vinhsynd

I'm interested in applying for the Citi Platinum Card, there are still some links around offering the 50k signup bonus.
I can meet the spend requirement through daily expenses alone without issue.

However, AA is having a promotion currently.
I can buy 76k miles and get 27k miles as a bonus plus 15% off the cost of the 76k miles.
So for $2068 pretax I get 103k miles.

Would it be a good idea to buy these miles as part of my minimum spend on the Platinum Card and divert my daily spend to a different card?

The math I have in my head right now is:

Platinum Bonus: $3000/50000pts = $0.06/pt + $0.02 from not using the double cash card = $0.08/pt
AA Promotion for Citi Min Spend + DoubleCash daily expenses= ($3000+2068)-(0.02*2068)/(50000+103000+(2068*2))pts =$0.03

Does this sound right?

sdsearch

IIRC, AA outsources the buying of miles to points.com. If so, they will not count as AA purchases on an AA card.

If so, that would mean that it doesn't matter much whether you do your AA miles buying with your AA card and other stuff with DoubleCash or vice versa, as long as you meet the minimum (unreturned) purchases of $3000 with about 3 months on the AA card, you'll actually earn 53000 miles (3000 for $3000 in non-AA purchases, plus 50000 signup bonus for the same $3000 in purchases).

Now, if doing that one miles purchase helps you makes sure you get the $3000 in minimum spend done in time, I don't see how it could hurt. Just make sure you can pay each credit card bill off in full before the date due, since paying interest on a miles-earning card greatly diminishes the value of the miles you earn.

But other than that, I don't see how applying for the AA Plat card and buying AA miles is related.

You should do the math to make sure that the ways you'll use that 103k miles will be greater than $2068+tax. That's still a fairly high cost to 103k miles, since it's 2c a mile and many people don't get much more than 2c a mile value out of their redemptions on average. Don't fool yourself by mixing how much buying the miles cost with how much you'll get from the card, since (assuming you meet the minimum spend in time), you''ll get that 53000 miles from the card whether you buy these miles or not. So again, the value of buying the miles should be evaluated on its own, not in combination with the card.

mia

This changed late last year:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...nsactions.html

pstravels

Unless you need to use these very immediately...this is a bad idea. You have much better ways to obtain this number of points.