(EXPIRED) Don’t Ignore This Promotion: American Airlines SimplyMiles 5x

A few days ago, I wrote on Frequent Miler about the 5x promotion that the American Airlines SimplyMiles program was running. There were some interesting possibilities there, but I wasn’t sure if it would work on gift card purchases and so I decided to test it out before writing about it here.

As it turns out, the promotion does work on gift cards and some of the results are amazing – think 30x AAdvantage miles on a $200 Best Buy gift card purchase in-store amazing.

A Quick SimplyMiles Primer

Before getting into the results of the experiment, here’s a quick overview of the SimplyMiles program. It’s a card-linked program that you can sign up for here. In order to be eligible to register, you have to have a Citi AAdvantage card or Barclays Aviator card.

At this point in time you can only link Mastercards (they don’t have to be American Airlines cards), but they’ll hopefully be extending that to include Visa and American Express in the future, although there’s nothing definitive on that. It seems like you can link as many Mastercards as you want – I’ve added four so far and it looks like I can add more if I need to.

You then scroll through your offers and load whichever ones you’re interested in to your account. The website can be a little glitchy at times, but be patient as the returns make it worthwhile.

It sounds like offers might be targeted, so yours might have different spend requirements and/or rewards to what I’ll be mentioning. There are two types of offer though – fixed bonuses and per dollar amounts:

• Fixed bonuses – e.g. Spend $200 at Best Buy and get 1,000 bonus miles
• Per dollar bonuses – e.g. Earn 2x bonus miles per dollar at PetSmart

You’ll sometimes see two or more offers for the same retailer. Having tested it out, only one bonus will be awarded per transaction and it isn’t necessarily the highest bonus that you’ll earn first. I don’t know if it awards the lowest bonus first or the first bonus you link to your card, but it’s probably best to load the best offer to your card, use that offer, then load the second offer afterwards.

Stacking Opportunities

Seeing as this is a card-linked program, it’ll stack with other opportunities. If you have a Mastercard which gets Chase Offers, BankAmeriDeals, etc., you’ll be able to double dip those if the retailers align. You can also earn portal cashback depending on if the portal offers in-store cashback for the retailer or if the SimplyMiles offer is eligible for online purchases.

It might also stack with other card-linked programs like Dosh, but I don’t know if SimplyMiles runs on the same network as any of those.

I have offers for CVS and Walgreens on my account, so it’ll stack with earning CVS ExtraBucks Rewards, Walgreens Balance Rewards, gift card promos, etc. in those stores.

The Amazing Opportunities

OK, so back to the 5x promo as this is where the program really shines between now and December 31, 2019. My account had two Best Buy offers – one for 1,000 miles when spending $200 in-store and one for 750 miles which I think was also for spending $200 in-store (the offers disappear once redeemed, so I can’t check). I linked my Citi Dividend card beforehand as it’s a Mastercard, plus it’s earning 5% at Best Buy as that store is one of its 5% categories until the end of the year.

I bought $200+ worth of gift cards on two separate occasions last week, hoping that it would trigger the bonuses. My assumption was that I’d earn the following:

Transaction 1:

• 750 bonus miles (for the fixed bonus)
• 1,000 bonus miles (from the 5x promo based on the $200 of spend)
• Total = 1,750 miles

Transaction 2:

• 1,000 bonus miles (for the fixed bonus)
• 1,000 bonus miles (from the 5x promo based on the $200 of spend)
• Total = 2,000 miles

For gift card purchases I was going to make anyway, I’d have been happy earning those bonus miles. However, it turned out to be a much sweeter deal than I’d been expecting.

The Actual Results

Rather than earning 5x on the corresponding amount of spend required, I earned 5x on the fixed bonus. That 5x is calculated on top of the bonus itself, so it’s actually more like a 6x bonus. My results were therefore as follows:

Transaction 1:

• 750 bonus miles (for the fixed bonus)
• 3,750 bonus miles (from the 5x promo)
• Total = 4,500 miles

Transaction 2:

• 1,000 bonus miles (for the fixed bonus)
• 5,000 bonus miles (from the 5x promo)
• Total = 6,000 miles

I checked my SimplyMiles account in the early hours of this morning and saw that they’d trackd; it therefore only takes a few days to show up.

My American Airlines account has already been credited with the 750 and 1,000 mile amounts, so hopefully the 3,750 and 5,000 amounts will follow shortly.

That means that when buying 2x $200 worth of Best Buy gift cards in-store, you can earn 10,500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. That’s on top of the 5% cashback I was able to earn on my Citi Dividend card and the Best Buy Rewards I earned seeing as you can earn them on gift card purchases.

Other Gift Card Reselling Opportunities

Given the high value nature of Best Buy gift cards and the large bonuses involved, this seems to be the best reselling play on my SimplyMiles account. There are several other intriguing options though:

• BJ’s – Buy $55 Inner Circle membership and earn 2,500 bonus miles.
  • This means you’d earn a total of 15,000 miles. BJ’s frequently runs gift card promotions online and in-store, but even if you have no use for the membership, it’s like buying AA miles for 0.37cpp. Be sure to click through from a shopping portal as I earned cashback when buying a $10 online-only membership a year ago.
• CVS – Spend $45 and earn 1,000 bonus miles.
  • With the 5x promo, you’d earn 6,000 bonus miles. That’s like buying AA miles for 0.75cpp if spending exactly $45. Even if spending more than that on something like a Visa or Amazon gift card, that’s still a nice return.
• Walgreens – Spend $35 and earn 500 bonus miles.
  • You’d earn 3,000 bonus miles once the 5x promo is accounted for. Not as good as the CVS deal, but still great for a small gift card purchase.
• Olive Garden – Spend $50 and earn 400 bonus miles.
  • With this one you’d earn 2,400 miles after the 5x bonus has been added. Olive Garden is offering a $10 promo card when buying a $50 gift card which makes this an even better deal. There’s an Olive Garden Amex Offer giving 1,500 Membership Rewards or $15 back, but that sadly won’t stack with this seeing as that’s an Amex Offer and only Mastercards are eligible for SimplyMiles right now.

Non Gift Card Reselling Opportunities

There are a couple of other options I thought would be worth highlighting that aren’t gift card related but which offer the opportunity to buy AAdvantage miles cheaply:

• Wag Walking – Spend $9.99 and earn 2,000 bonus miles.
  • Based on how my Best Buy transactions worked out, you should earn a total of 12,000 miles when spending $9.99. That’s like buying AA miles for 0.08cpp which is an incredible value.
• Rover – Spend $50 and earn 1,000 bonus miles.
  • Not as good as Wag Walking, but you’d still earn 6,000 miles when spending $50 which is 0.83cpp.

Register All Your Household Members

If you haven’t already done so, it might be worth setting up American Airlines AAdvantage accounts for all the family members in your household. You can then set up corresponding SimplyMiles accounts for them, link Mastercards to each of their accounts, load offers to their accounts and take advantage of some of the offers on each one.

Edit: After publishing this, I realized that you have to have a Citi AAdvantage card or Barclays Aviator card in order to register for SimplyMiles. You’ll therefore only be able to register family members with one of those cards.