Can credit card bonus miles be deducted from airline account?

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Can credit card bonus miles be deducted from airline account?

by Ben Schlappig Guest December 28, 2015, 10:35 am

Can credit card bonus miles be deducted from airline account?

Anonymous Guest
December 28, 2015, 10:35 am

Ben,

I hope you are enjoying your trip! I have a question. I applied for Citi AA Prestige card for 60k bonus miles after spending $3k.

I thought I would test a theory. I put a $5k (anytime/any reason) cancellable deposit on a Tesla Model X which I have no intention of purchasing. The 60k award plus 5k spend hit my American Airlines account already and my credit card bill is not due till January. Initially, I expected to pay the credit card bill and then ask Tesla for a refund. Instead, I was thinking about getting a refund and cancelling the card now.

My question is: can Citi reach back into my AA Advantage account and pull the miles back?

Thanks,

Colin
MidSouthSkier Community Ambassador
December 29, 2015, 10:10 pm

Colin, the Citi Prestige card does not earn AA miles, it earns Thank You Points, which is a Citibank product. So yes, they could definitely debit your account for those points.
Gaurav Community Ambassador
December 29, 2015, 11:44 pm

And, if it is indeed an AA branded card that you are mistakenly tagging as Prestige, yes the bank can claw back miles if they feel you have engaged in fraud (which will be true if you carry out what you are proposing since spending is purchases-returns). Read this post from View from the WIng about potential problems when you play fast and loose with FF/reward programs: [URL]http://goo.gl/EM3NLK[/URL].

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Can credit card bonus miles be deducted from airline account?