garycal

Wow, sending 1099's for points puts them on the slippery slope for sending 1099s for miles. My (probably by now outdated) understanding is that if you spend personal after tax money and get a bonus for spending it (like frequent flier miles), it falls pretty clearly outside of taxable income, since you basically purchased a combination of a flight and RDM. If your employer bought your airline ticket and the miles benefit you personally, it is a bit dicier. Sending 1099s for TYPs regardless of whether the TYPs came from personal spend or employer spend (if true) tells me that Citibank doesn't agree with my understanding about personal spend resulting in points never being taxable. And this is why I need an accountant for my taxes.... Even simple things are complicated once you start in on the tax consequences.

tom911

You really have to wait and see what program changes UA announces for MMer next month. There's speculation on the UA forum that lifetime flyers, like me, may get dropped to a lower tier not giving 100% bonus miles. If that disappears, and my bonus miles only accrue at 25-50% at the lifetime level, AA may still have the better program offering 100% bonus miles at 2MM or a program identical to UA at 1MM. We should know within a month's time who has the better program.

cu08senior

Question on the PVG mileage runs. I live in NYC and am interested in doing a mileage run to PVG. however, the AA Special Offer of 2X miles on Economy is from LAX to PVG... I suppose won't work if I book a JFK - LAX - PVG - LAX - JFK?

Anyone know if any PVG runs from JFK would qualify, or what the pricing might be? etc etc.

Also if I booked a round trip to LAX and then a separate roundtrip to PVG from LAX within that initial trip, is that a nested trip? and illegal by AA standards?

Thanks!

futaris

https://www.points.com/pdccontent/pa...Bonus_AugSept/

Sounds ok.

100,000 PC = 8,700 AA + 15% bonus = 10005 AA.
23,000 Aeroplan = 8,700 AA + 15% bonus = 10005 AA.
19,806 Virgin America Elevate = 8,700 AA + 15% bonus = 10005 AA.

NB, 20,000 SPG = 30,000 Aeroplan at the moment.

Amex Membership Rewards (US) also has the 15% bonus.

If you were close to 1MM or 2MM, then you could:

Buy 50k AA at 1000 USD. (2c / mile)
Buy 20k SPG at 700 USD, get 25k AA (max per year) (2.8c / mile)
Buy 100k PC at 600 USD, get 10k AA (do multiples) (6c / mile)

Ritz

Huh? What am I missing here, lol..

PC is what? Not Priority Club, right?

Happy

100,000 PC assuming these are Priority Club points you talk about - that can get you 2 free nights at IC that could easily cost you $400 a night, or 4 nights at HI Notre Dame at Paris that routinely sells for 250 euro a night - it is a HUGE hair cut to exchange for 10K AA miles.

Any indirect exchange through Point.com is huge loss of value as a general rule of thumb.

Happy

SPG costs $65 annual fee versus Citi AA $85 annual fee.

Happy

Only on TYPs from banking products (i.e. earned from checking account, saving account etc), not on credit card product. Bonuses earned from banking products are considered interest payment, bonuses earned from credit card products are consider rebates - different tax treatments on the 2.

The top 2 tiers of TYP cards have 0 forex fee - a big saving over AA card if you ever travel aboard. However annual fee is high and authorized user is not free.

Happy

Before you jump the gun, TYPs from credit card are not taxable, only from banking products are taxable. In fact, the AA miles from banking products are taxable also in case you have no idea.

futaris

Yep, it is. But you can get PC points fairly cheaply. If you've exhausted your options for buying miles directly from aa and SPG, then it's probably one of the next best options in cost per mile (without flying).

Happy

Still at 0.006 per pt if one goes the C+P route. So it still costs $600 for 10K AA miles. Are you kidding me, this is the next best option?

Two transcon could earn you 10K AA miles with LESS cost if you can get the promo fares while save your 100K PC pts.

MIA-LAX was like sub $200 just a few days ago when that fare was available for post Labor Day week.

And for that matter, you can save the flying after Dec 1 or better, after Jan so the flying can go into part of the requal.

Unless it is very very close to the 2MM mark, even so, one still needs to calculate the true costs versus FUTURE benefits to see if it is worthwhile so one would not be swept into such a frenzy...

Seriously, this is probably the worst-kept secret for over a year at least why are people not better prepared with so much lead time?

tom911

JonNYC has documented the discussion on this goes way back to 2004. He forecast then (correctly) that AA would be eventually moving to a model that would be BIS miles and carry over existing miles, which is exactly what we're seeing. Although he posts on another forum now, he did consistently post here over the years that change was coming.

Now, I can see someone just popping in here the last few months might be out of the loop, but if you've been around a few years the topic has come up regularly.

Happy

RIGHT!

And people in this forum constantly poo pooed the "rumor" every year while they had so much lead time to diligently work on it if they really wanted to attain that. That was how we worked on our LT GLDs, one in 2009 and one in Jan 2011. I even asked Jon via PM if we should transfer SPG pts to make it happen before 2011. At the end his comments made me made a decision to preserve our SPG pts because the existing miles would count. Now the crossing in Jan 2011 turned out to be a blessing because husband's 8 stickers can exchange to 35K miles - far more useful than mine earned 2009.

rob_flies_ua

I believe that's 100k PC => 20k AA.

scubadu

You do know that the special offer for LAX to PVG expires 8/31, today, correct?

Regards