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The Deal
- Earn 500 bonus miles when spending $75 through the American Airlines shopping portal (limit of 4 sets of bonus miles)
- Direct link to registration.
Key Terms
- Expires September 16, 2019 at 11:59:59pm ET.
- Member must register for the bonus in order to be eligible to qualify for a bonus award.
- This one-time bonus award will be determined based on the number of individual “qualifying purchases” of $75 or more during the Bonus Period using one of the following Tiers:
- Tier 1 bonus: 500 miles for 1 individual qualifying purchase of $75 or more;
- Tier 2 bonus: 1,000 miles for 2 individual qualifying purchases of $75 or more;
- Tier 3 bonus: 1,500 miles for 3 individual qualifying purchases of $75 or more;
- Tier 4 bonus: 2,000 miles for 4 or more individual qualifying purchases of $75 or more.
- “Qualifying purchases” do not include returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases, and certain products that are not eligible for bonus miles.
- Please see the AAdvantage eShopping mall site for details on product eligibility and other restrictions.
- Please allow up to 10 weeks after the Bonus Period for bonus miles to post to your AAdvantage eShopping account.
- The Tier 4 bonus provides the maximum number of miles that will be awarded per member.
Tips & Ideas
This American Airlines shopping portal promo is structured a little differently than usual. Normally you earn x number of bonus miles when you meet spending thresholds that are cumulative across all your online shopping spend during the promotion period. With this particular promotion though, you only earn the bonus miles when spending $75 or more in a transaction.
That’s a little disappointing, but it could be interesting from a gift card purchasing perspective. The reason why is because GiftCards.com is one of the sites available on the AA shopping portal.
GiftCards.com sells a variety of third party gift cards, from Happy to Airbnb to Sephora to Target to Home Depot and more. They also sell Visa and Mastercard gift cards. You only earn 1 mile per dollar usually, but buying a $75 third party gift card with this promotion is much more rewarding. You’ll earn 75 miles from the standard 1x rate, plus 500 bonus miles.
That gives you a total of 575 miles which works out to be 7.67 miles per dollar which isn’t a bad return. Unless you value American Airlines miles very highly it probably won’t be worth doing this for reselling, but that’s a decent return for personal use.
Thanks for the Hat Tip, Stephen! I’m using this promo at GC.com with a slightly different technique but along the same lines as you suggest. ~Craig
You’re welcome – thanks for the heads up about the offer.
Since GC purchases are specifically noted as being incompatible with this bonus, why does this portal bonus even have a blog post dedicated to it? Is there some prior precedent (AA portal paying out for GiftCards.com purchases even when specifically disallowed)?
I think the gift card wording is generic wording they put in seeing as most portals don’t (or don’t intend to) pay out on gift card purchases at retailers.
Seeing as all GiftCards.com sells is gift cards, that exclusion doesn’t seem to actually apply here. My understanding is that purchases with them have triggered the bonus in the past (e.g. Craig at Middle Age Miles has confirmed this in the past).
[…] H/T – GC Galore […]