Thursday, December 27, 2007

American Airlines AAdvantage Miles Program Review

Although almost all the big airline miles programs are very east to accrue miles with, American Airlines AAdvantage miles program is arguably the easiest miles program to actually be able to redeem miles for tickets.
The normal rewards are as follows: (Economy/ Business/First Class)
Domestic North America 25,000/ 45,000 /60,000
From North America to Europe 40,000/ 60,000/ 100,000
From North America to Asia/Mid East 75,000 /135,000 /180,000
For a more comprehensive chart click Here to see the chart from the American Airlines website

How To Earn Miles:
You can earn miles either by flying or by spending on the AAdvantage credit cards by citi.
As of now there are two Citi AAdvantage cards that give signup bonus miles after first purchase.
The American AAdvantage Citibank Consumer Card and
The American AAdvantage Citibank Business Card. Don't know how to get a business card? Find out Here
Right now the consumer card gives a 25,000 mile bonus after you spend $750 and the business card give a 25,000 mile bonus after you spend $750.
The Annual fee is $75/yr on the consumer card and $85/yr on the business card, but the fee is waived for the first year.
Alternately, if you don't want to spend $750, you can get 20,000 miles after first purchase on both the AAdvantage Consumer Card and the AAdvantage Business Card.
Currently there seems to be no limit as to how many times you can apply for these cards and be eligible for the bonus, nor does there seem to be any limit on how many of the same card you can have at once! (I have 5 of each).
You can apply for both the consumer and business card on the same day, but you should wait at least 60 days before you reapply for a second set of the cards.
Of course if you don't have an AAdvantage account either they will automatically give you one with the card or you can sign up here before you apply for the credit cards.
-Also, be sure to always put you're AAdvantage number on the application so that the miles will get credited to the same account.
If you sign up for the two AAdvantage cards and the two Starwoods Cards that will give you 75,000 miles right off the bat!! And you can do this every two months!!! You can be flying around the world in no time at no cost to you!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

can i set up 1 aa account (points)for multiple credit card (different credit card holders)?

David said...

If you mean can you apply for a bunch of cards using the same AAdvantage #, the answer is yes. You can put on both yours and your wife's application the same AAdvantage #, however they might catch it, but the chances are slim. Thats what I've been doing for a while.
Remember that the Starwoods cards give an additional 10,000 points each (consumer and business) and you get the points after first purchase! And when transfered to AAdvantage in 20,000 point increments, they get you 25,000 miles, that along with the two AA cards equals 75,000 miles-enough for a ticket.