All airline credit cards each have their own set of benefits designed to make you, the cardholder, keep them after you have received the sign-up bonus. One of these benefits is on the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card (and the AAdvantage Aviator Red card) and it is important to take advantage of it before January 1.
Book AAdvantage Awards Now To Get 10% Back
This card will earn you a 10% rebate on redeemed miles
AAdvantage Devaluation Coming
There has already been a lot written about the upcoming American Airlines award chart devaluation in March. That has already been enough to make many of you book awards under the current award chart. While there are still several months to go (the date of devaluation is set for March 22, 2016), award availability will be drying up as more people book. Combine those reasons with the one below and now is the best time to book awards!
The 10% Rebate Benefit
The Citi Platinum AAdvantage Select card and the AAdvantage Aviator Red card both have a great benefit – get 10% of your miles back when booking AAdvantage awards, up to 10,000 miles per calendar year.
That means if you spend 100,000 miles this year on awards, you will earn the maximum of 10,000 miles back! In my experience, these miles post within a month, sometimes faster, so it may help you get enough miles to book another award after that.
The Math
The clock on this 10% mile rebate resets on January 1. So, the time to book these awards is now, before December 31. Once January 1 hits, you can book another 100,000 miles in awards and get another 10,000 miles back.
I would put the current value of AA miles around 1.7 cents per mile so that is like getting a rebate value of $170 back on 100,000 miles of redemptions. Not a bad benefit!
Don’t Have The Card? Still Time Left!
If you do not have the card, there is still time to apply and get it before the end of the year to take advantage of this! The current bonus is 50,000 miles, which is great to begin with. Just having the card will give you the ability to earn the rebate. If you want to know when your account is linked to the card, you can sign-in to your American Airlines account and it will show you on the account panel.
Find out if you have a card linked to your AA account
Here are the details of the card:
- Receive 50,000 AAdvantage miles after spending $3,000 in 3 months
- First checked bag free for you and up to four people traveling with you, and on the same reservation, on domestic American Airlines itineraries.
- Boarding privileges for you and up to four people traveling with you can board with Group 1.
- No foreign transaction fees on purchases
- Receive 25% off in-flight purchases on American Airlines flights
- $100 flight discount when you spend $30,000 in a year (starting from your annual fee date)
- Get 10% back, up to 10,000 miles when you redeem your miles throughout the calendar year
- Save 7,500 miles when you use your miles for a MileSAAver roundtrip award (reduced mileage awards)
- Application Link (not a referral link – if you would like to support the blog, you can find this card using the link at the top of this post. Thank you!)
Summary
This is a great benefit on a good card. If you move fast, you can take advantage of this benefit and earn back up to 10,000 miles this year. Of course, the amount will be less depending on the number of miles you have already redeemed and the amount you currently have to redeem.
Do the 10% post weeks after booking or weeks after travel?
If I book for 2016 summer travel this month, will I get 2015 10k credit?
It will post within a couple/few weeks after the booking, not reservation.
Ever since the merger started I thought that Barclay and Citi should each honor the rebate in miles instead of combined. Seems weird.
That is a good point – separate annual fees should each equal separate rebates.
I redeemed 60K to book a ticket before Dec 31 for travel next year, so got 6K back.
Then I redeemed 150K to book 2nd ticket also before Dec 31, for travel next year,
and got 4K more back. So, If I cancel my 1st ticket in 2016, would I be refunded 60K or 54K that time?
You’ll get the 60k refunded and then, mysteriously, some weeks later the 6k will disappear without even a line item in your aadvantage account. That’s what happened to me—I was hoping the 10% miles would survive but no such luck.
@Michael,
Thank you for your response, though in my case, I have the 2nd 150K redemption for which I got 4K only back, i.e. the remainder of 10K.
Could the 6K deducted be requested from them as the remainder of 10K which I would have got for my 150K redemption?
Chuk, in your case, with the 2nd redemption for 110k you are “owed” a mileage refund of 10k. So if they claw back the 6k it would be worth a call to question it.
Michael,
Thank you for the advice, I shall keep it in mind.