There’s a positive update regarding the SimplyMiles promotion that I first wrote about over the weekend, which caused me to (attempt to?) purchase millions of miles. This was an opportunity to buy AAdvantage miles for as little as 0.42 cents each, which is an astonishingly good value, all while donating to a great cause.
Continue reading: Amazing AAdvantage SimplyMiles Promotion Being Honored (Miles Posting)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Congrats to all those who got in on it! My account wasn't targeted before time ran out but I am super excited (and jealous!) For all of you who got it!
I made three purchases (Winc, Best Buy, Teleflora) since I didn't have the conservation donation offer. I don't have any email confirmations nor does it show in miles earned page. 🙁
This is normal, i haven’t seen anyone that has anything showing on the SM site.
And I thought it was the deal of the year when I brought 200k AAmiles at 1.33 with double 35% error last month..
Only brought 1k worth this time, wish I brought more
That's great, Ben.
Question for you: am I correct in thinking that a similar deal next year would yield EXP status with a mere $834 donation? (200k loyalty points)
Thanks, great news!
Wondering what is meant by "activated the SimplyMiles 5X promotion"
I dont recall expliciting activating anything specific for "5X", except for seeing the banner was present on website when I clicked the link to make the donation on Monday.
Yes, just like hitting the Powerball twice in a row would net you a lot of money. Enjoy it if you got it because it ain’t happening again.
Based on your comments - I am guessing you purchased $10K on 3 Credit cards = $30K for 7,200,000 AA RDM. Big investment - but lots of miles. Will take several years to use.
I really doubt this would be offered next year - for ever one to get 200,000 LP (earn EXP) for a mere $833.
Wow, what a day. Just got Oneworld Sapphire via the Finnair miles sale . Thanks Ben!
Perhaps a lucky winner can sublet Ben’s QSuites residence if he holds an OMAAdvantageT sweepstakes giveaway next year.
Really curious what percentage of AAdvantage miles (about to be) in circulation came about from this SimplyMiles offer
Nice! I purchased on Monday night at 10pm (wife wasn’t happy) after conservation international finally popped into my offers. Of course now I wish I had bought more.
Is the wife happy now?
Still haven't told my wife yet. This being honored makes it lots easier. Haha.
Congrats to whoever got in on the donation deal. Wish I could do it too, just to have an even the playground. Wanted to pull the trigger but only had 83 offers in my account.
I got an instant confirmation from Wine.com and CI, but still nothing from AA or SM. I’m feeling confident. Now, to get them to ship me my wine!
Congrats, Lucky! You should change the name of this site from OMAAT to MMMAAT (Millions More Miles at a Time).
Does this now make the Finnair deal more or less valuable? If we'll be flying around in BUS/FIR the next few years, do we care about getting One world Emerald status? And/or getting the Singapore '250k to Gold status' look better now so we can have Gold in star alliance if we're not flying around in Bus with Oneworld??
Fran,
Ahh okay. I just checked the rules again and bonuses are indeed explicitly excluded. It's still a pretty good shortcut if normal earn rates are maintained. A donation at 40x would yield a lot more loyalty points than any other method.
Yet another reason to jump ship from AA and One World. Thousands of people are now sitting on years worth of miles to burn. Availability will dry up. Devaluations will accelerate. And now everyone and their mother-in-law is either Exec Plat or Sapphire.
And to think, 7M miles in Ben's account means he gets a lifetime of Turkey Pastrami sandwiches to boot.
For a butt in seat kinda guy like me I really wonder where this leads. For every action is a reaction and I fully expect there to be negative fallouts from this for everyone. Be careful what you wish for?
100% agreed and well said. The amount of miles that were created for people who will maximize them will lead to issues.
Hahah I’ll wait to the miles hit before I confirm. Something says she’ll still be reasonably unexcited
I did double down for an extra bit so should be sorted for a while.
I’m on 14k/15k on aa spend and 1871/2000 miles on the second promotion to regain lowly platinum. Might not matter now I guess
My miles will be rarely spent on American. Don’t think there’s enough bought that will hurt Qatar, JAL Cathay Qantas etc etc etc.
American sells biz class international for like $5-6-7k return for business travelers. This is a great way for them to sell the leftover seats without annoying business travelers. As with the whole points game it’s a cheap way to sell empty seats.
Usually most people are upset when other people get something good that they didn’t get. Refreshing and nice to see your comment Elizabeth!
Is it me or am I the only who who is thinking how difficult it is going to be to redeem for miles now that everyone has millions of them lol
What a shame for anyone outside of the US.
It’s not that US residents get the best deals on CC signups…
#rant
The question we all would like to know. The elefant in the room. How many miles did you get? 🙂
@ Stuart
Why do you presume that "thousands" of people would be able to afford to spend thousands of dollars on this promotion to attain millions of points?
Why do you presume that the cap on this offer was high enough to let such an outcome happen?
For perspective, nearly four billion Qantas points have been issued to reward folks taking up insurance products alone according to an email received from QF.
IAG estimated that it would issue 120 billion Avios in one year in 2019 and the combined membership of BA/ Iberia etc is a lot smaller than the US big airline loyalty programs (source: IAG industry briefing documents).
A mid year article in AFF estimated 350 billion QF points in circulation based on estimates from revenue of selling points to third parties (source: QF financials).
For reference, Amex offers are capped.
Whoever bank rolled the AA points in this promo may have been seeking some sort of tax offset or to claim that they are supporting environment/ sustainable development action.
FWIW my Mastercard was not eligible (overseas registered), but I'm absolutely delighted for those who were able to seize this opportunity and am gladly cheering from the sidelines.
Qantas is virtually impossible to get award seats out of the US at any time…why you see so few reviews on the blogs. Qatar is hit and miss but I fully expect will tighten up redemptions and opt for more discounted business fares. When Japan (and Asia) actually opens you can forget finding anything for redemptions as the demand will be through the roof. BA will have limited seats but with surcharges that virtually negates the whole concept of redemptions. Cathay will be like JAL, once you can feasibly use them it will be two years before you can find any attractive redemption given the pent up demand. People like Ben will find a way to use these points, sure, because they have complete flexibility and last minute abilities to grab things. But what he sells to “dear” readers is not feasible in the real world for the most of us. For those who followed him down this path of stockpiling miles through this offer it will be a huge disappointment in realizing that the value was based on best case scenario of being really flexible and having a job as a blogger.
AA has billions of outstanding millions held by customers. I can’t imagine a promotion that was always “limited supply” would move the needle much. However, I suspect a higher fraction of these miles will be redeemed for premium flights (especially with partners), so maybe those will be a bit more difficult to come by for a while.
Anyone who bot a sizable chunk of miles probably also has a ton of other miles to carry them through to when AA partner awards become easier to obtain - probably late 2023. For me, i feel better about the AA miles i just burned on jal and qatar 1st class in the hopes my 4M simplymiles do actually post. I’m getting in before all the billions of simplymiles post!
Fair points.
However if you have some flexibility you can make this work. I have a family of five and In Dec 2019 we flew QF first class to sydney from lax over two nights. The week before Christmas. I’ve also taken my two older kids in first class on Cathay ord hkg then biz to Melbourne. Just two examples. Flights do pop up. I had five seats on American in biz lax to syd for dec 2020 too (had to cancel them).
I don’t see all of the JAL drying up because of this.
Fair points.
However if you have some flexibility you can make this work. I have a family of five and In Dec 2019 we flew QF first class to sydney from lax over two nights. The week before Christmas. I’ve also taken my two older kids in first class on Cathay ord hkg then biz to Melbourne. Just two examples. Flights do pop up. I had five seats on American in biz lax to syd for dec 2020 too (had to cancel them).
I don’t see all of the JAL drying up because of this.
There will be PLENTY of uses for these miles. Even if I spend 50k miles to Cancun that’s $200
I'm happy for those who got the deal. However, we all have seen negative consequences of taking too much advantage of certain deals, loopholes in loyalty programs, etc. How much have things changed in the past decade due to publicly available information being promoted too much? Not sure where it all is going.
@platt You make valid points, however I would imagine a significant number of miles on the books with those airlines are the majority of occasional travelers who have accumulated a few thousand points each year.
I can only assume given the coverage on this deal that, yes, thousands of people did take advantage of it. More importantly these are thousands of people who regularly play the miles game and will impact availability to top destinations very soon. Add in the increased number of exec plats now via all the promotions and I can’t imagine it will not impact.
Also, as I understand it, there is no tax benefit for you in giving to charitable organizations if you are receiving something of equal or more value in return. But I could be wrong.
I guess the best advice now is to get any speculative bookings in over the next few days by those who didn’t get in on the deal before these miles hit the accounts of those who did.
Has anyone been able to contact SimpliMiles through their contact page? I had a question about my transaction, but every time I try to submit through their form, I get an "Access Denied You don't have permission to access http://www.simplymiles.com/contac t" on this server. Reference #18.b6ce5640.1639846717.1e50357a"
Has anyone been able to contact SimpliMiles through their contact page? I had a question about my transaction, but every time I try to submit through their form, I get an "Access Denied You don't have permission to access http://www.simplymiles.com/contac t" on this server. Reference #18.b6ce5640.1639846717.1e50357a"
Also, I should add that I am not spitballing my comment on where a significant portion of the miles banked with airlines sit. I worked for Mileage Plus out of college for two years. I can assure you that 98% of the accounts I had to view were mostly dormant and holding around 30k miles. And they keep multiplying in numbers every year. The vast majority of premium redemptions are from the 2% of flyers who can amass significant totals in their accounts. And many of these people read these blogs with a fair share probably grabbing this deal. I’d love to know how many miles were actually bought before they shut it down.
Ben probably wont use it for a lifetime of "Turkey Pastrami" redemptions, my guess will be Q-suites galore with sprinklings of some Cathay/Japan/Qantas mixed in.
Since your philosophy is use miles quickly, rather than hoard, what will be your approach to a huge pig-in-python infusion of miles like this….while also spending enough to keep OneWorld status and also making sure there is diversity of airlines featured on OMAAT?
Any comment on the Southwest CEO testing positive for COVID the day after testifying that masks don't do much on planes? Or how some airlines failed to explain their flight disruptions despite receiving $54 billion in aid?
@ Stuart
There are 100 millions of FF members, estimates of over 100 million for each of the US majors with 115 million for AAdvantage (Forbes 2 April 2021) alone.
If we assume that 2% (your postulated datapoint) are capable of premium redemptions you get over 2 million savvy members in the game.
Even if a couple of thousand of those donated an average off USD500 on this promotion, the outlay is still a very small drop in the loyalty ocean (120,000 points apiece, or 240 million points).
Even if we up the math to USD1,000 donations and 240,000 point haul, this is no different to a savvy member churning a couple of credit cards, which seem to be continually available within the US market. Remember credit cards are buying up airline airline points in their billions per year.
To follow that logic - if you want to cross the Pacific in premium you don't have to rely on AAdvantage. Arguably, you should be transferring to QF from a "generic" credit card, a program which greatly favours its own members for access to its award inventory (You'll find significantly more availability through your QF account than through your AA account).
In fact, you wouldn't bother expending cash on the AA promo - you'd go the credit card route and redeploy the cash for incidentals (such as a carrier charges).
Now a handful of individuals have made significant donations under the promotion - so what - each person is still only redeeming a few awards seat over the period of time it takes to expend their points haul. These folk were already in the game.
Competent and experienced loyalty members are not points limited anyway, or there shouldn't be, especially in a market such as the US where there are excellent credit card bonuses and many ways to earn points through retail and other partners.
Now if Mastercard has bankrolled this promotion, it's cost them the purchase price of the AA points. Their 2020 budget for charitable donations was USD80 million. So even if they "blew" 500 million points at one cent per point, their expenditure (before any applicable charitable tax donations) would be USD500k, or a fraction of a percent (0.625%) of their annual budget for charitable donations.
We don't know if these figures are representative, but they lend perspective.
Incidentally, LL reported (5 March 2021) that the Finnair promo November 2020 attracted 3,000 buyers - the hook here was STATUS as well as pionts - different beast - people go mental for status!
Again, valid points. But let's also assume that these thousands propagate to tens of thousands and more. Why? Because within each account are additional family members and friends who we all book for.
We all know not to sit on points. So imagine these thousands of people booking flights for all of their adjunct people. Add to that the covid reduction in flights and thus premium cabins. Further, the need and desire of everyone smartly burning fast through these miles before more devaluations.
Let's assume that Ben will be using these 7M points very fast, as he should (if not his investment will diminish). With that I imagine he is already planning trips with lots of family and friends to get through them as quickly as possible. Suddenly one person becomes ten.
I am not saying this will be long term, but I do very much see this becoming an issue for the spring and summer peak travel times. Add to that all of us that moved miles over from Citi Prestige during the promo. A perfect storm of top tier flyers sitting on a boat load of miles and wanting to get them used quickly.
I've booked today my speculative flights in anticipation of seats drying up. The other choice is to wait out the wave, but by then we could see AA and others become Delta and our suddenly needing 350K miles for a one way to London.
I won't even go to the next topic. Ok, I will. That is the question of whether governments will begin to look at these offers and start contemplating a tax if they really take off. Ben just amassed the potential of over $300K worth of flights for $30K. That is not a gain that would be missed if it starts happening on a regular basis. Personally, not something I would brag about on an easily found blog.
Can't see how your concern is relevant to deals being honored but I'll feed you.
Unless there is proof Gary Kelly got Covid from flying, it doesn't mean anything.
But using your broken logic, what is your comment on Gary getting Covid from the Senate, which voted killed the vaccine mandate?
Airlines never failed to explain about flight disruptions or aid money. Disruptions happens, and aid money is used for payroll and something else to ensure the airlines can survive long term. (yes executives need big bonus to run an airline)
It's just not the answer you wanted to hear.
Also using your broken logic, how some Americans failed to pay rent despite receiving $800+ billion in stimulus checks and collecting unemployment knowing they can't be evicted. but they bought brand new TVs or iPhones.
Any comments?
he will be charging money to book tickets for people in biz class. he is not stupid to put 30k for those miles.
@ Stuart
Interesting, but you are still making many assumptions about the extent of one promotion.
For perspective - recently, I have been working the options for travel in the latter half of 2022 on reward seats for myself and wife. I have had absolutely no problems crafting the desired itineraries in business / first. In fact, I'm spoilt for choice and tempted to change itineraries to optimise first over business and redemption value per point.
But significantly, I am not reliant on one FF program. Which is why I would limit buying into a promo such as the one cited. Yes, I'd have snapped up maybe USD1,000 to USD2,000 worth, but no more than that, because I know that the value of a mixed portfolio compels a balanced approach.
And, significantly, I'm probably reasonably competent at finding award space and working the options (some would be better and others worse at finding award seats).
If I have to get from Australia to Europe on JAL first via Tokyo to London instead of BA first, I really don't care. If I default to Swiss business class via ZRH, I really don't care. At the moment I'm already booked on multiple options to hedge preferred dates and possible COVID issues (Swiss in business using UA points via Tokyo, Emirates in first using QF points and SQ in first using SQ points via Singapore and Dubai).
If I have to get from USA to Australia using Alaska points on Fiji airlines business class on an A350 rather than QF points in QF first on the A380, I don't care. They are all compelling options. Currently, there is plenty of award space on some options and airlines are still just populating their inventories as COVID challenges aviation.
Also, from past experience I know that if the BA flights don't show now, they will be released in a batch in due course - and, significantly, I'll have just as much chance at those seats as somebody with 10 million AA points as my 660,000 million QF points - it;'s a question of timing, not how many points you have.
Also, I know that Emirates will release award space 7-10 days before departure - I can swap out business awards on say Swiss for EK First later, if I want to. I have the back up of using my Virgin Velocity points on Etihad if I divert home through Athens via Abu Dhabi instead Rome via Dubai and Singapore (notwithstanding the carrier charges).
The point is - with a powerful mixed portfolio, I don't have any reason to worry about individual promotions and the competition. It's going to work out.
Incidentally, most of my points portfolio were accrued through daily spend and business spend and credit cards.
I just "sweet talked" a 200,000 point "discretionary" loyalty bonus from Amex - my wife just signed up for an Amex card with a 240,000 point bonus - I just earned 100,000 QF points from a BP fuel deal on a USD700 spend - we buy our weekly groceries with an average well above 30 (Virgin or QF) points per USD, we buy wine at 85 points per USD, etc, etc.
A highly advanced and competent FFlyer is not going to spend much even on an exceptional promo, their point totals and portfolio should already be in good shape and ease to restock - @Lucky is the extreme case: perpetually travelling, earning income from such.
Finally, I also know that the whole FF system is dynamic. You are assuming (and I would argue incorrectly) that the supply of award seats is fixed in the system. But it is not. The wastage has to to be managed. The third parties who buy the points need to be assured that their own customers value their points (i.e. have a chance at redeeming them).
FWIW we have resisted the temptation of moving credit points to airline loyalty accounts despite promos - the SQ was tempting since it would accrue status as well (but then I ma having horrendous problems with SQ customer service at the moment, so wouldn't give them a single extra point). There'll always be another promo, especially as the industry emerges from COVID (hopefully soon).
Point devaluation is an issue - which is why I would be cautious buying up millions of points in one hit - it isn't going to work for the vast majority of folk!
I have my own personal opinion about how loyalty members should respond to savage devaluations - the "next topic" for another time.
Few governments have tackled the issue of taxation on points. The airlines, for now, have outsmarted them.
Ironically, the space to watch could be government attempts to regulate crypto...;)
FWIW, I hear your concerns - I, too, bemoan the eroding value in airline loyalty, especially as the parent airlines make significant profits (aka 35%) at our expense. That said, the savvy member can still find outsize value - and, ironically, from not having to spend any cash on buying miles / points...;)
Be well and travel safe. Love your perspective.
AA just keeps up'ing the number of miles needed for a ticket. Try to find a RT domestic F transcon for 50K miles, or a RT J to Europe for 110K miles, or Australia RT J on AA for 160K.
Website shows 2 programs for me activated, no miles earned. Same for everybody? My WINC bottles arrived already.
I can see I got all bonus miles in my SimpleMiles account now, but the miles haven't posted at aa.com yet.
My miles posted at simply miles. Yessssss. Thanks lucky. Of course I wish I’d bought more lolll.
But 7 figures plus looks good
I see 720k points on my Simply Miles account now, for making $3k donation. Not posted on AA yet, time to look for Q-Suite bookings I can put on 5 day hold with AA 🙂
It is just you.
Sure there are many more miles out there now. But there were lots of miles already.
Lucky - you do realize that people like you that took advantage of what was basically a mistake on the part of AA will simply drive devaluation for everyone right? Points and miles are like any other currency. When there are too many in circulation they are worth less. It is called inflation.
Thanks for ruining things for everyone!!
Trees and winc posted with bonus miles. Best Buy doesn’t show bonus miles. I guess the AirPods are going back.
Mine only posted for 1x without the 5x. Took screenshots with banner still live but did it on the last day. Should I be concerned??? IS there anyone I can reach out to?
I took advantage of the promotion BEFORE the deadline. my simply miles account shows You currently have no qualifying transactions. Not happy so far
I have only seen one data point of a 12/14 transaction posting the 5x if talking about the CI donation. I made donations over several days and my 12/14 has only posted as 40 and not 240. The rest have posted as expected. Assuming VFTW is correct and they intend to honor transactions though 11 AM EST on 12/14 maybe they need to do a more manual review of when the transactions occurred. I'd wait a few more days to see how things shake out before getting too concerned.
I'm in the same boat. Made CI donations on 12/12 and 12/13, both of which posted as 240x. Also made a donation on 12/14 before 7am Eastern time, but that only posted as 40x. Unfortunately, the 12/14 donation was the largest of the 3.
The lack of a cap with this promotion leaves a sour taste. No-one needs 5 million plus miles, ESPECIALLY, not those with the disposable cash to drop $20k-plus as some did.
It could have been an amazing promotion that so many more people could have benefited from. Unfortunately it was open to abuse, and, obviously people abused it. Good for those who scored a dozen or so premium cabin flights. Any more than that and you're kind of selfish pr*cks.
The scale of it makes all the other posts about how to get an extra 1 mile per dollar of gas etc look kind of dumb and pointless in comparison.
Yeah, there was a reasonable cap needed for people who got miles for donating, like the same amount of yearly cap when you purchase miles from AA directly for your account.
"The scale of it makes all the other posts about how to get an extra 1 mile per dollar of gas etc look kind of dumb and pointless in comparison." - Completely agreed.
@stauart
Where did you come up with 7M miles?
For all we know it could be 70M miles w Ben
Ya me too, didnt think to take a screenshot when saw the miles earlier today. Hopefully just some temporary maintenance going on and will show up again by tomorrow.
Totally agree. That last sentence sums up exactly how I feel right now. This whole episode has made the whole “mileage” thing just not even fun or interesting anymore, to the point I am avoiding even checking this blog because all it is is people boasting about their millions of miles they just got when two weeks ago I was thrilled about my 100k Venture X sign up bonus posting (which I applied through this blog, throwing some commission towards Lucky). Now that seems pointless and like nothing. I’d have donated $1,000 max and been super thrilled with a quarter million miles. That some people, including Lucky, are now sitting on possibly tens of millions of miles each and got the promotion closed down after a couple days leaves, like you said, a very sour taste for this whole mileage game.
Simplymiles website showed my earned miles correctly earlier today but now it's showing "0 Earned." These guys are whacky.
Congrats! For everyone complaining and leaving negativity, stop being so miserable! I hope we don't have to wait another decade for a great opportunity like this to come again!
Baron, I second that motion. Everyone should be elated that such opportunities exist. If one missed this opportunity, don't complain but rather know that there will be another. There is ALWAYS another. With that knowledge, have an appropriate pot of cash, stay on top of the blogs, and be ready to pull the trigger. Lastly, THANKS to Gary and Ben and all of the bloggers for the tip.
AA and MC are working through technical issues. This is NOT a claw back. They have 8 weeks to post points. Take a deep breath and be patient.
Availability will dry up. Devaluations will accelerate.
- Stuart
Without begrudging those who took advantage of the offer, I tend to agree with @Stuart on this, as I fail to see if how this mile-O-rama benefits AA’s bottom line. While it costs AA nothing to “print” the miles, it may end up costing them plenty when the miles start to be redeemed for expensive premium cabin tickets that could have been sold for cash, and/or in the form of a huge financial liability that forces the airline to defer claiming as revenue the monetary value of the offer’s gazillion miles until these have been redeemed or forfeited — a situation that invariably leads airlines to limit awards availability (to sell more tickets) and/or to devalue their miles (to decrease the financial liability).
Something’s got to give as a result of this year-end “largesse”. Maybe this is what AA is now trying to figure out. The offer might have been a huge ‘mistake’, which I believe they will honor...after they figure out how they can limit the ‘damage’…
@Reno Joe - What's your basis for this assertion (that it's a glitch rather than a clawback)?
Conservation showing at 5X, all the others show only at 1X ,with dates all over the place. Even the non delivery ones, such as Cinemark , show incorrect purchase dates and track only at a 1X. Too soon to be worried? Thoughts Ben?
Did your Conservation International bonus miles post? I’m seeing everything but those and I purchased before the 5x banner was pulled. I know that it said it could be 6-8 weeks for the bonus.
Interesting... I logged in this morning to see miles finally posted in SimplyMiles, but logged in again this afternoon and they wiped it away. They seem to be having a lot of problems
I was in for two $250 donations. I only received the bonus miles for one of the donations.
Donation along with 5X posted to AA. Wine posted to AA showing a date of the 17th with no bonus. Cinmark, showing in SimplyMiles Not in AA with wrong date and only 1X
I'm sure AA is in a race to post all these miles before January 1. Or else these will turn into Loyalty Points and AA will have a swell in there elite ranks.
Conservation posted and so did winc. Best Buy purchases made on 12/13 showing as 12/14 and no bonus - any idea who to contact?
I made two donations of the exact same amount. Both transaction show up in my AA account (base earnings) but only one of the two bonuses posted. I wonder if SimplyMiles de-duped the data and mistakenly removed second bonuses for those who had more than one transaction in the same dollar amount?
Same here. Same situation. I guess we wait a bit. And if it doesn’t who do we complain to? Simply miles or American.
“If one missed the opportunity, don’t complain” — hush up. People can do whatever they want when these blogs are filled with people talking about, effectively, an error fare that does nothing but reduce availability for people who actually accrue miles.
Points earned on eShopping and Simply Miles do not count towards Loyalty Points. And, before someone asks the question, AA receives no tax benefit.
Same here. It’s worth noting that when the miles were briefly posted on the Simply Miles site, 5x bonuses were shown for both.
All my donation transactions posted 100% correctly.....thats 4 million miles in total....im completely speechless on how easy this was
I did two purchases on Conservation International (around 1.5m miles total) and both are now in my AA account (as of this morning).
Same as Serge and Aaron, and apparently Lucky. One of my same amount donations doesn't have the bonus posted.
It would be super helpful to know what you plan on doing about this error, Lucky? Wait a few days, then who do I address the error to--Simply miles or AA?
As Sylvester Stallone says, you're either in the game or you're not. The 5X bonus offer was open for OVER FOUR DAYS. The offer was reported on ALL OF THE BLOGS. ANYONE who was paying attention had ample time to participate. So, if one was paying attention and chose not to participate, that's the person's problem and the person should not begrudge those who did. If one was not paying attention, then the person's not really in the game and has no right to complain. It's time to put on big-boy pants.
AA is posting points directly to AAdvantage accounts and bypassing Simply Miles. Be patient. Terms and Conditions say points will be posted within 8 weeks.
AA is now posting points directly to AAdvantage accounts and not Simply Miles. Terms and Condition say points will be posted within 8 weeks.
A lot of sour grapes today. There was a cap on points so that argument doesn't count. I'm mad at myself because I jumped on this from reading blogs rather than going through each offer to see for myself what was the best deal. Some other deals gave multiples of what the charity deal offered albeit with many many more individual purchases required.
Understood. And, then, there are targeted credit card sign-up bonuses. Right now, there is a targeted Amex Business Platinum Card sign-up offer for 190k points. I'm not going to complain that I didn't get it. I'm not going to begrudge the person who did get it. Rather, I am going to congratulate the person who did.
Not much of a difference between 190k vs 100k or 75k bonus points, while you're talking about millions of miles with this offer.
Thanks. As you noted, I thought about this for 2-3 days and kept refreshing and finally got the extended offer. Bit the bullet (with some risk) and bought some miles. Then pushed myself and doubled down. This was a good 3 days in with a ton of coverage on all the blogs. I dont think I took away from anyone else.
Another blogger who has contacts inside AA -- including official spokespersons who can bind the company with official statements -- has repeatedly contacted these individuals and had received in writing that the offer will be honored. Now, two days later, points are now being credited directly to AAdvantage accounts as opposed to Simply Miles.
Separately, another AA web site had a banner notice saying that it was going through system maintenance and all points-related information might be inaccurate. The irregular behavior of the Simply Miles site seemed to be consistent with that of the other AA web site. Bad timing.
Agreed on the sour grapes. In 1981, I was going to buy a car for $10,750 but didn't because I thought my dad would say it wasn't practical. It was a 1957 Ferrari Testarossa -- worth about $15 million today. One can either laugh about it or cry about it. I choose to laugh.
Just to clarify, while there was a cap on points, AA and MC have officially stated that all transactions entered prior to 10am ET on December 14th will be honored. So, ANYONE who was paying attention did have an opportunity to participate -- if under the wire, NO ONE was blocked by the points cap.
Exactly. And if you didnt get targeted for whatever reason us buying the miles didnt affect this. I was only targeted at 1030pm the night before this closed. I was a few wines deep went for it.
I also send this promotion to like 7 friends and not one pulled the trigger.
The question on everybody's mind now is: How many miles did Lucky get? VFTW and FM have both disclosed how many miles they purchased....you're up Lucky! 😉
Allow me to correct myself. Purchases on eShopping and Simply Miles earn Award Miles and can be "Base" or "Bonus." Base Award Miles earned from eShopping and Simply Miles DO count towards Loyalty Points. Bonus Award Miles earned from eShopping and Simply Miles DO NOT count towards Loyalty Points. So, the initial 40x on the donation promotion are Base Award Points and would count towards Loyalty Points. But, the bonus 200x on the donation promotion are Bonus Award Points and would not count towards Loyalty Points. As points from this promotion post to one's AAdvantage account, they are segregated as two posts: one for Base Award Points and one for Bonus Award Points. The same concept applies to credit card bonus categories: if an AA cobranded credit card earns 3x for AA airfare purchased, 1x will be Base and 2x will be Bonus. Only the 1x will count as Loyalty Points. There are non-US-issued AA credit cards that earn greater than 1x in Base.
AA and MC determined who was targeted and who was not. If someone was not targeted, the person's gripe is with AA and MC and not those who were targeted. In no way did those who were targeted commit a wrong against those who were not targeted.
Given so many people have millions of AA miles now. I wonder when AA will announce a devaluation.
I signed up for Simply Miles on the morning of the 13th. Prior to that, I had never used Simply Miles. Immediately after signing up, the 5X bonus was visible but the donation offer was not available to me. Just after dinner (NY time) on the 13th, I checked again. The donation offer was now available. At about 830pm ET on the 13th, I activated the offer and made a donation. My circumstances were nothing special and no different from a thousand other people. If this was indeed a targeted offer, I cannot conceive of why lil' ol' me was targeted. I'm thankful to Gary and Ben and all the bloggers for identifying the opportunity. To anyone who was not targeted or who simply didn't pull the trigger, there's always another opportunity -- stand ready if it presents itself.
As an update, all of my earned miles (including the duplicate Conservation International donation that wasn’t showing up previously for myself and others) are posted on both Simply Miles and in my AA account.
Same up date as Lucky. I made two CI donations and 70k of 120k miles post to my AA account yesterday. Today the second bonus 5x clip of 50k points posted to my AA account.
My sincere congratulations to any and all who were able to exploit this amazing opportunity! Conservation International does amazing work and deserves the money and attention it is getting from this promotion. MasterCard is a highly successful and profitable business which thrives on luring customers, old and new, into carrying a back breaking load of debt at usurious interest rates. They’ll be fine. American Airlines, largest in the world, has long been in the market of selling travel at unpredictable, fluctuating, but most assuredly profit maximizing prices designed to help you lose weight in pocketbook region. If you were fortunate enough to skin these bastards for a few frequent flying flyer miles, I think they’ll survive. In conclusion, always remember, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
I hope u got a lot of miles, because i won’t be using any more of your referral links. If u purposely sit on these best deals from your readers don’t expect us to click on your referral links.
Sadly that you and others abused the promotion and thus ruined it for all others. They should have put a cap on the promotion. And don’t excuse or justify your actions with “but I donated to charity” — you wouldn’t have donated 30k without the bonus miles.
Why so much vitriol against Lucky? All the major blogs delayed posting about it because it seemed too good to be true. He eventually posted about it around the same time as all the other blogs did which gave their readers a good 36 hours to participate before being shut down. Being an OMAAT reader, you had ample opportunity to take advantage of this deal.
However, the one that deserves all the credit is Bethany from Bougie Miles which posted about it on Friday,48 hours before any of the other blogs caught on. Kudos to her!
Still dont understand the logic on how this was "ruined for others". This deal was active from Friday for EVERYONE. The fact that Lucky bought 7 million miles on Sunday didnt stop you from buying 10 million miles on Monday......even if it eventually died on Tuesday morning, it still was active for 96 hours before being killed. If the deal ended on Wednesday or Thursday morning, would that have been considered more "fair" to you? How much time did you need to decide to jump on it or not? Lucky's purchase had zero role in your opportunity to take advantage of this offer.
Sorry, but i just dont understand the logic other than you're just a bitter individual. Suck it up and move on to the next deal. Thats how this hobby works son.
I was in the same situation where I made 2 donations on the 14th and only had the bonus miles post for one one yesterday in my AA account. The other bonus posted this morning. Glad I read your post and waited before panicking.
He didn’t sit on because he thought it was too good to be true. And yes, all but Bougie miles, sat on it, sharing only amongst their inner circles. I won’t be using referral links from FM either. I added bougie miles to my blog feed because she is deserving of my credit card link referral traffic
After having my AA account shutdown due to the 2019 fiasco, I was unable to take advantage of this opportunity.
With that being said though, I do have to marvel at how ridiculous this promotion is. I previously used mailers to accrue about 10 AA cards in a couple years at a clip of 60-75K each to haul 600K or so miles (losing 500K), yet this promotion is considered fair game with a simple donation…a bit of a head scratcher to be honest.
Seems the credit card offers would make AA more money than this promotion yet that is what led to so many bans in the FF community.
3/4 bonuses posted the morning of the 30th. the 4th posted overnight and was available the morning of the 31st. all transactions between 11-13th.
You are absolutely wrong. I didn't even have a Simply Miles account until the 13th and I didn't make a donation until 830pm that night. If the bloggers did spoil it, how could I -- a very late-comer -- have captured the deal? It's because, AA and MC are honoring all transactions made prior to 10am ET on Tuesday the 14th IRRESPECTIVE OF THE CAP. And, as AG points out, EVERYONE had the opportunity to participate from at least Friday the 10th -- that's four-plus days. You sound like an entitled millennial with a chip on his shoulder.
You sound like an entitled millennial with a chip on his shoulder. I didn't even have a Simply Miles account until the 13th and I didn't make a donation until 830pm that night. If the bloggers did spoil it, how could I -- a very late-comer -- have captured the deal? It's because, AA and MC are honoring all transactions made prior to 10am ET on Tuesday the 14th IRRESPECTIVE OF THE CAP. And, as AG points out, EVERYONE had the opportunity to participate from at least Friday the 10th -- that's four-plus days.
Ben, in your defense . . . VFTW reader Fernsie shared that he/she made a donation at 939am on the 14th and all points have posted. How could this individual -- this late -- have received the deal if the deal had been capped out by selfish hoarders? Because it wasn't. As an AA spokesperson stated in writing, transactions occurring prior to 10am on the 14th would be honored. And, they have been honored. So, if it was a targeted offer, them's the breaks. If it was truly open to everyone, complainers should go home and tell it to mama.
I made my purchase on the 13th, confirmed by email from SimplyMiles, but still haven't seen any activity on my SimplyMiles or AA accounts. Glad to see miles posting for all of you, but still waiting here.
If you did NOT use a Mastercard to pay for the Conservation International donation, does that prevent you from getting the 240x miles in your AA account?
I got in under the wire for donation on morning of December 13 -- and received a confirmation email on donation.
When are all these miles supposed to be in my account... I donated $1000 in time and not even 1 mile was deposited yet? I used a Visa card to donate?
Still nothing posting on SimplyMiles or the AA web site.
I dropped a line to SimplyMiles for clarification. Can't see anywhere on T&C's which REQUIRES Mastercard for miles to post. We shall see...
Any updates on your Visa Card donation yet? I haven't received any miles on my Visa Card donation, but I did receive miles on my MC donation Dec 30th.
I'm in the same boat here...have you seen the miles post yet? I've reached out to SimplyMiles but they've ghosted me. AA and MasterCard have just given me the run-around.