There’s still plenty of time to earn up to 50,000 American Airlines miles before December 31. Similar to the former US Airways Grand Slam challenge, you can earn bonus of miles each time you engage with one of AA’s partners and complete a qualifying transaction. The number of miles you earn will increase significantly as you engage with more and more partners. For example, the first partner earns only 500 bonus miles, but the tenth partner earns 12,000 bonus miles. Altogether, engaging with 10 partners earns a total of 50,000 bonus miles.
Disappointingly, there are only ten partners participating in this promotion. You probably don’t want to do business with all of them, so maximizing the offer is likely to be challenging unless you think creatively or are willing to adjust your normal spending habits. Here are the different partners and the specific qualifying activities with each. You must register before making a qualifying transaction or it won’t count!
- Miles for Opinions: earn at least 300 AAdvantage miles
- Hilton: earn at least 1,000 AAdvantage
- Rocketmiles: earn at least 5,000 AAdvantage miles
- Avis-Budget Group: earn at least 1,500 AAdvantage miles
- 1-800 Flowers: earn at least 2,000 AAdvantage miles
- AAdvantage eShopping: earn at least 3,000 AAdvantage miles
- AAdvantage Dining Program: earn at least 500 AAdvantage miles
- LifeLock: earn at least 7,000 AAdvantage miles
- Vinesse: earn at least 500 AAdvantage
- Sprint: earn at least 417 AAdvantage miles
A key point is that you’re still earning miles through the normal partnership arrangements. So to qualify, you need to earn 1,000 AAdvantage miles through purchases at Hilton, for example. That means you keep that first 1,000 miles and you earn additional bonus miles through this limited-time offer (the exact amount depends on the total number of partners you qualify with).
Right off the top, I think it would be easy to participate in AAdvantage eShopping, Hilton, Avis, AAdvantage Dining Program, and Miles for Opinions. That gets you five partners and a total of 9,000 bonus miles. If you also shop with Rocketmiles and 1-800-Flowers, then you could get another 11,000 bonus miles for a total of 20,000. Now we’re getting close to a round-trip domestic ticket!
I don’t know about you, but I’m not likely to ever buy from Vinesse, LifeLock, or Sprint.
Whatever your thoughts, this is a good way to earn a few extra miles and top off the balance for your next award. And end-of-year promotions are a always a good way to keep old miles from expiring!
