Yesterday, the United MileagePlus shopping portal bonus went live to the public and today it is the American Airlines AAdvantage portal. While not as many miles as the United bonus, this is still an excellent deal and one I will be taking advantage of as well!
5,000 AA Bonus Miles With Your Shopping
Now through November 26, you can earn up to an extra 5,000 AA miles when you start your online shopping through the AAdvantage shopping portal. Even though it is 1,000 miles less than the United offer, there are a few things working to make this offer even better (if you had to pick one for your spending and you need miles in either program):
- Runs longer – this lasts until 11:59PM on November 26 while the United one ends the 24th. Since the 26th is Thanksgiving and many online retailers will be launching their deals then as well as that Friday, this lets you get some even better deals
- More valuable – if you are collecting miles for premium cabin redemptions, AA miles are much more valuable since you need fewer to fly in premium cabins than what United charges. So, earning 1,000 fewer miles is not a big deal
- Harder to earn – United has the Ultimate Rewards program and their incredible bonuses for transfer to United while AA just has their own cards and SPG. That makes it a bit harder to earn AA miles and makes any method of earning them a good deal
With that out of the way, here are the spending and earning details of this offer:
- Spend $150, earn 450 bonus miles
- Spend $550, earn 2,000 bonus miles
- Spend $1,200, earn 5,000 bonus miles
That equates to a spending bonus of 4 miles per dollar at the highest threshold. That is pretty good and is on top of whatever bonus you earn with the various retailers as well.
Details and Terms (bolding mine):
- Promo runs from 11/10/15 through 11/26/15 at 11:59:59 pm ET
- You will earn a one-time bonus of up to 5,000 AAdvantage bonus miles on qualifying purchases, in addition to the standard AAdvantage miles earned from shopping online through AAdvantage eShopping mall.
- Bonus miles will be issued based on Member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period
- 450 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of at least $150
- 2,000 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of at least $550
- 5,000 bonus miles for qualifying purchases of $1,200 or more
- Returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases, and certain products are not included in the bonus miles eligibility calculation
Spending Plan
With gift cards being excluded, you may wonder how best to hit the total spending amounts. While I will not specifically say which items I will be picking up (not enough margin to go around!), I look for items that I know and know how much I can sell them for. With these sales going on, I can pick them up and flip them online or on Craigslist and at least make my money back if not get some profit.
I will be looking at stores where I can earn a minimum of 6 miles per dollar. If I hit the $1,200 threshold, that will translate to 7,200 bonus miles + the 5,000 tier bonus for a total of 12,200 AA miles. That is a one-way in the US and a big step towards other redemptions as well.
FYI the discount code is not posted on the AA Shopping website. Do you think it will still work?
“Please note these terms & conditions: Not eligible on purchases made with coupon or discount codes that are not found on this site.”
In me experience, as long as it is a code found on the retailer’s website, it will work. In this case, it adds the code automatically so you could, theoretically, purchase something without even knowing that a code was present.