DrRodneyMcKay

Just saw this new promo, haven't seen a thread about it yet:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...onus-miles.jsp

I thought maybe we could start a wiki or start collecting data points. Basically, AA is offering bonus miles for spending with 10 partners, with extra miles for each partner, up to 50,000. It includes AAdvantage shopping and stacks with their holiday shopping promo, though this one runs until December 31st.

The shopping, dining, and opinion rewards promos should be fairly easy; for the others, it depends. Unfortunately I don't think most of these stack with Amex Offers at the moment..

akcae

Seems reminiscent of the US promos from the past, perhaps not as lucrative. Worth keeping in mind...

LovePrunes

looking thru at the terms and conditions, every single one of the partner requirements is that you must earn a certain number of MILES with a partner, not spend a certain amount of $ with a partner. They seem to have definitely shifted the responsibility away just proving you spent the money to proving you spent the money in the correct way with each vendor to trigger miles to be awarded. Harder to immediately calculate how much must be spent with each vendor to know what's involved for minimum spending threshold.

This is too much work for me, for too little of a reward. The 10k miles for 3 partners was simpler.
No way I'm switching to Sprint, signing up for Lifelock, So right away i'm at a max of 8k points if I chase down 8 vendors to correctly award me miles. Just not worth it knowing what a pain it is for some of these guys to award the miles the right way. Just my opinion.

Jaimito Cartero

I love the promo code you have to sign up with, AAHOL.

eponymous_coward

Earning 1K miles with Hilton is $1000 spend (or cashing in 10k points for 1500 AA miles, which is a terrible ratio IMO). Earning 500 miles with AA dining is $167 if you're at the standard level, $100 if you're VIP.

I like the (targeted) DL promo I got that is similar considerably more (there's just a requirement for ANY activity with a new partner you hadn't gotten action from in 2017, not "spend a lot of money with the partner").

If you were going to be spending a lot of cash with LifeLock, Hilton, Sprint, etc. it makes sense but all told I'm likely to pass.

beachfan

+1000!

pinniped

Oh, everybody has that? That's not just what AA thinks of me personally?

bostontraveler

Actually it's what we think of them.

CloudCoder

Anyone who travels a lot already has a cell phone provider, a favorite rent-car company, a favorite hotel chain, etc. I'm not about to switch all my alliances just to earn miles on a one-time basis. Similarly, if my hotel offered me bonus points to switch to another airline, I'd probably decline the offer.

eponymous_coward

No, I switch rental car companies (and where the miles accrue) as well as hotels (and where miles accrue) based on promos all the time if there's not a lot of cost to do so (and some significant benefit I can see). I use the airline dining programs too.

I find hotels or car rental companies to be fairly interchangeable at certain star/service levels- a Courtyard by Marriott that's cheaper than a Hilton Garden Inn? Even if I have Hilton Gold? But there's a way to get $50 in value back on an $80 stay instead of the $20 I usually get from Hilton? Sure.

I've never flown a mile on BA... but over time I have cashed in BA miles acquired via promos for things like AA/AS Y or CX J travel on award. I fly on WN awards all the time because Alamo rentals give you the equivalent of $15 or so in WGA award fares on a two day rental, and at the right time of year and stacking various promos/deals you can basically get a two day rental for $25, with $15 coming back in future flying on WN. But I've switched to Hertz or Avis when AA had a good deal and I could pencil it out, and cashed those miles in for flights.

I've had six digit lifetime mileage balances on US, with maybe ~25k lifetime miles flown, thanks to buying miles and partner promos. I've gotten five digit lifetime mileage balances on AA/UA/AV, with similar lack of flying them/milking promos (and sometimes buying miles or the CO debit card relationship... no airline credit cards). DL's going to be next.

Diversifying where your miles are isn't all that bad an idea (programs have strengths and weaknesses, and if a program devalues you're not keeping your eggs all in one basket), so promos are part of that for me.

zski1

Actually it's 28,000 miles for 8 partners. You get 8,000 bonus miles when you complete the appropriate transaction with the 8th partner, but you would have already earned 20,000 for the first 7.

-z

tenant13

Perhaps we shouldn't look at this promotion as a task that must be completed but rather as an opportunity to earn extra miles doing whatever we usually do. I happen to have lunch every day at AAdvantage Dining partner so earning 500 miles won't be an issue. And I have no loyalty to AT&T - switching to Sprint for 25k miles was always on my radar. Now it's even more tempting.

Having said that the requirement of earning miles instead of spending a certain amount seems fishy: you'd have to earn 417 miles with Sprint - I assume before the deadline. I'm not sure if earning those 417 miles is even possible before the promotions ends - wouldn't they be awarded way after the first billing? That could happen past the deadline. Same thing with Rocketmiles. I'll be traveling in January. I could book a hotel with them but the stay wouldn't be completed before 12/31 - and miles are only earned/posted (weeks) after that.

I've signed up for this but won't be jumping through hoops.

DrRodneyMcKay

According to the terms:

In short, the activities have to be *completed* by the 31st, but the miles don't have to post by then - in fact, it sounds like they're going to post by April (which is a tad late in my opinion, but what's new?) I'm guessing a rocketmiles stay in January wouldn't count, but if you sign up for Sprint by the end of the year I'm guessing it would qualify.

tenant13

Thank you. I'll try to contact AA about Rocketmiles. Sprint looks like a go for me - their Global Roaming will come handy.

Freqflyer1234

Nice - thanks for sharing