It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a good partner promotion. These can be fun, picking up activity credits and earning progressively more miles, trying to do it at the cheapest cost by finding eligible partners you can buy something from for very little month — or partners you can transfer points from and earn credits — all while generating a big bonus.
Perhaps there’s a reason we haven’t seen anything like the old 5 partner Northwest “Fly Free Faster”, the American AAdvantage 20th anniversary “20/20” promo, or the US Airways Grand Slam. They’re expensive and while exciting may not generate as much partner revenue as hoped for.
American Airlines has a holiday partner promotion. It promises up to 50,000 bonus miles. But the set of choices for earning miles is tight enough that it’s not going to be easy to earn inexpensively. Registration is required and partner activity must be completed by December 31 to qualify.
Here’s the catch.
- There are only 10 partners, so to maximize the bonus you have to have activity with every one. That’s not going to make sense for most people.
- There’s a minimum earning with each partner to qualify, no buying a wallpaper sample square through the AAdvantage shopping portal or a soda at a participating Rewards Network restaurant.
Here are the partners and the minimums:
- Miles For Opinions: 300 miles
- LifeLock: 7000 miles
- Sprint: 417 miles (say what?!)
- Rocketmiles: 5000 miles
- AAdvantage eShopping: 3000 miles
- 1-800-FLOWERS: 2000 miles
- AAdvantage Dining: 500 miles
- Avis or Budget: 1500 miles
- Vinesse: 500 miles
- Hilton: 1000 miles
The good news is this bonus stacks with others, take advantage of the current online shopping promo and pick up a strong bonus for lifelock and then cancel when the miles post.
I’d register for the promo, you may qualify for some points through the normal course anyway. Will any of you be going for a big return on this bonus?
The Sprint one is a killer for me.First, if I was a Sprint customer the 5,000 miles wouldn’t post during the promo period most likely. They are awarded at a rate of like 415 a month. I don’t want to switch “phone” carriers and tablet or hotspot accounts don’t count. Frankly I would be willing to open a new hotspot account with Sprint right now but since it won’t count I’m out, sadly.
This “promo” is a farce, no? The minimum earning requirements are absurd and provide little incentive to play the game. I guess it’s worth registering just in case you happen to spend money on some incidental promo items.
Sure , I’m completely spoiled — having earning 138,000 miles from the US Airways “Grand Slam” promo in 2010 with an incremental outlay (money spent specifically for the promo) of just $144. (Yep, 0.1 cents/mile.)
But still…
The Speint deal is awesome right now. I just signed up for a new line. They have a promo running if you bring your own device, you will get a $200 gift card for keeping account open for 60 days. This stacks with the 25K American miles. After even 90 days of service, I am looking at gaining $80 and the 25K miles plus whatever bonus that will equal.
I just bought a gift card for $167 for the AAdvantage dining which is $501 which gives me my first bonus plus 501 AA miles.
I signed up for Sprint so that’s an easy 2nd bonus plus 25,000 points.
I’m sure I can do at least 4 more which should be easy.
@DaninMCI – actually the miles you get each month with Sprint are 417 which is why they chose that I guess. 5000/12=416.7
And if you are already a Sprint customer you can still sign up to earn 5,000 miles per year.
https://promo.sprint.com/Registration/DisplayLanding?ECID=vanity:AAdvantage&LandingPartial=AAdvantageLanding
The miles post every month so you would qualify.
Matt – are you sure this stacks with the Visa gift card bonus for BYOD? If so that’s a really strong value!