Update On Backcountry Up To 19X AA Miles Promo

Last Friday, I wrote about a great promo going on with the American Airlines portal and an online retailer, Backcountry. There was a lot of interest about this portal promo since they were paying out 15 AA miles per dollar which would stack with the holiday shopping bonus of earning up to 5,000 AA miles (when spending $1,200).

Update On Backcountry Up To 19X AA Miles Promo

There was some concern about whether the portal payouts would go through when using a 20% off code on things like GoPro cameras. The code was located and automatically added to the cart but the language on the portal site reads like it will not work with codes that are not located on the portal page.

Using Discount Codes – BC20

I have always read that as codes that were located on the retailer pages and all of my portal shopping has proved that. This time was no different. I ordered two GoPro cameras with codes (actually, I ordered one, a family member ordered another since it was one code per customer) to check that with the code and ordered two Garmin watches without codes.

Miles Posted!

I got good news in an e-mail showing that the portal payouts had been earned and the 20,000 AA miles have already posted to my account! This does not include the 5,000 shopping bonus, but that should post in the next couple of weeks.

Resale Plan

My purchase/resale plans have already been half carried out. With the GoPros, I knew that I would at least be able to break even though the price was the same as Amazon. The reason for the breaking even was because of the inclusion of the GoPro LCD TouchPac (costs $65 normally) in the sale from Backcountry. That let me sell for a tiny profit of $15 per unit.

With the Garmins, they are on sale right now at all vendors so I will be holding on to them until the sale ends. A few days after the sale ends, I will list them. I have done this before and you would be surprised at the number of people who miss out on a sale and then are in a hurry to buy these before Christmas. 🙂 This way, I will at least break even, even after counting in the fees. Worst case and I sell them at a loss, I figure I will take a $25 loss on each (since I already have some buyers lined up in this scenario).

Total Mileage Haul And Out Of Pocket Cost

So, worst case, I should be out a total of $20. Best case, I will have made $30. Either way, I have earned 25,000 American Airline miles through these portal bonuses. Not bad! 

If Backcountry brings back this portal payout again, I highly recommend checking out your options as it is easy to purchase high dollar items that maintain resale value. At 15X mile payout, it is easy to rack up some serious miles this way. Should it come back, I will be buying more to get even more miles. If you got in on it last week, check your AA account to see if those miles have posted!