My Million American AAdvantage Miles Are No Longer Missing

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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  1. mine posted last night in my AA account but simply miles still shows zero. I booked them at 939 am Central time on the 14th. at 10 am it was pulled. I think Gary is correct and the cut off was 10am on the 14th

  2. I’m glad to see so many people are getting their miles posted, but I’m getting concerned every time I hear this good news from others. I check my SimplyMiles and AA accounts daily for the points from my $1000 purchase on December 13 (confirmed by email from SimplyMiles that day), and nothing has posted to either account. Will probably wait another week before trying to chase them down.

  3. Fernsie, THANK YOU for sharing. Your honored transaction provides an important data point in this saga. There are many individuals who had said that they were denied the deal because the points cap was triggered by those who went for the gusto. But, you received points from a transaction at 939am on the 14th. This would not have happened, this late, if in fact the points cap was being enforced. You receiving points from that transaction, as you say, supports the 10am cutoff. And, the individuals who are complaining are . . . who knows?

  4. @Gary Good on you! $25k upfront for 6M AA miles – 2 questions:
    1) Over how many years will you spend these miles?
    2) What’s your guestimate on the value of one AA mile at the end of the spend timeframe to #1?

  5. Whew, my miles finally posted at both SimplyMiles and AA.com. While Gary and other sites and posters were seeing miles temporarily posting and then disappearing, I saw nothing but goose eggs until today, which had me concerned.

    All miles for the Conservation International donation(s) are now posted, although am still waiting for points from a CVS purchase to post (won’t be that many miles, but still).

    Hopefully Larry and everyone else (who is still waiting) sees their miles deposited shortly.

  6. I activated deal with BestBuy. 2500 miles for purchase of $200 or more.

    Dec. 15 at 840am CST. I purchased an item that qualified for the spend limit. So would be getting 12,500 (5 x 2500)

    Yesterday Simply Miles posted a total of 4000 miles. 2500 then another for 1500…very odd, doesn’t add up any way you count it.

    Have sent an transaction inquiry, waiting patiently to hear…..

  7. Correction to my reply:

    I made my purchase at 0840 CST on Dec. 14, not 15!

    Sorry for typo.

  8. I made a donation of $250 to Conservation International on December 13 at 8:59 AM Mountain time. This was 24 hours before the deadline cut-off.

    I received a confirmation email from MasterCard confirming donation.

    Here’s my question — for some reason, the credit card used was a Visa (not my American Airlines-branded Mastercard): does this put in jeopardy the 60K miles I expected to receive from promotion?

    I previously ‘attached’ my AA-branded Mastercards to my SimplyMiles account, so not sure why the donation didn’t link automatically to one of those. I may have absent-mindedly just entered in the Visa by mistake.

    As of this morning, the transaction has not appeared in my SimplyMiles account — nor have the miles showed up in my AA account.

  9. SimplyMiles/AA transaction is posting as “Loyalty” accumulation toward 2022 AA status or just miles?

  10. Anyone notice all the posted miles on American are gone? Not even the base miles. Simplymiles still shows the 240X and even though the miles were posted on AA at the end of last year, they are now simply gone. I hope it is an internal error and the miles will show back up.

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