I bought at local outlets and not through AAdvantage:

A Rose for $2.99
Pizza for $6.99
Extra Dry Brut for $9.99
Shopping (clothing): $12.99

Miles 0, but mucho $$ saved because the AAdvantage devaluation is not worth the 10K bonus in this instance. 110K one way to SE Asia, when it was 67.5K at the most? Forget it. Chasing a riptide 'til AA gets their act together....plus there's a thread about Vinesse Wines which tastes horrible.

Urgh did not know this. So I guess this won't turn confirmed...Annoying that I didn't use the 30 miles link instead.

With 80k JL/F awards USA-NYC-TYO-ICN, plenty of incentive for me to stay in the game. The 67.5k to 110k hike is unfortunate, but not hard to understand why "spend 5k get free F to HKG" isn't shareholder-friendly.

Anyhow back on topic, I was impressed by the list of eShopping partners. I needed to buy some coffee for the office anyhow, so I bought a few bags of Starbucks online through the eShopping portal for the same as I'd pay in real life, no shipping fees, and the miles show pending just two days later ($51.80 spend).

I figure I'll give away or cook with the 6 wines (note to self set to cancel the membership timely), with the exception of one of the bottles that should be very drinkable.

eDining is done.

Mainly just waiting on the 1800flowers email so that I know it will count for the promo.

Who seriously cares about these "partners" anymore?

Didn't do the promotion but used1800 flowers, and what was delivered was half the size of the picture evebthough I got the largest size. I complained and got a 50% refund.

Their shopping portal is still worth caring about. I buy ink regularly through 123Inkjets.com and as I like buying from them anyway why not also earn 11 miles per dollar? And that's just one example.

The flowers my Grandmother received were perfect so I'm not sure if it's a local vendor issue or something else. Sorry it was not what it should have been for you.

It seems you will be better off this way as you will receive 2,500 miles if this is partner 2 or 3 and 5,000 miles if it is partner 4. 30 miles per dollar would only net you 1,050 miles.

I am only doing 3 partners and my flowers were $50 (excluding tax/shipping) so the 1,500 miles is not as good as the additional 2,500 for using the 3rd partner.

Same for the dining program if you would eat the same thing at the same restaurant if there were no dining program. What's the harm in at least registering every card you have in a dining program and then getting miles here and there from it ("by chance" if nothing else)?

Obviously, it depends on the selection of participating restaurants in a given area as to whether it's going to work for you or not.

Well hopefully this works...I did the 1-800 flowers by clicking through the link on the aa.com promotion page, but I didn't see any special flower-offers. Just looked like the regular 1-800 flowers website.

I also put in the AADV code in the website promo box, and got a "AAdvantage promo has been added" message, so we'll see.

Used the Amex $15 off $50 offer too.

No one said you have to go out of your way to do this promo, you dont eat or shop ? There are things that i have to buy anyway and places that i plan to eat, so i didnt really chase down for the promo, rather than just sign up and get the 2000 bonus miles for nothing (2 partners = 2000 miles)

You just did for some people!

Not everyone lives close to a particpating AAdvantage Dining restaurant anywhere near them. So they would have "go out of their way" geographically to "eat" in a way that works for this promo.

Plus some people (including myself), rarely even cross $20 (including tax and tip) on a dine, usually well under that. So just because we "eat" doesn't mean we don't have to go "out of our way" (in behavior, if not geographically) to spend $25+ on a single "dine".

So even though I eat at RN restaurants multiple times a week, I'm not bothering with this promo because for one partner it's not worth spending extra (given I get AA miles all sorts of other ways anyway).

And I have nothing I need to buy online right that I can buy through one of those partners. (And thus the "spend extra" issue again, because I'd have to buy something I don't need.) I just needed to buy a camera lens filter in a particular size, but Adorama (which participates in the AA shopping mall IIRC) didn't have it, only B&H (which doesn't participate in any airline shopping mall that I am aware of) had it (plus more obscure photography stores). Yes, I shop, but I tend to buy specialized stuff which isn't often enough available through the AA mall.

If I am dining alone I also rarely spend that much, but I just bought a gift card to a restaurant I frequent for $25. That way I can spend the same amount of money over several dines and still get credit for this promotion.

As for eShopping, I just bought my non-food grocery items (deoderant, shaving cream, soap, toilet paper, paper towels, etc) on Walmart. Shipping was free and since I am going to buy those everyday items anyway there is no extra cost to me.

The only decision I really needed to make was do I go out of my way to buy wine and 1800flowers. I had already bought my mothers day gift to satisfy a Delta Skymiles promo, so I had no need for flowers. So I bought myself a $14 box of cheryl's cookies and then the wine club.

So dining cost me $0 extra dollars but I get 5 points per dollar (VIP dining) +3 points for using CSR card so total of 200 pts. eShop cost me $0 extra and I got 1 pt per dollar + 1.5 pts per dollar (chase freedomUnltd) for a total of 125 pts. Cookies after taxes were $22 (33 pts on chase freedom ultd). Win $42 (63 pts chase freedom u). So all in I spent an extra $64 to get 13421 points, that is less than half a cent per point. That is cheaper than manufactured spending. Just gotta be creative

1. Far from every restaurant in the program has gift cards or even gift certificates.

2. I was already stung once when I bought a gift certificate from a once-a-month restaurant that was about to close a couple weeks later but hadn't notified me when I bought the gift certificate. By the time I considered using the gift certificate a few weeks later, I found the restaurant was gone. (That was back in the days a few years ago when RN itself had promos that gave extra miles for $40 minimum purchases.)

But, yes, if a restaurant you like has gift cards and you can use them up soon (ie, it's not a once-a-monther), or especially if it's part of a big chain and the gift cards work throughout the whole chain (but beware, some restaurants that are parts of chains, the gift cards do not work through the whole chain), then that may work for you.

Me, I like the equivalent promo at Delta much better. It gives 1000 bonus miles per partner, for every partner on their list. So not only dining, shopping, flowers, but also a number of hotel programs, car rental programs, credit card companies, etc. And it states no minimum purchase / miles earned restriction that I can find. The one restriction is that it must be a partner which you didn't use in the year prior to this promo starting:

I'm not one who plays this game often

I want to buy flowers for my GF birthday on Friday so this timing sort of works out if I can get it to work

would I be better off just using the 30 miles per dollar promo or using this particular promo.

To get 2K miles, I need to spend $67 at 30 miles per dollar; I guess that's not unreasonable although I don't really know what flowers cost these days.

Question: So as I think about it as I type, I should be looking at what I want to buy first and see how much they cost, then go back and choose the right promo?

I am signed up for idine and I could do an idine but I don't find that many of the local places entice me enough to go out of my way to do the promo but it could be worth it for 2K miles in bonus for 2 partners.

then on the other hand, I could just use the 30/$ promo and be done with it and know that it will work.

sounds like too much effort to do all the partners.