Regarding my quest for missing miles; an MBNA adviser I spoke to on Tuesday confirmed that I had been misinformed by the previous two I'd spoken to.

MBNA sends the points summary to AA as soon as the MBNA statement is produced. Normally AA credit the miles into the AA account within 48 hours. They suggested I speak to AA to query the missing miles.

The US AAdvantage team noted down my details (number of points missing and last 4 digits of card - they could see a UK-based credit card linked to the AA account) and told me their specialist 'missing miles' team is looking into it and I should have the miles in my AA account within 5 business days.