Originally Posted by
pushback
well, no it's actually not.
don't forget that you are not BUYING the miles with the 750 or 250... You are doing normal, every day charges with a credit card--that you would have to do anyway--and as a result this pings them to give you a mileage rebate on the promise that you do that with them over someone else.
If you were paying for the miles then yes, the $250/20k would be 'better' than $750/25k, but people should not think of the numbers in this way here.
Would work in stock markets, exchanges and math class, but not with miles (yet one more reason it is so hard to tax miles!--good for you and me!)
Also, in my opinion, 'spending' $250 for $20000 miles is almost not worth it in itself. Sure, if a friend bought me a ticket that required that many to fly, it would have probably have saved me about $250, but it's not like he'd want me to hand him cash. Maybe SOME, but not that much. Maybe he'd want me to book him a ticket using my miles on an airline where he has none but needs to fly them anyway.
I dunno.
Just saying that one should not think of the $250 or $750 you need to spend as a cost for those miles. That's money you spend anyway. You could buy, for example, a few hundred bucks worth of
home depot gift cards via the
northwest airlines worldperks mall or the
United airlines mileage plus mall (see links on these airlines' individual sites) and you'd get the miles for the expense on your new Aadvantage mastercard here, while getting bonus miles on those airlines for the mall use there. ^
A short note though: AA's mall does NOT let you get miles for home depot gift cards. It used to but no more. Those two airlines DO--and I know Northwest's actually SAYS it is ok in its fine print. I think United's does too but even if it doesnt, I know it worked legitimately as of last month.
Anyway, the reason why those gift cards are good to buy (and spend citibank mastercard money on, which triggers the AA mastercard's sign up mileage bonus promo) is because they cost nothing to ship and they can be used in the stores any time for any things you buy there forever. You really committed to 'nothing' specific, and so in a way, spending money at their store in this fashion is 'better money' to have to spend. That is, of course, if you are like me and so many other home owners out there who inveriably KNOW we will be shopping there a lot!
there are, of course, soooooo many ways to quickly rack up $750 in purchases and pay them off.
good luck!
MM