Yesterday, American Airlines revised its frequent flier mileage redemption amounts for some awards, increased some ticketing fees and took away some baggage benefits. But the worst news was that they removed the ability to tack on a free one way trip to an international award. Luckily, you can still book a free one way ticket in the US and I’ll share how on, you guessed it, United Airlines.
Back in December, I wrote that the American Express Platinum card would no longer allow you to get into the American Airlines or US Air Clubs so I called to “complain” and got $100 statement credit to use toward airline incidentals on American Airlines. Although the terms & conditions state otherwise, you can use this statement credit – along with the regular $200 statement credit that come as a card benefit – on gift cards from American Airlines, which you can then use to pay for flights.
I recently explained how to use Amazon Payments to meet minimum spending requirements or increase your spending on credit cards in part 1 of my series on manufactured spending. In part 2, I’ll walk you through using Vanilla Reload Cards and a Bluebird Account in order to exponentially increase your spending activity. If you haven’t already opened a credit card to earn miles, do so. For some large sign up bonuses, I recommend the British Airways or American Airlines credit cards. If you feel comfortable getting both, you could very quickly amass over 150,000 miles in your coffers.
Many credit cards offer large, attractive amounts of bonus miles on new accounts after spending a minimum amount of money within a certain period of time. The amounts vary: sometimes they are as low as $2,000 or $3,000 but as high as $20,000. The timeframe in which you must spend this amount is typically 3 months but it can be as long as the first year of account ownership. To meet the minimum spending requirements (or just plain increase the amount of miles or points that you earn) on credit cards like the recent American Airlines or British Airways offers, there are some ways that you can achieve this without having to spend much or any of your own money. This practice is known through blogs and various forums as “manufactured spending” and I’ll describe two of the easiest and most common methods in a posting today and tomorrow. As with anything, moderation will be the key to your success. Continue reading…
A few days ago, one of my favorite blogs, The Points Guy, posted that Citibank is running a promotion on the Citi Executive AAdvantage MasterCard and awarding 100,000 American Airlines miles after you spend $10,000 in 3 months. Although the card comes with a hefty annual fee of $450, you will receive a one-time $200 statement credit after you make three purchases on the card. In addition, the card includes membership to the American Airlines Admirals Club (and now US Air Club).
I am in the midst of a 15 day trip wandering across Asia that cost me $1,521 to book. It also required a lot of miles and points – 216,750 to be exact – but considering I have a first class ticket from the US, a business class seat home, coach flights intra-Asia, and 14 nights at Starwood and Hyatt properties, it was completely worth the effort amassing the points.
So how did I book it? Continue reading…
I wander from New York to Columbus, Ohio frequently on American Airlines and have not paid for an airline ticket the past several times – 13 times, to be exact. Earlier in the year, I was targeted for 100,000 American Express points if I applied and was approved for their Platinum card. The offer was too good to pass up so I applied and a few weeks later I had the points.
A friend of mine emailed me a link and offer code for free gold elite status on American Airlines through the end of the year. Even though I probably won’t enjoy most of the benefits, I signed up anyway. Here’s how:
The code worked. Thank you Wandering New Yorker!
Did you know that American Airlines is giving away free one way flights in the US? No, it’s not too good to be true and it’s very easy to do on aa.com! One of American’s routing rules allows for a free stopover for up to 1 year from an international gateway city on a one way or roundtrip award reservation.
You have it all figured out!!! Thanks for making the time and effort to share.