Israel is reopening to Americans on Sunday, but nobody has told American Airlines to close off their award bargains for flights between JFK and Tel Aviv.
There’s wide open round-trip availability starting at 55K miles each way in lie-flat business class from now through March. You can also book coach awards for 30K and premium economy for 40K miles each way. Taxes add $50 round-trip.
Availability has excellent nonstop between JFK and Tel Aviv and is available on limited dates nonstop between Miami and Tel Aviv.
Only want a one-way award? There’s wide open one-way availability at 60K-74K miles each way in lie-flat business class. You can also book coach awards for 33K and premium economy for 44K miles each way.
To find the lowest priced dates, search for the cheapest one-way awards in both directions and then search for those dates in a round-trip search.
Best of all, American no longer charges any fees to cancel your trip and refund your miles! That’s a huge advantage of using miles over cash in an era where countries like Israel seem to change their mind about being open to tourists every other day.
These are web special awards that are only available with AA miles. You can’t change dates, but you can refund them.
Connections are available from other cities as well:
American offers 2 potential business class products on their 777-200s that will fly to Tel Aviv, reverse herringbone or a business class with mixed rear facing and forward facing seats. The reverse herringbone is more common, but you won’t know which cabin you’ll actually get until a couple of days before the flight. If you see notches on some of the seats in the seat map, then you’ll know you have been assigned the business class with rear facing seats.
I haven’t flown the rear facing product, but the reverse herringbone is a perfectly fine business class seat and from what I understand the rear facing product is decent as well. I do miss United’s Polaris more luxurious bedding though.
AA 777-200 reverse herringbone seating:
Need more AA miles?
- The CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum World Mastercard is offering 65,000 AA miles for opening the card and spending $4,000 in 4 months.
- The Citi AAdvantage Platinum World Elite Consumer Mastercard is offering 50,000 AA miles for opening the card and spending $2,500 in 3 months.
- The Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Consumer Mastercard is offering 50,000 AA miles for opening the card and spending $5,000 in 3 months.
- The Citi AAdvantage MileUp Consumer Mastercard is offering 10,000 AA miles and a $50 statement credit for opening the card and spending $500 in 3 months.
- Read more about these cards here.
You can also transfer 60K Marriott points into 25K AA miles. Alas, no bank points currently transfer into AA miles.
Will you book an American award to Israel?
Fantastic! Just booked a round trip business class ticket to Israel for $460 thanks to the Simply Miles deal you posted.
Congrats! That was a deal for the ages!
why $460? you used points?
Simple, he uses $460 to buy points in the prior deal.
Truth is I just glossed over the deal .. I have AA Miles I never use and $800 AA credit from a EU cancellation… But now this is like oysh should have!
Any way to book this with chase points?
Would it possible to transfer into BA points?
You can transfer to BA, but it’s not a good value.
A one-way JFK to TLV in coach is 31K Avios+$329 in fuel surcharges.
A one-way JFK to TLV in premium is 62K Avios+$379 in fuel surcharges.
A one-way JFK to TLV in business is 92,750 Avios+$680 in fuel surcharges.
Has there been any change regarding young children that aren’t vaccinated? Or i still cant go with my 1 year old
No change.
1-4 year old Americans are persona non grata in the holy land.
Even within 6 months following a positive test?
Correct. Vaccine required.
Fyi I think you need a positive PCR following by a negative. When my son had covid recently I made sure to get another PCR so I can show the positive followed by a negative. Not planning on taking him Israel but I have 6 months just in case lol
Dan, I guess you’ll be using some of your 2.4M from the SimplyMiles promo…
If only Israel would allow my 1 and 4 year old kids in. 🙁
Chaval!
“Israel is reopening to Americans on Sunday, but nobody has told American Airlines to close off their award bargains for flights between JFK and Tel Aviv.”
Just like no one told AA @ JFK to let tourist check-in that last night before the ban went into effect lol
😀
I only see in the 60,000-70,000 range
As the post says, lower rates apply for RT travel.
How long does it take to transfer Marriot Points ? I would like to book Israel asap. Just noticed I have over 1mil points.
Says max 240k transfer per day.
A couple days.
American does allow you to hold awards.
How does that work if I have almost zero balance now. It would let me book and can receive transfers here in few days?
I booked 2 rt tickets for 220k points make sense? but need 3 days of transferring because max 240k transfer . Having trouble transferring from marriot because it’s not recognizing my AAdvantage number. It’s a 7digit/letter. Any idea why it’s not working?
what about younger than 1? is rule the same for 6 month old baby??
There should be exceptions available for under 12 months old.
oh wow! that would be amazing!! anywhere I can confirm that information?
We’ll need to wait and see, but in November I believe under 12 months were allowed to enter without any requirements.
It’s not working on winter break dates.
Ages 5+ must be vaccinated?
Is there another way to enter without vaccinating children?
EU digital recovery certificate.
Otherwise, no.
I heard that France’s website allows uploading of US vax card pix. וד״ל
Thanks to this post AA Revenue management just removed all I and U inventory systemwide to and from to TLV
I’m still seeing web special pricing, though dates are getting booked up.
This takes time till AA web reflects new pricing
Try to book you will get an erro
Bubbe maisos!
Just held and canceled a 60K web special. Stop posting fake news and wasting people’s time please.
Please don’t go personal
The Inventory has been removed through GDS
I am not sure what you were able to hold would you mind to share the date
You started personal sir. “Thanks to this post…”
Instead of making things up, why don’t you try holding something?
if that was personal than I apologize this was not my intention I just stated a fact the opposite I admire you that you caught AA attention so fast
I am not exactly sure which part is fake news I just pointed out that they removed the I and U inventory across the board can you proof me wrong
The fact that you are still seeing Web Special deals is because this awards books and ticket in J class inventory and they could take some time to update the new Underlying inventory
Sorry if I misinterpreted your point, but you said it will give an error. It did not.
It did not for you but for me it did when I posted
This errors are very typical for AA website when there is last seat availability and the seat was just taken the web will still show it for some time but than when coming to enter passenger info its will say Fare no longer available and reload the search results
Somehow all of these self centered comments always comes out of NYC people….
gotcha
What is considered valid proof of recovery?
EU digital recovery certificate.
What is that? Would a positive pcr/rapid be valid?
Vaccine only for Americans.
Too many people were forging test results.
Thanks. Which dates are available from Miami?
Use the calendar search.
If I book roundtrip with Aadvantage miles can I cancel return trip and get half my miles back?
How do I hold an award on AA?
During the booking process, click on AAdvantage Hold instead of credit card.
They put my reservation on hold until 1/11. I transferred 240k which is max marriot bonvoy and that would give me 100k. I need another 300k transferred. Would I get my points ontime? I can do another tomorrow and another sat/night.
Hopefully they will post on time. Let us know.
Urgent Big mistake.
100k posted already but I just realized that I booked fri-fri 2/12 to 2/19 12:05 am which is not Saturday night/sun morning and is actually fri night/sat Morn. Any suggestion how to change to 2/13-2/20 sat night? Seems like no more 55k business
Call and cry?
Ugh. Web special they can’t do anything. They Felt so bad for me and I’m feeling really stupid now if this mistake I already got my points transferred into my account(3 daily transfers) even though they said 240k max per day and a week to transfer.
Maybe when they improve their product…i was recently reminded why I’ve not flown a US-based carrier on long-distance international flights…soft product isn’t good 🙁 not prem nor business – basically you get what you pay for