Questions and Answers

I just got an AAdvantage Citi Platinum Select card. This is my first time trying to accumulate miles and I’m trying to figure out a good way to reach the $3,000 in 3 months required to get the bonus miles. I think I can do $2,000, but the last $1,000 might be difficult.

I have read that I might can buy 2 Vanilla prepaid cards for $500 per card and that would take care of it. But, I have also read that it might be considered a cash advance and wouldn’t work.

I’m sure this has been asked many times on this post, but I skimmed around and didn’t come across it. I would love any advice to a rookie of how to get an extra $1k on this card.

Thanks,

Tom

Tom, you should be fine buying Vanilla prepaid cards. I’ve bought Visa gift cards at a few different retailers and none have ever shown up as a cash advance.

If you want more ideas about how to manufacture spend on your card, check with the forum section at Travel Codex, a fellow Boarding Area blog. You must register but it’s free.

Usually Vanilla cards are not coded into cash advance. If you can buy them that is great.
To be safe, call the bank and ask them to lower your Cash Advance limit (ideally $0).
That way if the merchant tries to charge it as cash advance your transaction gets rejected.

Some basic ideas to meet the minimum spend :
Buy PayPal cash card in controlled amount. Be easy on this. PayPal is strict.
Buy giftcards for merchants you spend regularly. Like amazon, walmart, costco, gas cards, etc
Prepay your car/home insurance for the next 6-12 months
Prepay Phone/Internet/Cable bills.
Use RadPad to pay rent @ 2-3% commission.
It is tax season. There are ways to pay taxes with cards at a small commission.

There can be so many other ways and $1000 is a very small amount to manage. Others may be able to chime in with ideas that I might have missed.

I buy restaurant gift cards for places I go regularly. My grocery store offers fuel points for these cards and there are no fees involved (like there are for Visa gift cards) so I pay for lunch and save money on gas at the same time. (Granted, I don’t have $1000 in restaurant gift cards at one time but…)

It will take a little extra work and earning either 50K AA or thank you points, you could open a Citigold account. You can fund this with your AA credit card and fulfill minimum requirement. There are some other requirements for the Citigold account such as $1K debit spend(just buy money order then deposit in another bank account) and bill pay in two consecutive months. Please note though that it takes up to 90 days to pay out the bonus and if you don’t maintain min balance of 50K you will get charged $30/month. But you get first two months for free. So if you fulfill the requirements and get the bonus in 90 days, it would cost you about $90.

Alternatively that is a lot of work, so you can check with friends and family if they have any upcoming purchases and pay for them then have them reimburse you with cash.

Thank you !

Just FYI, the Citi gold option ended yesterday. I was personally going to take advantage of it this week so it’s a huge disappointment :(.