anabolism

Yes, of course you can turn it off. To my thinking, it makes more sense to use Safari with its default tracker blocking for normal browsing, and a lower-privacy browser dedicated to just AA e-shopping. As I see it, this provides greater privacy for normal browsing and an easier time making sure AA e-shopping tracks. But that's me, there are many paths to the same end.

McTigerFan

I had problems on Oct. 7 (the day they went back to 3x). Out of fear that it would last only one day, I ordered two Shell $300 GCs, an Uber $500, and one VISA $250 with the fee. All on separate orders. I was overseas at the time (UK) and I noticed I couldn't log in to my GC.COM account once I entered the site through the portal but the orders seemed to go through.

Here's where it gets strange. The Uber $500 was declined in the security check, never went on my credit card and no mileage or LPs posted. The two Shell $300 gift cards both posted to my credit card and I got an email from GC.com that the cards are in the mail to me, but neither seems to have tracked on the portal -- it just shows the store visits, no confirming email from AA shopping and no miles or LPs posted yet. The VISA gift card did not decline but it still shows as pending in the GC.com system (now 5 days later). I got the miles and LPs for it, did not get charged for it, and have not received it.

Now that I'm back stateside, I ordered a $200 Uber GC and a $250 VISA GC on Oct. 10. All went through as normal and the miles/LPs posted this morning, less than 48 hours later. I bought another $250 VISA GC today and it appears to have tracked normally so far. I'm not sure if the site was having problems the day they restored the 3x miles or whether my attempt to buy from overseas tripped a security wire, or both.

May not be worth chasing the two $300 Shell cards that didn't track since I will exceed the $2000 monthly cap. Just a piece of cake without frosting I guess.

nk15

I was on the same boat, and after a while, I thought "what do I have to lose", and pursued them and they credited them very quickly.

Alex_I

- I was in Spain on Oct. 7 and was also trying to purchase a gift card. I had the same problem of logging into my giftcards.com account through AA shopping and also directly. The latter indicated that the website was blocking the IP address. With a little research I have found that gift card business is country-specific and that there is giftcards.eu website. Note that there is no AA shopping mall if you log into the AA Spain website. Other airlines have different versions of the shopping malls depending on the country where you are shopping (e.g., BA does this). In today world, those websites are likely to add an additional level of security by checking for the origin of the IP address. Certainly, buying a gift card - a monetary instrument - from another country using US-issued card would raise a red flag. We did experience this before when my wife ordered whole bunch of stuff from US to be delivered to US address when we were traveling in South East Asia over the Thanksgiving. All her purchases were cancelled.
At the end my decision was not to buy any gift cards through AA shopping mall while abroad as it would be not worth my time to chase those purchases and miles. Perhaps, one could use VPN or log into your home computer remotely ... but there easier ways to get 6k of LPs per month.

GVR Bill

Care to share an example or two? Asking for a friend. ;-)

linglingfool

The odd thing for me was the order tracked a the pre-discount amount, not post. Wonder if that flagged the order.

Alex_I

- It all depends on how much you travel for work and/pleasure. Right now I am at ca. 165k LPs this year from mainly flying + some miles from staying with Hyatt and also AAdvantage dining (if the restaurants are reasonably good). I have cancelled AA-branded cards some time ago. I did use giftcards.com for Mrs. account but it is an extra work to keep track and liquidate the cards.

Antarius

All of them did. I ordered 20 of them and they all tracked and posted as pre discount.

Antarius

Rocketmiles!

redtop43

I've been ordering 2x giftcards at a time since early September and have had zero problems getting them to post. Both at 1x and 3x.

trojanmana

it shows there is a fee to buy the gift cards? what is "merchant brands" since that one shows no fees.

Antarius

Merchant brand is a specific GC for a brand. Like a gift card to best buy, home Depot, restaurants etc. (just for example, not sure if these specific brands are on offer).

The upside, no fee. Downside is that it's less flexible than the regular Visa card.

trojanmana

Thanks for the reply. so if i buy a virtual visa card I have to pay the 5.99 fee per $250. no way to get around that.

"
Merchant brand is a specific GC for a brand. Like a gift card to best buy, home Depot, restaurants etc. (just for example, not sure if these specific brands are on offer).

The upside, no fee. Downside is that it's less flexible than the regular Visa card.

• "

thatmikereed

Correct. No current/stackable promos to offset the fee. You're essentially paying the fee in exchange for LP/RDM.

Antarius

There isn't. Periodically there are discounts on the GCs (a 5% recently, for example) that end up making the fee moot.

Currently it's like paying 5.99 for 768 LPs.