Last night I wrote about an offer for 50,000 American Airlines miles after $750 in purchases on a new credit card within 4 months and an additional 50,000 miles for spending $10,000 on the card within a year.
There’s also a nice 75,000 mile signup bonus offer for those who don’t think they can meet the $10,000 minimum spend requirement — this one requires just $1500 in spend on the card within 6 months.
All of these offers come with first year annual fee waived.
But they’re being sent out by email, and the links in the emails take you directly to an application. That’s leading to plenty of teeth gnashing on Flyertalk, and much speculation on blogs, that the offer is targeted and that folks using the links may not get the bonuses.
To me that makes little sense. Anything’s possible, I suppose, but the offer sent out by e-mail does not say that it is targeted. It appears that everyone getting the offer by email is getting the same link, or rather is being taken to the same page, it’s not as though it’s a personalized URL that’s filling in unique information.
The email could certainly say the offer is for the recipient only, that it is non-transferrable, but it does not. It would certainly seem legitimate to receive the email, forward it to a friend, and they’re excited to sign up and do.
And what seems to happen is that hte application link embeds an offer code that’s passed to Citibank, which then causes Citibank to know how many miles to award.
From the comments in yesterday’s post on the offer, Menashe wrote:
Signed up for and got approved for 100K Visa card. I called and the representative confirmed that the terms were 50K and $750 in spend and another 50K after $10,000 within a year.I had a Citi AAdvantage M/C, but canceled it 9 months ago.
A Flyertalk member took the same approach:
Me and GF applied were both instantly approved. Called up this morning spoke to them to ensure that this was indeed the fee-waived/75K mile offer that we had signed up for and was told yes is showing as so on both and will be credited the miles after meeting the spend.
And another Flyertalk member reported:
I just applied and was instantly approved! I called to make sure that I was in fact receiving the 75,000 miles, (making sure to not actually state how many miles I THOUGHT I was going to receive), and it was confirmed that if I spend $1,500 in the time period, I would receive the miles.
Now, I’m not making guarantees as to who will be able to get this bonus if they’ve had the card before, or that Citibank won’t screw this up somehow for any given individual, but the interesting thing here is that folks who signed up for the offer that did not receive the email got approved for the card and the correct offer has been applied to their account. Just as I’d have expected.
There’s no warranty of course with any of this, but it should all work and indications thus far are that it will. And of course what’s the worst case scenario here, after all…?
Here’s the links again…
- 75,000 miles after $1500 in purchases within 6 months, no fee the first year —
75,000 mile signup bonus: Visa
75,000 mile signup bonus: Visa Business
75,000 mile signup bonus: American Express (still issued by Citi, of course, not Amex) - 100,000 miles: 50,000 miles after $750 in purchases within 4 months, and another 50,000 miles after $10,000 in purchases within 12 months, no fee the first year —
100,000 mile signup bonus: Visa
100,000 mile signup bonus: Visa Business
100,000 mile signup bonus: American Express (still issued by Citi, of course, not Amex)
Personally, though the offers say that they’re valid through October 31, I wouldn’t wait that long. Something tells me that Citibank hasn’t envisioned the degree to which interested parties might take them up on this. So while it shouldn’t be necessary to jump on this instantly, personally I still would.
Presto!
It’s Sept 2nd and I just applied through the Visa Business 100,000 miles link, was approved online (no mention of promo at any point,) called Citi at 1-800-950-5114 and received confirmation of the 50k / 50k promo mentioned above.
Just tried the 75K on 9/6, it worked perfectly… btw, you wouldn’t see any mileage offer on the sign up page. Or any words mentioning the miles on the application page, but when you call in to confirm, its there… so don’t worry!
Sept 10: I signed up for the 75K visa offer (was tempted on the 100k) so as not to tie myself down to the credit card for too long. I called the next morning and was approved and the miles offer was correct. The 12 month waived fee is actually in the terms and conditions on the web link. Pretty cool. Thanks for this info!!
I applied using the link at ft and called and confirmed the offer- and followed the advice to message citi and the visa 75k offer was confirmed but they don’t have a record of my being offered the miles for the amex 75k offer- said to send in the front and back of the app- duh – it was online but I don’t have an email – am I just out of luck on that? any suggestions? thanks
Sept 15: I applied for two VISA cards (self and spouse) under the 100k offer using the link above. As everyone else mentioned, no indication of the offer is shown on the website. I made my $10k of spending on one card by the 1st statement cycle, and got all 100k bonus points! For those interested, I used the card to pay my quarterly business taxes to reach the $10k in spending through one of the IRS-listed tax websites. $235 in fees – not bad for 100,000 miles!
Can my husband apply for a card and list my frequent flyer number so that the bonus points go to me? He has lots of points but I need to get my balance up. I’ve already applied for and received the AA Visa on the 100k promo.
Got my first 50K, posted 9/14.
Does anyone know the offer number for these 2 credit cards. I called and they claim they can’t tell me anything because I do not have the offer number.
I just signed up for both the amex & visa – I called & it looks like I am getting the promotion for both the visa $ the amex!!
I used the link on AA website (I did not see this post right away)so I am only getting 50,000 & then 25,000 after spending the $10,000 for the Visa & 75,000 for the AMEX using the link from here – 150,00 points for me & my wife is getting 2 cards also. I hope this all works.
It is the best deal I have seen period…
On Nov 4 2010, I filled out the form for the visa and got approved. I had been a Citi card holder with AA in the 2001-2003 time frame, and also had a citi business card in 2005-2007. I called up a person at Citi and they said they did not have access to that offer but would I like to apply for a 40K offer? I hope I will get all 100K miles.
To confirm the 100K bonus (50 + 50), I called the 1-800-950-5114 number given above, and the person said they could transfer me to the Application Dept. I talked with a phone rep and she said yes, I was approved for that offer. It sounds like maybe it will be in writing when I get the card itself within a week or two.
Thank you for having this site and posting this link!
I signed up for this deal and when I called to confirm the Citi agent told me that I would receive 50k miles when I spent the first $750, an additional 25k miles when I spent $10k in the first 12 months, and an additional 25k miles when I spent an additional $10k in the following 12 months!
This is not what I signed up for!! There is no way I could prove what I had signed up for. Immensely frustrating.
Used your link for the 100K promotion, and it worked like a charm! Now I’ve gotta get down to spending that 10K….
I stumbled across it from another blog. Signed up for the 100k AA Visa cards for myself and my wife. We had just cancelled our AA Mastercard less than a year ago so I wasn’t holding my breath re approval. Oddly enough I was approved but my wife was declined, even though we have identical credit scores. Can’t remember the specific reason given for her declination, I was too busy celibrating my approval.
Card was issued in early October, just went through the first billing cycle and 55,000 AA miles have posted woohoo! Confirmed with a rep no annual fee first year and another 50k coming after $10,000 spent. Totally legit.
I also own a business and applied for the 75k promotion with the CitiBusiness Amex, and tried signing my wife up for the personal Amex to see if that would fly. She just got declined, again – this time they gave a specific reason via email, stating it’s for first time Citicard users only. BUT, the business Amex was approved even though it’s going to the same frequent flyer account woohoo! 75k, no annual fee.
That’s two business class round trips to Europe for 10 minutes worth of filling out apps. Thank you very much!
I signed up for both Visa Personal and Business. So far I have receievd credit for my 50,000 bonus on the personal card. I have not yet started using the business card regularly as I am waiting until I earn the 100k on the personal card first!
Signed up for Visa Business and AMEX,
both each for the 100,000 miles. They capped
me at a $1,000 credit line on the
Visa Business card. A month later I applied
for the AMEX and they moved some credit
around to life me up to $15,000 credit
line. Sweet!
want to sign up but links above are not working…new links please????