I receive compensation for content and many links on this blog. Citibank is an advertising partner of this site, as is American Express, Chase, Barclays and Capital One. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners. I do not write about all credit cards that are available -- instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). Terms apply to the offers and benefits listed on this page.
Update November 30, 2023: there is an offer available through February 29, 2024.
- New customers only
- Save $25,000 for 90 days get 5,000 AAdvantage® miles
- 12/1/23-2/29/24 runtime
Bask Bank has increased how fast you earn American Airlines AAdvantage® miles by 150% since they launched their Bask Bank Mileage Savings Account just before the start of the pandemic. They now reward you with 2.5 miles per dollar saved annually.
And they’ve just launched a new bonus offer to encourage you to start saving with them, or grow your savings. You can earn up to 20,000 bonus miles on top of the regular miles you earn each month. Existing customers are eligible for this offer, not just new customers.
New And Existing Customers Earn Bonus Miles For New Deposits
Between June 1, 2023 and August 31, 2023 Bask Bank is offering a bonus for new and existing customers who deposit funds into a Mileage Savings Account.
- $10,000 – $24,999.99: 4,000 bonus miles
- $25,000 – $49,999.99: 10,000 bonus miles
- Greater than or equal to $50,000: 20,000 bonus miles
First-time and existing Bask Mileage Savings Account customers who meet the requirements for an open account, and in fact do open their account by August 31, 2023, and add new funds into the account during the promotion period are eligible for this bonus. You can read the full offer terms here.
You’ll need to maintain these funds in the account for 180 consecutive calendar days and provide Bask Bank with an AAdvantage® account number in the same name as the subject Bask Mileage Savings Account. Bonus miles will be awarded within 10 business days after all conditions of this offer have been met.
I’ve had a Bask Bank Mileage Savings Account since they were first offered, and I plan to take them up on this bonus offer. I like that they’re interested in growing the business of existing customers, not just acquire new ones. And I need to put aside money for both income taxes (since I have to pay those quarterly) and property taxes (since when I refinanced my home at a very low rate during the pandemic I stopped having to escrow taxes). Property taxes are… pretty high in Texas.
Bask Bank Has Increased Its Mileage Return 150% Since Launch
Bask Bank offered a pretty good value proposition when they launched their Mileage Savings Account a little over three years ago. They offered a way to earn 1 mile per dollar saved annually – which could add up to a lot of miles without actually spending money. Instead, your opportunity cost was interest foregone and most people weren’t earning very much interest on their cash savings at the time.
The way I thought about this was that $75,000 in a savings account meant enough miles for a one-way business class award ticket between the U.S. and Africa on a partner airline like Qatar Airways.
With interest rates rising, I view them as having kept up around the top of the market. They increased mileage-earning to 1.5 miles per dollar in October, increased it to 2 miles per dollar prior to end of 2022, and then bumped it up to 2.5 miles per dollar this spring. Now you only need to save $30,000 in an account for a year to get that same award. That’s a huge increase in return on your savings.
When American Airlines made their award changes recently they didn’t alter partner award pricing at all, and their executives shared with me not to expect partner award pricing soon either.
Bask Bank Beats Earning Interest For Me
I value AAdvantage® miles at 1.3 cents apiece. Earning 2.5 per dollar saved annually represents to me a 3.25% rate of return. As of this writing, according to the FDIC the average savings account returns 0.40%.
Bask Bank has reported the miles I’ve earned for tax purposes at a value of 0.42 cents apiece. At a current earning rate of 2.5 miles per dollar saved annually, this represents a taxable Annual Percentage Yield (APY) of 1.05%.
Assuming that doesn’t change over the next year, earning 50,000 miles (which I value at $650) saving $20,000 would generate a 1099 tax reporting form showing a value of $210.00. If you pay taxes on those miles with a hypothetical combined federal and state income tax rate of 47%, you’re paying $98.70 in taxes. That means netting $551.30.
Compare that to a hypothetical 4.50% APY. That same $20,000 saved would yield $900, $423 in taxes, and a net of $477. This math even works out favorably compared to a 5% APY savings account. Even at my arguably low valuation of miles you’re beating a very high yield interest offer by earning miles. The more you value the miles, the bigger the difference.
Worth Opening An Account
There is no annual fee for a Bask Bank Mileage Savings Account, and there are no monthly service fees. There’s also no minimum balance required, though if you’re able to make a substantial deposit they’re rewarding that with a lot of bonus miles right now.
I simply think it’s a good idea to have an extra open bank account, that you can link other accounts to, and that’s ready to receive money when you need someplace to send it. I felt that way back during the Great Recession, and it’s something that’s become top of mind again in the past few months. It’s great to add a banking relationship in the current environment, and this one is easy, simple and all online.
Bask Bank is a division of Texas Capital Bank, Member FDIC. The sum of your total deposits with (i) Bask Bank and (ii) Texas Capital Bank are insured up to $250,000 per depositor for each account ownership category.
@ Gary — You live in TX, which has no income tax. How are you paying 47% tax?
Now if only I had $50k in cash to spare haha
“hypothetical” combined federal and state income tax rate of 47%
Compare that to a “hypothetical” 4.50% APY.
You are using too many hypotheticals to make your math work. You should be a banker 🙂
@gary, it appears none of these miles provide and Loyalty Points, correct?
Here’s my math:
Option 1: Deposit $ 50,000 for 6 months in a High Yield Online Savings Bank yielding 5 % APR, gross proceeds of $ 1250, less marginal Federal Income Tax of 24 % = $ 950
Option 2: Deposit $ 50,000 for 6 months in a Bask Bank Mileage Account, at 2.5 AA Miles per Anum & 20,000 mile bonus yields 82,500 AAdvantage Miles. If these are valued at $ 0.013 per mile that’s $ 1072.50 gross proceeds, but the marginal Federal Income Tax of 24 % is based on Bask’s reporting at $ 0.0042 per mile, so net Tax this would equal $ 989.34
Based on straight financials Option 2 is marginally better, but it’s clearly no screaming deal. It’s close enough that the case could be made either way.
Right now you can get 5% in high yield liquid savings and 5.5% on CDS and some penalty free ones. Miles now from Bask are not a great deal while those rates are high. Not to mention cash vs miles. Cash is the winner her ebcause lets face it miles have variables and we have seen that.
FYI these do NOT count as loyalty points, so there is no benefit there. If they did it would be a different situation for some.
What I would like to know is whether moving money from the Interest Savings to the AAdvantage savings counts as “new” money in the account for the promo or not. I read the full Terms last week and this wasn’t clear to me. A while back, I switched from AAdvantage to interest because the earnings started lagging behind. I might be willing to move some back, but not if I’m not sure that I will get the 20k bonus In 180 days.
I focus on the miles. I can get a 57,500 biz ticket on BA for the dates I want. Because not everyone is willing to pay the high surcharge on BA and I am willing to pay.
A one way biz tix is worth around $2500.
There are other ways to earn more on the rest of my money.
@ TexasTJ. and Chas can be used to buy ANYTHING whereas AApoints, well award availability may suck. So clearly a $1 in cash is worth much, much more than “$1” in a shitty airline token. Especially if you (Gary) recently bought a few million points!
And as. LT PLT, I don’t need loyalty points.
YMMV.
@Gene – this is a hypothetical rate, not mine
So it says new deposits, can I transfer $50k over from my high yield savings, or does it have to be new money with Bask? It’s not clear
Looks like Gary received his royalty check from Bask Bank.
@Daniel: I also wondered about whether it had to be new money to Bask for existing customers, and it seems pretty clear that transferring money from the interest savings won’t qualify for the summer promotion. Here is a quote from Bask’s description of the promotion:
“Bask Bank Summer Bonus Offer: Bask Bank is offering 4,000, 10,000 or 20,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles to new and existing Bask Mileage Savings Account customers who make new deposit(s) totaling at least $10,000, $25,000 or $50,000 during the June 1, 2023, and August 31, 2023 (“Promotion Period”), and maintain the new deposit for 180 consecutive calendar days (“Holding Period”). The miles awarded will correspond to the deposit ranges (“Award Tiers”) outlined below. Funds transferred from an existing account with Bask Bank or Texas Capital Bank will not qualify as new deposits.”
In my opinion cash is the better deal. You can get up to 5.5% on 90 Day CD;s. If you received Loyalty Points it would swing in favor of BASK but they won’t budge. I had $200K in BASK and offered to raise it to $250K and have my wife put in $250K in another account (FDIC Insurance limits) if they would give us Loyalty Points like they did new customers last fall. They said no, so I moved my $200K out of BASK and into high interest CD’s. With the FED going nuts on interest rates, CD’s will continue to go higher and not likely to come down anytime soon. Another plus for cash is you can use the cash to fly any airline and get mileage and loyalty points. With BASK you have to fly AA or one of their affiliates and you’re not getting miles or Loyalty Points because you’re on an awards ticket.
I’m not compensated for my views, just my opinion.
The value of cash vs miles is very similar with this deal.
key points to keep the cash:
Cash can buy anything.
Miles devalue over time.
Cash interest compounds over time. Miles won’t.
Everywhere I could have used miles this summer was 100K+ one way.
Mile value can and will be stripped quickly. For dollars, it’s certain, but slow.
given the lack of liquidity of these funds in order to earn the miles, they should be compared to the rates of CD’s or T-bills, not savings accounts. In addition, for CD’s, you accrue interest along the way. For this bonus, you really risk having no bonus at all if the funds needed to be removed before it qualifies for the bonus period. The risk of that should also be taken into account and therefore, the return of the bonus miles should be further discounted.
Norita and all, Bask bank does NOT award loyalty points.
I got a pop-up that they won’t open an account for me, and won’t tell me why. I guess Gary doesn’t get his commission.
Saying the average rate right now is 0.4% is misleading. It may be factually correct, but returns of nearly 5% are readily available, and only fools are keeping their money in accounts earning so little. If this account earned LPs, I might be willing to earn a below market interest rate, but since you don’t, I can reasonably defend the decision to park money here.
@ Gary — 5% is way better than 2.5x. I guess Bask has the data to support it, so they don’t need to raise the 2.5x.
Yea not interested. I use a ton of AA miles. Fly AA 85% etc. But at some point I have to divide my financial world into “real money” and “play money”. Miles are play money. I can get them on the cheap (mostly), I can use them for real things but I am not going to take away from my investing/retirement dollars on any end of the liquidity spectrum to earn my play money. Are their certain cases it may make sense to do so? Yea im sure, but I need to draw a line.
Gary, you’re too smart to be making contrived recommendations.
First, AA miles may have some implied valuation, but they inherently require some magnitude of liquidity discount. It’s not cash.
Second, if you’re looking to save, the math will be better right now on short term Treasuries where no state income tax is typically payable and rates are in the 5.5% range.
I know you have a disclaimer at the top, but come on…
I’ll go the other way- just flew to Europe, and didn’t have enough AA points do the business class redemption (75K) so had to fly in the back of the bus for 35K points. I can pick up enough AA points for a business class redemption buy moving my money over (which unfortunately isn’t in a 5% CD right now, like most people). It’s a no-brainer- thanks, Gary!
I do not understand this fascination of the bloggers with th e Bask Bank mileage earning accounts. With the interest rates today one can easily get 5.5% APR with a 6 months CD instead of getting AA miiles rapidly dropping in value.
Gary, I earned a huge number of points thru Bask when rates were zero. But between being able to earn 5.55% on a 6 month Treasury and the massive increase in long haul J reward pricing I can’t make the numbers work.
It would take about 3.5X to reach my point of indifference between cash interest and points.
Thanks for the reminder. I was waiting until the end of the month, and forgot about this. Will have to scramble a bit to send the cash over (maybe wire).
I was able to find international biz class redemptions worth around 3c/point, so it’s a good deal for me for now.
Giving up on this bank! Very bad customer service! Called to try to fix an ID verification issue and there were of no help at all. Plus, they did not care if you want to be their customers or not.
Can’t sign up due to reach maximum number of application for this product. Oh well…
That sounds like my reasoning for the failed application.