About EliteForCheap
Built by one AAdvantage member who got tired of doing the Loyalty Points math by hand.
Why this exists
I'm Jimmy. I live in Las Vegas, I fly American, and like a lot of people I was trying to keep AAdvantage status without spending my life on planes. The best tool I had was hotel stays booked through AAdvantage Hotels, where a single night can post thousands of Loyalty Points.
The problem was finding those nights. AAdvantage Hotels shows you one city and one date at a time, and the earning rate changes from property to property. I was opening a search, writing numbers in a spreadsheet, dividing miles by price, and doing it again for the next city. It worked, but it was slow and I knew I was missing stays I never thought to search for.
So I built the thing I wanted: a tool that does the dividing for every property, puts the best Loyalty Points per dollar at the top, and checks that each one can still be booked before it shows it to you.
What EliteForCheap does
- Search runs a live AAdvantage Hotels query and lays our Loyalty Points per dollar math on top of every result. It is free and does not require an account.
- Top Deals is a ranked leaderboard of the strongest stays we have found, each one verified bookable before it appears. Stays under 40 Loyalty Points per dollar are free to view. The Elite tier at 40 and above is what members pay for.
- Tools cover the rest of the status math: the Status Match planner, the Cap Splitter for the 15,000 point per reservation limit, and the Flight Bank calculator.
The math is published on the How it works page and the FAQ. If a number on this site looks wrong, email us and we will check it against the source.
What it is not
- EliteForCheap is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by American Airlines. AAdvantage is a registered trademark of American Airlines, Inc.
- We do not take bookings or payments for hotels. You book directly on AAdvantage Hotels, and your points post from American, not from us.
- This is not an award flight search. It helps you earn status with hotel stays, nothing more.
How it is funded
Paid memberships fund the site. EliteForCheap does not currently have a credit card affiliate relationship and earns no commission on credit cards. If that changes, the affiliate disclosure page will say so. Affiliate links never change what ranks where.
Get in touch
Support, corrections, feature ideas and press all go to the same place: [email protected]. A real person reads every message.
Jimmy Chickey Founder, EliteForCheap. Las Vegas, Nevada.