.6 at 40 or 45K points a night. Some hotels offer Point Stretchers which brings the required points even lower.

I don't know how many miles you have. Assuming that you have 50K AA miles, you can exchange the miles for 100K HHonor points.

Cat.1 = 10K points per night
Cat.2 = 20K points per night
After that it's 5K points more for the next up cat.
Cat.3 = 25K points and so on.

Cat.1 is mostly Hampton Inns
Cat.3 = Doubletree or Embassy Inn (but it's not set in stone, as some could be cat.1 and some can be cat.5
Cat.5 = Hiltons, Conrads (but again it's not written in stone, you have to check on their website.

Waldorf Astoria and few other high end hotels fall into a whole different category, (70-80K points per night.

I have HHonors Gold and SPG Gold status. Hilton has a much better choice of options in any given city than does Starwood, but the SPG program seems to me to be way better.

Tonight I just booked a couple of nights in Cleveland at the Hilton GI Downtown for $134. It would cost 25,000 points!

I checked the rate at Westin Dublin. It is 242 Euros or 12,000 Starpoints. They've raised the points requirements, apparently, because I stayed there last year for the last two nights of June at a special half-off rate of 5000 points per night.

The Hilton GI at the airport is $92 or 25,000 HHonors points. The Sheraton is $89 or 3,000 Starpoints.

But I'll stay at the Hilton Garden Inn because it is across the street from Jacobs Field and Sheraton is not.

If you could convert AA miles to Starwood points then do that, otherwise take AAFF's advice.

mrwunrfl-is the Westin Dublin worth the points? We're thinking about using points to stay there. Also, where did you get the rate of 242 Euros? We're getting a much higher rate for 2 people for February. Thanks

I just put in Nov 14 for the Westin to see what rate I would get and got back 242 Euros per night. It is a very nice hotel in a great location. I think it is worth it.

thanks, mrwunrfl.