Good news, points and miles collectors: You now need fewer Alaska miles for some American Airlines award flights than before. Without notice, Alaska Airlines recently decreased the award rates on short domestic American Airlines award flights.

Currently, you can book American Airlines award flights for as few as 7,500 miles — up to a 40% decrease from the previous rates. We'll show you the details of these changes so you can take advantage of new lower award pricing when using Alaska miles for American flights.

Alaska Mileage Plan award chart for American Airlines flights

Alaska Mileage Plan is unique among U.S. airlines in publishing a different award chart for each of its 23 partners. That means that you may find different award prices for the same route, depending on which partner airline you fly.

For a single flight in October, award prices range from 25,000 to 45,000, and fees can range from $25 to upwards of $250. Beyond slightly different flight paths and number of stops, a key differentiating factor is the partner airline flown.

The current Alaska Mileage Plan award chart for American Airlines flights is as follows:

However, we've recently noticed that Alaska has strayed from these published award prices for certain domestic American Airlines flights. Rather than "starting at 12,500 miles," short-haul American Airlines award flights are now priced as low as 7,500 miles.

New decreased Alaska award rates on American flights

In April 2022 — and without notice from the airline — Alaska Mileage Plan started pricing certain American Airlines award flights below award-chart prices. So far, these changes have been all good news. Rates have decreased on some flights, but we haven't found any examples where award rates are higher than before.

We are finding these lower prices only on short-haul, nonstop economy award flights. First class awards are still priced at 25,000 Alaska miles each way.

Here are some of the routes where you can find these cheaper rates.

7,500-mile awards on American Airlines

Ultra-short-haul flights on American Airlines are currently priced at just 7,500 Alaska miles each way. As these new award rates aren't published, we don't know the exact distance cutoff. But from searching various routes, we've found that this pricing seems to apply to only nonstop flights under 400 miles in distance.

For example, the 396-mile route from Dallas-Fort Worth to Laredo currently costs 7,500 Alaska miles each way.

Other routes under 400 miles in distance include some of the busiest routes in North America:

Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

New York-LaGuardia to Boston.

New York-LaGuardia to Toronto.

Seattle to Portland.

Just keep in mind that Alaska prices its award flights as low as 5,000 miles each way on some of these routes. For example, you'll likely want to book an award from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on Alaska instead of American Airlines.

10,000-mile awards on American Airlines

Nonstop American Airlines flights between 400 and 700 miles in distance currently cost 10,000 Alaska miles each way.

For example, the 402-mile route from Chicago-O'Hare to Kansas City barely misses the 400-mile cutoff for the 7,500-mile award pricing. Still, the current 10,000-mile award rate is cheaper than what you previously had to pay for an award flight on this route.

On the upper end of the distance band, we're seeing the same 10,000-mile award pricing on the 660-mile route from New York-LaGuardia to Indianapolis. And you can fly the 692-mile route from Chicago-O'Hare to Kansas City for 10,000 Alaska miles.