Got an offer today (3/1/2011...good through 3/31/2011) by email from American AAdvantage. Transfer up to 25K miles to a friend or relative and get up to 25% bonus miles credited to the donor's account.

Does anyone know if I can "give" 25K miles from my account to my husband, and he can "give" me 25K miles to me so that we both end up splitting the 12,500 mile bonus? I can't see any exclusion that addresses this.

Share Miles And Earn Up To 25% Bonus Miles
Have Miles and Want to Share?

Do you have a friend or family member who could use your extra American Airlines AAdvantage� miles? Transfer some of your miles into their account so they can book a trip sooner.

Here's what you can do:
Help top off a friend's account to give them enough miles to redeem for their own award trip or join you for a trip
Give a friend the extra miles needed to book an award ticket in First Class or Business Class rather than Economy Class
Need More Miles to Travel?

Do you need a few more miles to reach a travel award and know someone who has extra? They can transfer their miles to your account, and you'll be booking your trip in no time.

Here are some ideas:
See if a family member has a few extra miles in their account
Do you know a frequent traveler friend with miles to spare?
Tell others you would love to receive miles as a gift
Share miles between now and March 31, 2011,
and earn up to 25%* bonus miles!

shareAAmiles� Promotional Terms and Conditions
Transactions are nonreversible and nonrefundable. Please allow 3 business days for transferred miles to post to the designated AAdvantage account. Members must transfer 1,000-25,000 miles in a single transaction through the shareAAmiles� program beginning 12:00 am CST March 1, 2011, until 11:59 pm CDT March 31, 2011, to be eligible for the bonus miles. Members who transfer between 1,000 and 15,000 miles will earn 20% bonus miles. Members who transfer between 16,000 and 25,000 will earn 25% bonus miles. The member who transfers the miles will receive the bonus miles. Bonus miles will be posted 6-8 weeks after the conclusion of promotion. Until March 31, 2011, members may transfer up to 100,000 miles and receive up to 100,000 miles account, per calendar year; annual limits are increased from 60,000 miles for transferring and 15,000 miles for receiving transferred miles. Bonus miles earned do not count toward the annual limit.

Isn't there a pretty substantial fee to transfer miles?

Damn right!

You can do that. But the problem is that you're paying hard cash as part of the promo. To transfer 25,000 miles, the cost is $280 ($250 plus $30 transaction fee). The 6,250 miles you are receiving, therefore, comes at a cost of nearly 4.5 cpm - a horrible deal.

Do transferred miles count toward million miler status?

Yes, they do. But they are VERY expensive.

Yeah.... leave buying/transfering miles at a small amount to get you a quantity you need for an award. I.E. 24k miles in account and need 1k more for an emergency trip due to family death. About the only time I would. Otherwise go to dinner with rewardsnetwork or wait until you've had to do some shopping to get the extra miles to buy that ticket.

I got this email today and wondered if anyone would bite on it. Awful value unless you really need miles badly.

EDITED!

True.

But if I were to pay to $280 to receive 25K miles from my wife, which counts towards LT status, it is a much better return, IMHO.

Help me understand this. If you can buy "new miles" from AA for 2.5 cpm (and even better when there's a promotion), which also count towards LT status, why should you pay 4.5 cpm to get the "new miles" for transferring miles you or your wife already own?

To buy new 25K AA miles: $625 plus taxes
To transfer 25K AA miles: $250 plus tax (plus DW gets some bonus miles)

Bad edit.

It should have been:



ps. This edit is very important because IIRC, AA is the only FFP doing that. Everything counts, that is.

Yes, but you're getting only 6,250 new miles. You (or your spouse) already own the 25,000 that are being transferred. I'm probably dense, but if I were to pay for miles (which I won't), I'd prefer to pay $625 for 25,000 miles (at 2.5 cpm) than $250 for 6,250 (at 4.5 cpm).