where would I get the most aa or ual miles for depositing $20,000 in a checking or money market fund for 6 months?

I would say AA, since UA doesnt have a MMF attached to it. On AA website it shows how you can get into the AA Money Market Fund and earn FF miles per amount that you have invested monthly.

If you are going to go that route, do it via opening an accout at TD Waterhouse. You get miles for opening an account, then more for having them automatically using an AA money market account for your cash. Terrible return, however.

Be sure to take a look at all of the other brokerage and bank offers listed on the Finance page of my web site below. Also consider just buying US Savings Bonds as described on that page.

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

Both Bank Direct www.bankdirect.com and Guaranty Bank www.guarantygroup.com offer 1 AA mile per $10 per month in free checking accounts. They pay about .5 % interest also. Miles post within a couple days the statement date. I have an account with each.

I know that nobody asked my opinion, but my UAL acct has less than 100 miles left and my AA acct has less than 2000 miles left, compared to healthy 6figure balances with NWA & DL. I just don't have as good a feeling about UA & AA as I do about NWA & DL. It's your money and your miles!

Looks like the best strategy with these is to open the account, make the minimum deposit, and then get out the minute the sign-up bonuses hit your AA account. Those returns are awful, even factoring a little bit of value for the ongoing miles, and you give up at some liquidity to avoid nasty fees.

Y0ou need to factor into your decision that, unlike interest, miles are not taxable.

Also, do a search here, in SPAM and in AA, for BankDirect threads. You can pick up additional bonus miles if you are referred and if you make an electronic trasfer.

Make sure you carefully read all of the account disclosures for both of these banks. As I recall is would pretty easy to get yourself in a situation where you are paying some pretty hefty fees. Fory example, I believe both require you to keep the account open for 6 months or be subject to a fee.

There also is the Ameritrade deal. But check if there are any fees for closing the account, and also if you could put the money in a money market account there.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/006911.html

There are fees for closing, and there is no money market account or means of writing a check on the account. You have to ask them to send you a check for any money in the account.


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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

Personally, if I had $20K free to invest, I would throw half of the money into Ameritrade for 10K starwood points and use a credit card to purchase US savings bonds with the other $10K. If you use a Starwood Amex card to purchase the bonds, you will get 20,000 Starwood points with these two transactions (10K with Ameritrade and 10K with your Starwood Amex). This is in addition to any sign-up bonuses (currently 4k) you get for getting the Starwood card (free in the first year). If you look at the www.spg.com site, you will see that 20,000 Starpoints equals 25,000 miles in most airline programs (except United). And many here would argue that Starpoints are more valuable when used within the Starwood hotel program.

All this assumes you (1) don't have liquidity needs within six months, since you can't redeem the savings bonds until after one year, and (2) want to be invested in the capital markets since Ameritrade offers a pretty lousy interest rate on cash balances.

With respect to investing, if the $20K represents your current total savings, then a more diverse asset allocation would be more appropriate (i.e., XX% savings bonds, XX% ameritrade/tdwaterhouse/another broker, XX% rainy day money market fund). A good option for a cash account would be ING Direct. A lot of folks will offer to refer you to ING. You will get a $25 account sign up bonus if you use their referral. However, if you go directly to the following link:

https://banking.ingdirect.com/saving...p?p=%99WSs%A8u

you will get a $50 sign up bonus. The usual 6 month holding period applies, but there is NO minimum deposit as far as I recall.

Another good cash account option would be Netbank, which should still have a promotion with Priority Club (Holiday Inn) that offers up to 10000 points (transferable into 2500 airline miles in A LOT of different programs) for a minimu $500 deposit and a six month holding period). Check pgary's excellent site for the latest on this promo.

What's great about ING and Netbank is that they offer some of the highest interest rates around. 2.2% for ING currently for a regular savings account. They don't offer paper statements though.

Finally, here's the link for the ameritrade/starwood promo

http://www.ameritrade.com/spg/

The link I had posted has some contradictory information on both of these points. It is best to ask Ameritrade in advance about their policies.