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There’s been some bad news this week when it comes to American Airlines credit cards as the 10% mileage rebate available on a few cards will be disappearing in a couple of months.
This change will be taking effect on May 1, 2019 and will affect the following cards:
- Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red
- Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Silver
- Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select
The way this benefit works is that you’re rebated 10% of your AAdvantage miles when redeeming them for award flights, earning back up to 10,000 miles per year. A couple of the cards listed above have annual fees of less than $100, so if you redeemed 100,000 miles per year, you’d easily come out ahead provided you value AAdvantage miles at 1cpp at a minimum.
There will be other benefit changes coming on these cards from May 1 – both positive and negative – so we’ll have more about those in the coming weeks. In the meantime though, if you have one of these cards and are planning on booking award flights using your American Airlines miles this year, it might be best doing so within the next couple of months (if possible) while you can still take advantage of the 10% mileage rebate.
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Thanks for the write-up!
Quick question: Since we’re losing the 10% rebate on aa award redemptions in a few days, I want to book a ticket to a destination that’s pretty much always on the reduced mileage awards list (mgm) but of course the list not published for oct/nov yet. I know there are no change fees with aa when you keep the same origin/destination, so out of curiosity, if I book the award now and change the routing (but keep the award level and origin/destination) in like three or four months so that it is reticketed, can I potentially get the reduced mileage award discount (and keep the 10% rebate)? Thanks!
That’s a good question. I’d assume that what you’re proposing would work; seeing as the rebate would be issued now, I can’t imagine they’d try clawing it back in a few months.
The will definitely claw back the bonus promotional miles. I l had to change flights during another year after booking award tickets, and the system automatically refunded the miles without the bonus. I had booked more than 100,000 additional AA mileage flights for that same year, and it was a painful and long process to get AA to credit me back those 10,000 bonus miles since it was specifically attached to one redemption.. I was EXP at the time, and it took months for AA to figure out how I was still owed the 10,000 miles. The rebate is tied to the reservation, and once you change or refund, those bonus miles are removed.
We are booked and ticketed on AA in June from SRQ to MUC in business class. I used AA miles for this trip. Will we still get the 10% back???
If you’ve already booked the flights, I think you should’ve already received the 10% rebate.
Completely destroyed the silver. Major devaluations have been coming out in dribs and drabs. The loss of two elite dollar qualifications. Now the 10%. The new perks that they’re adding are useless to me. Paid $195 for the year and they’ve announced all of these major changes and implemented them while paying the high fee and not getting the benefits. They’re going to have to do something or it will be canceled .
This is a real bummer, but I just got a letter in the mail that makes it (for me), even worse. I have the legacy card that has the 10,000 point anniversary bonus. Unfortunately that is also going away. No reason for me to keep this card any more, I just don’t fly American enough for me to find the value anymore.
Got rid of My American Airlines card when they stopped doing free first luggage on international flights. Prefer Barclay’s Arrival card which give double points and the 10% off the flight mileage charge.
I got a flight around mid May coming up – will use AA miles but haven’t booked it.
Do you get the 10% after booking or after flying?
Thanks
ON BOOKING….If u cancel a Flt using AA points u have to Call to get the points back . What a scam another way to cost them less.
CHEERs
Why is the business version pictured? It never had the 10% rebate, did it? That would be useful for my wife, if it were so…
You’re correct – I’d not realized I’d used the image of the business card! I’ll change the image to try to avoid further confusion.
Josh
Nick pointed that out to me awhile back ONLY the personal card gets 10% rebate so I was going keep that .Well they changed the terms so Both are trash to me . FM need to work harder help the Poor like Me get better value for my merger travel dollars..
CHEERs
This is a bummer. The 10% rebate was the primary reason I kept the card open. This will likely result in canceling my AAdvantage platinum card.
Yup canceled my personal card 3 hrs ago and TOAD her why .Which means nothing to them the other in June hope to have 40k by then or will buy (God help me) points for a one way Down Under ..
CHEERs
They’ll see a lot of cancellations from this change…my 2 cards are on their way out of my drawer and headed to the shredder now.
Thanks I’m booked till 2/2020 and have a renewal next month . I’ll just cancel both and cut every card I can then look for a card to Flip .More and more the Game u can only Flip to make this stuff work their gutting all the cards .
CHEERs