My Million American AAdvantage Miles Are No Longer Missing

by Gary Leff

Update December 31: Yesterday all of my SimplyMiles/Conservation International donation miles posted, and all but one of the 5x bonuses for these transactions posted. I was missing 1,000,100 miles for the bonus that had not posted.

Like some others, I made an identical transaction on the same day and only one bonus posted for the two transactions.

However the missing bonus posted overnight and all of my missing miles are now in my AAdvantage account.

The America Airlines-Mastercard site SimplyMiles offered an incredible deal that let members buy miles at $0.042 apiece.

  • There was a 5x bonus for the holidays that meant earning 6 times the usual miles
  • Combined with an offer of 40 miles per dollar donating to Conservation International
  • Meant earning 240 miles per dollar, which is incredible

It’s been drama on a lot of levels because the offer was – unsurprisingly – pulled early and it took some time to sort out getting Mastercard to pay more than budgeted on this bonus offer. And then miles per posting, but not properly for everyone, and then being taken away.

There’s still no miles earned reflected in my SimplyMiles account. However, miles are posting to AAdvantage accounts, which you can see at AA.com.

However not all miles that were earned and even reflected at SimplyMiles (when miles showeed up there, were zeroed out, showed up again, and zeroed again!) have posted.

In my case about 6 million of the 7 million miles I earned have posted. The missing million miles are the 5x bonus on one of the transactions I completed on December 12. The underlying 40x regular miles posted, just not the bonus. All of the other transactions have posted just fine. (And the full total had – at two different points – been reflected on the SimplyMiles site).

Now that miles are appearing in AAdvantage accounts – and it’s odd to see them there and not at SimplyMiles – I’m looking for data points.

  • Have your miles posted to your AAdvantage account? Are they all there?
  • If miles are missing, what’s missing – the original base transaction, or the bonus?
  • And if there are miles missing, was it a December 12 or 13 transaction, or a December 14 transaction?

There’s also a separate issue of transactions made prior to the offer being pulled the morning of December 14 but where transactions posted with a date after that and not receiving the bonus. That seems to be an issue for offers other than the Conservation International 40 miles per dollar that was the most lucrative here.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I did my transaction the evening of the 13th and I don’t even have the transaction listed in Simplymiles – just the activation of the offer. I do have the confirmation email for CI and of course the credit card charge.

  2. I made two $250 donations. When they posted the couple times to Simplymiles they posted correctly as two 10,001 mile transactions and two 50,005 miles transactions. Today on my AA account I have two 10,001 transactions but only one bonus 50,005 transaction. So I am missing one clip of 50,005 miles.

    Both donations were made on Dec 13th and all three line items on my AA account show that date.

  3. Right on…..I made a Simple Miles purchase on 12/13/21. Nothing posted to my Simply Miles account. Today (12/30), the miles and the 5X bonus posted to my AA Account.
    Strange that there was nothing on the SM page to indicate that I had made a purchase with this special offer. I got 6000 miles by buying $35 worth of wine.

  4. My AA account shows miles earned and 5X miles as bonus miles. Simply miles shows nothing earned in December 2021.

  5. Gary,

    Made all purchases morning of the 14th EST, while the banner was still waiving strong in the SimplyMiles winds.

    The good: Conservation posted along with bonus in my AA account, but not visible in SimplyMiles.

    The Confusing: The Wine, showing only in AA with the posted date, not the purchase date, with No Bonus. The converse is true for Cinemark, this shows only in SimplyMiles with posted date, not Purchase date, with NO Bonus

    The not so good: My BYTE purchase is no where to be found, SimplyMiles nor AA, during this whole time of Houdini acts perpetrated.

    Thoughts???

  6. The best way to defeat drama is through positive thinking, cardio, and exercise. Am I riiiiiiiiiiiight I say? 🙂

  7. My Conservation International miles posted with the bonus from my $400 donation. However, just the base 1500 miles from CVS are there, not that bonus.

  12. And, now the flood of “me too” comments. But, the doubters have been silenced. Others have learned a lesson. Let’s move on to the next one.

  13. SimplyMiles is showing 0, but all my miles (1.2m) posted to my AA account. Purchase made on morning of 12/14.

    Thanks for the posting the deal, it was a win/win to be able to support a good charity and benefit too.

  14. I’m just missing 5k miles from 12/13 11:42 pm ET Winc offer (transaction posted 12/14). Not a big deal but still hope they come through eventually. I know you’re on top of it, Gary.

    I hope you write a post speculating on a devaluation. Curious your thoughts about how bad it will be next year.

  15. In addition to my previous comment, on your behalf, I’m DONE having to read the insults hurled at you; how you aren’t a thought leader in travel, how you’ve put on weight just because you’re a foodie, how you “pimp” credit cards for commissions etc. Between this promo, the AC credit card and tons of other tips you’ve provided, those who keep dissing you wonder why they miss out. Regardless, happy 2022 to you and your family.

  16. @Gary – P1 & P2 miles posted to AA w/5X (240X). No miles (transactions) in Simply account – no drama. Thanks, Gary

  17. I lose all respect for people that pile on something that is obviously a “mistake fare”, especially those like Gary and Lucky who buy millions of miles.

    This will lead quickly to devaluations since points, like any other currency, are subject to inflation when “money supply” is expanded (similar to inflation US is facing). Thanks again for being so selfish and ruining it for others. Yeah you got your miles “cheap” so you likely don’t care but it will impact everyone else.

    Greedy losers!

  20. @AC

    Have to figure that organic distribution of frequent flier miles was down very substantially the past two years. There’s no evidence that the net number of miles in circulation, year-on-year, has changed in any meaningful way..

  22. It is so weird the way this is playing out on crediting or not crediting these. I hope they get it all figured out in the end.

  24. I made 3 purchases at Target on 12/12. All base miles are added to AA account, but only one 5x bonus.
    Donations made on 12/12 and 12/13 as well as their 5x are also posted.

  25. I am in your situation Gary. One of my transactions is missing a 5x bonus on AA.com Couple of days ago, simple miles had the right balance. Now it shows zero. Somewhere in transfer, my 5x bonus is stuck..

    I will wait a couple of days and hope it will resolve itself. If not then I hope to read a followup post here on how to resolve this issue 🙂

  26. the seemingly duplicate transactions (not duplicate but separate ones with same amounts) not posting the bonus miles correctly to AA…is it a good thing?…maybe they post to AA in 2022 if left alone for a couple of days!!

  27. I made two donations. Initially, Simplymiles showed bonuses on both, but when the miles posted on the AA site, only one bonus was posted. So I have a 200,000 mile discrepancy.

  28. My Conservation donations got their miles including bonuses perfectly…..my BestBuy and CVS are outstanding. Thank you SO MUCH Gary….this was truly the deal of the decade and I have many many years of future premium travel thanks to you….

  29. Looks like they are only giving bonuses on the first transaction with each merchant, could have been in the fine print that it’s only awarded 5x on one transaction per merchant.

  30. Hmm…but Scott above said donations on 12/12 and 12/13 tracked correctly…so if I understand correctly (might be wrong too)…transactions made on same day(to same merchant) are posting only one bonus on the AA account…now all those tracked correctly on SimplyMiles(I think a day or 2 back)…I think AA wants to post them all in 2021, manually, hence no update to SimplyMiles but instead directly to AA accounts…and in that process..seems like they messed up…they are not considering more than one transaction(to same merchant) done on the same day somehow….I might be totally wrong here..just speculating…

  31. both of my 2 ‘Conservation’ donations miles and bonus posted at AA. Missing the miles from my barnes & noble purchase, but the store charged/shipped the 2 items separately, so each was under $30, not sure if it will count for Simply Miles.

  32. I’m still missing the 5X bonus for my Wine.com purchase. The bonus for the CI donation posted correctly to AA.com

  33. Same story as others — made two donations on December 13 for identical amounts. Both base transactions (40x) have posted to AA account, but just one of the 200x multiplier bonuses.

  34. Received for all transactions and bonus but for one. Missing 410k points.

    Hopefully they’ll post soon.

  36. Two CI donations totaling $600. Both posted correctly to AA. Each had one entry for base miles and one for 5x bonus. SM website shows nothing earned, but that’s not a concern.

  37. All my transactions (Target $50+ including taxes, less taxes was $48 and change) posted with 5X.

    CI did online for $300 and $301 1 PM PST on Dec 13 (Monday) and they have all posted to AA account accurately , in fact 300 posted as 12001 and 60005 (not sure why) and $301 posted as 12041 and 60205

  39. Congratulations to Gary, not only for helping me and a lot of others, but also for scoring 7 million miles — at a rate better than the Pudding Guy’s rate, if I recall correctly. The coup of a lifetime.

  40. Miles for $500 donation posted to AAdvantage. Also, 15k from BestBuy purchase posted. None of these are tracked in Simplymiles.

  41. Just another data point, still only one 5x bonus is showing for my 2x CI donations on Dec 13. SM website is showing the full amount, just AA showing a bunch of missing miles. Hope this resolves itself soon.

  42. update- some time in the last hour (before midnight on the west coast) the remaining set of miles posted to AA. Happy New Year everyone!

  43. I also see my missing miles post to the account. I did two $250 donations and the second clip of bonus miles posted overnight.

  45. Gary,

    I just wanted to thank you for breaking this story, which ended up being the deal of the year. I did well with it and without your coverage I probably would not have been able to act in time. Thanks again. You truly are the thought leader in travel.

  46. I’m bittersweet about my success.

    Initially dipped my toe in with $200 to Conservation intl, but forgot to register the card.

    Once it seemed more legit, I made a larger donation on a second, registered card but I also registered the first card and made a small donation again. That seemed to help get the first donation tracked under the bonus.

    But this de feels like the second round of funding in a venture capital offer wring, where the valuation went down.

    Good news, I got 300k miles for a great, great price. Bad news, my existing 500k miles should be valued at much less than I had.

    We’ll see if TATL fares come fown anytime soon. There is always BA I guess, with fees around $1200 per RT TATL, for standard awards.

  47. Missing my 5X (12.5K) from a Best Buy from a before 11am EST purchase 12/14. Base Miles for this posted.

  48. Still missing the bonus for my Wine.com purchase. But all other transactions are posted correctly in both SimplyMiles and AA.com.

    I have emailed SimplyMiles support regarding the missing 7,000 for the Wine.com purchase.

  49. Same issue.. posted to simply miles then disappeared, reappeared and disappeared..then night before last I had the 40/$1 post and almost all my 5X post to my AA account I was short for some reason only a partial of the 5X there was a shortage of 60K of my 5X total bonus, I didn’t see why only a partial of the total 5X didn’t post but overnight the remaining 60K did post to complete my 5X additional… yay!!

  50. UNSUBSCRIBE
    lol
    Seriously happy about the miles but this is like the friend that keeps sending you unsolicited baby pics all day long. If it ain’t your kid you don’t want minute by minute updates

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