Map to AAdvantage miles not ready for prime time

After 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.

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Do we really need a map to locate mileage-earning opportunities?

American thinks so, and is backing up that conviction with the release of its new AAdvantage MileFinder Map. Partnering with Google Maps, they’ve created maps of 11 major cities featuring icons showing the locations of vendors that award AAdvantage miles.

Taking the application for a test drive, I pulled up the map for my home city, Los Angeles. The initial screen shows a wide swath of L.A. County, with eight icons representing restaurants which award miles through AAdvantage dining. That’s eight out of what the map indicates is a total of 791 AAdvantage locations. Not very helpful.

Using the slider bar to zoom in for a more local view, I tried focusing on my own neighborhood, where there are numerous restaurants offering AAdvantage miles. But the map only displays a single restaurant icon for the area. Useless at best, downright misleading at worst.

Ever the optimist, I think maybe a street view will show the restaurants I know to be in the AAdvantage network. But zooming in further reveals streets devoid of any restaurant icons whatsoever. Strike three.

Verdict: a mediocre idea, badly executed.

I’ll be having lunch today at an AAdvantage restaurant. No thanks to the AAdvantage MileFinder Map.

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