Update 12/17/21: This American Airlines SimplyMiles 5x promotion is being honored! Those who got in on these offers with a linked card before 10am Eastern time on 12/14 can expect to receive the miles. See this post for more detail: Incredible: the 240x SimplyMiles deal is being honored!.
Update 12/14/21 4:03pm Eastern: For a few minutes this afternoon, the SimplyMiles site showed a banner with confusing messaging about when the bonus miles ran out (it said the bonus miles ran out at 12am on December 13th, which would technically be one minute after 11:59pm on Sunday night, 12+ hours before they confirmed the deal to View from the Wing. They likely meant something else but regardless they quickly pulled that message so it clearly wasn’t anything definitive). Gary at View from the Wing has since followed up with American Airlines and they tell him that they are in discussions with Mastercard to make sure that customers get all of the promotional miles offered. That bodes as well as anything would at this juncture, so I recommend readers don’t panic or read too far into anything until American and Mastercard release a definitive public statement. We’ll keep monitoring for developments. Hold on tight; this ride isn’t over.
Update 12/14/21 12:08pm Eastern: The SimplyMiles site was down for an hour or so. When it came back up around noon Eastern time, the banner advertising the 5x promotion was gone. At this point, we assume the 5x promotion has been pulled, but there hasn’t yet been any further word about whether it will be honored (apart from American’s statement to View from the Wing yesterday) and until what time. Next is the waiting.
Update #2 12/13/21: A member of our Frequent Miler Insiders group reported that many new offers have been added to newly-created accounts. I created a new account on Saturday and I now see many more offers including Conservation International. If you created a new account in the past few days, it is worth logging in again to check for this! Keep in mind that I can’t believe this has lasted this long, so I don’t recommend donating more than you can live with if only 40x posts.
Update 12/13/21: There is an amazing opportunity to earn a lot of American Airlines miles in this SimplyMiles deal for an extra 5x earnings.
When we originally posted this deal on Saturday, we intentionally decided not to publicize what is unquestionably the best of the available SimplyMiles deals: the chance to earn 240 American Airlines Miles per dollar while donating to a charity called Conservation International. That’s because the offer for Conservation International, which seems to be a widely available SimplyMiles offer though perhaps not on all accounts (and not yet showing up on new SimplyMiles accounts) is good for 40 miles per dollar spent. With the way the 5x promotion works (as detailed in the post below), you should receive an additional 200x miles per dollar spent for a total of 240x miles per dollar donated. Note that I think you need to click through the link at SimplyMiles to make your donation. Unlike other SimplyMiles card-linked deals, I’m just not sure that donating directly through Conservation International’s site would work as the American Airlines SimplyMiles link goes to a specific Mastercard portal for making the donation and triggers an email from Mastercard about the 40x base miles.
We saw this offer and discussed it before publishing. Since AA said there were a limited number of miles available for the entire promotion, we thought that a limited number of people would donate massive amounts and kill the promotion for everyone if we shouted about that opportunity. Instead, we tried to strike a balance between alerting people of the promotion — and noting several times how amazing it is and how it was worth logging in to check offers — with hoping it wouldn’t end on Day 1. My thought was that readers who took my word for it and logged in to check would find it (and indeed some did in the comments shortly after publishing).
Of course, we knew that other blogs would eventually highlight the charity opportunity, but by not highlighting it immediately we hopefully gave some readers a 24hr head start and a better shot of the miles posting before the promo is pulled. Indeed it was covered elsewhere on Sunday and then View from the Wing posted about the chance to buy miles at a cost of less than half a cent per mile once the cat was out of the bag.
And now we have some amazing news: apart from American’s statement to View from the Wing yesterday on donations to Conservation International while this promotion is alive (provided of course that you have synced it up and donated with the linked card, etc). They have not determined how to alert people when the promotional miles have been exhausted and the promotion is over, but I feel a lot better about the chances that my wife will actually get 1 million miles for the $5K donation she made before we published (especially seeing as how Gary references some people donating multiples of that).
It is worth adding here that Gary was very clear in how he questioned American Airlines to be sure that this was not a mistake or something that would fail to be honored. Indeed they intend to honor it.
Is it worth going wild on this? I don’t know. American Airlines miles aren’t as useful as they once were and they could devalue at any time. On the other hand, I figured that I earned well more than $5,000 over the past two years just from checking account and brokerage bonuses and I could potentially turn that money into a million miles. I was willing to take the risks of devaluation and of the promotion not being honored as I understood it because I was playing with some money that I’d set aside for crazy opportunities like this.
I also don’t know anything about the potential tax benefits or lack thereof. Gary covers some of that in his post which is worth reading any way you slice it for more detail and examples.
Note that this offer could get pulled at any time, so I would very seriously refresh the page and make sure you still see the 5x banner at the top before clicking through to donate and then making your donation in one swift movement. There is obviously a chance that this somehow gets pulled before your transaction goes through or whatever — be sure you can live with the 40x on whatever amount you donate even if the extra 200x doesn’t come through. I do feel confident enough about the 40x since they send an email confirming that right away and Gary notes that Mastercard funds the 40x portion of this, not the charity nor American Airlines.
The original post follows.
SimplyMiles has returned an incredible promotion that they last ran in 2019: through December 27th, you can get 5x bonus miles on all SimplyMiles offers. Based on the email that American Airlines sent to some members, the promo will work the same as it did last time which means that it is far more generous than it may sound at first blush. I’m certainly planning to make some SimplyMiles purchases today.
The Deal
- American Airlines SimplyMiles is bringing back a very lucrative promotion: through December 27th, you can earn an additional 5x bonus miles on every purchase with SImplyMiles offers. This adds a multiple of 5 on top of whatever the bonus offer is — while supplies last as there is a limited number of total bonus miles
- Link to SimplyMiles
Key Terms
- Valid on all offers through December 27, 2021 subject to availability of bonus miles
Quick Thoughts
The last time they ran this promotion, Stephen initially assumed that it would add an additional 5 miles per dollar spent (which seems like a reasonable guess). However, he later updated the post when he found that it actually added 5 times the offer amount on top of the normal payout.
That makes for some potentially awesome deals. See this snippet from Stephen’s post about the 2019 promotion:
I spent $200+ at Best Buy a couple of times recently with a Mastercard that I’d linked to the SimplyMiles program as I had two Best Buy offers – one for 1,000 bonus miles and one for 750 bonus miles. The 5x quintupled both those amounts and were awarded separately to each of those bonuses, effectively sextupling them.
As you can see, for my first transaction on December 17 I earned a total of 4,500 miles, then earned 6,000 miles when spending $200 a couple of days later. That’s 30x for in-store Best Buy purchases on the latter transaction which is amazing.
Indeed American’s email to some members indicates that this will work the same way again this time:
There are many much more generous opportunities. For example, meal delivery box service Blue Apron is offering 1,200 miles with a $50 purchase.
If this promotion works the way it did for Stephen last time, you would theoretically earn 7,200 miles on a $50 purchase (1,200 miles initially plus 6,000 bonus miles (5 x 1200). That would be like buying miles for less than a cent per mile even if you didn’t want the meal delivery kit, which certainly could make it worth giving Blue Apron a shot.
There are lots of other potentially great deals for hotels (I’m seeing the usual IHG offers and a Mandarin Oriental offer that could be of interest) to deals on all sorts of gifts. It is worth logging in and taking a look.
It sounds like this is good for unlimited use across SimplyMiles offers. The email sent by AA is a bit confusing in that regard. At the bottom of the email, it says something like a limit of 3 uses by December 31st, but I think that referred to a Target (the store) offer within the email that has a 12/31 expiration date. The 5x bonus mile offer only runs until 12/27, so I don’t think the line about 12/31 applies. In other words, I think that as it says in a couple of places, the extra 5x is good on all SimplyMiles offers through 12/27 — “while supplies last”.
Note that the promo wording indicates that there are a limited number of bonus miles available through this deal. That means that this could end sooner than December 27th, particularly if some people spend a lot of money on opportunities like the ones above or others. Last time around, it was originally scheduled to run until December 31st and ended up getting pulled at 12pm on December 27th. I’d therefore recommend getting in sooner rather than later. At the same time, I urge some caution here: I don’t know how we’ll know when all of the bonus miles are exhausted. I’m only going to take advantage of offers to a degree with which I’m still comfortable if this doesn’t pan out.
If we knew this would last until the end of the year, it would be tempting to see if purchases made toward the end of the year posted in 2022 and counted toward elite status (since miles earned from the shopping portal and SimplyMiles will count). I’m just not sure whether it will last all the way through 12/27 nor that the earnings won’t be backdated to 2021.
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Anyone’s miles not post? Ive tried contacting Simply Miles but no response. Ill likely be doing a charge back to my card before the statement is due.
[…] noted by Frequent Miler, at the moment SimplyMiles has a special promotion (you’ll see this after logging into your […]
So maybe no news is good news?!?!?
Timeline for deal posting:
Just had a purchase from 12/4 post to Simplymiles today 12/16 (at the standard 1x, since this was before the promo). I had also stacked a Citi Merchant Offer, and they both went through fine – the Citi offer posted on 12/9. Miles have not posted to AA yet, so there may be a bit more delay there.
It seems fishy that “it said the bonus miles ran out at 12am on December 13th.” If there actually was a pool of miles set aside for the promo, the expiration of the pool would probably conclude at a time other than exactly at midnight.
It’s not fishy at all, they are in damage control mode right now.
Thanks for the update. Here’s hoping! A small donation was quick and easy, but it took a while to pick out the perfect 6 bottles of wine!
They should give all participants 6X on up to the first $1,000 donated, 2X on anything further (which is still an excellent return for anyone who gave more given the known risks), and everyone responsible for the terms of this promotion should be fired for stupidity. You simply can’t give people 3-4 times their purchase back in points without a reasonable stated cap. If this had had a reasonable stated cap of say $1,000 per participant, then everyone who wanted to participate could have, and I bet the charity would have ended up with the same total donations. And I’m not saying this as someone who got boxed out; I knew about this very early on, chose not to participate because I have a couple million AA miles already. I’m more concerned that this is just another reason, on top of the existing inflation caused by our incompetent federal reserve, for AA to devalue.
I’ve seen some verbiage on some blogs that the deal was limited to 3 transactions but that is odd since that never appeared on the site. I noticed the banner was gone at about 11:15am CST. I was outside a CVS getting ready to go in to take advantage of one of the offers and noted it was gone on the website.
Yeah, I saw that, too. I have no idea where they got the 3 transactions thing. I call bs on that one.
It was in the email I forwarded FM to kick this deal off. It was interpreted by Stephen and Nick as pertaining to the Target offer highlighted near the top of my email, which also stated a 12/31 end date which was listed in the fine print at the bottom. A wise interpretation, as I was planning to limit myself to 3x per player.
Thank you for clarifying. Even at 3 per person, you could have bought a truck load of miles — 7.2 million per person! So, did you actually buy that much?
Yes, thanks so much for forwarding the email about the promo, Troy!
As Troy notes, the email was poorly worded. I totally see how someone may have thought that the limit of 3 offers pertained to the 5x promo, but if you read the screen shot of the exact wording from AA, it said the extra 5x was on every offer site-wide.
Just below that wording was a big ad for the Target offer, which was scheduled to end 12/31. Then the first fine print point at the bottom of the email said:
That line clearly didn’t pertain to the 5x offer because the 5x offer had a scheduled end date of 12/27. The first thing in the email that had a 12/31 end date was the Target offer — and by so coincidence that Target offer did indeed show a limit of 3 uses in the offer terms on SimplyMiles. So the limit of 3 times was referring to the Target offer, not the 5x bonus offer.
I could definitely see how that was misinterpreted though.
The problem was I had just completed 2 offers the day before/morning of receiving the email – so I was only certain to have one more shot, and this was before Gary knew of the deal or reached out to AA for confirmation. Between uncertainty and the fact I’m sitting on 3 million miles and transferable points (750k AA), I only pulled the trigger for a $3k donation and later completed deals that should net another 102,000 miles between P1/P2. Overall 872,502 miles for $3242.29 after some stacking!
4:50pm, Should I pull the trigger or is it too late?
It’s beyond dead now. The update explains that they are determining when it died and how to honor it.
Thank you
How “optimistic’ are you now? (re: honoring it)
And now the verbage is gone. Something is not right. I hope they honor the bonus when the offer was up, else we may have to dispute the charge.
The deal has indeed ended. Verbage when you login
The 5X AAdvantage promotion offer has reached its cap and has ended. Purchases made after 12 AM ET on December 13, 2021 no longer qualify for the 5X bonus.
But this is not fair, which means all purchases made yesterday does not qualify
So we should have made the puchase on Dec 11 or Dec 12th?
I hope this is not correct. I made my big donation yesterday.
Me too
would love to be a fly on the wall at AA and MC headquarters right now. Dec 13 at 12 am cut off would be before we got all this news saying it was legit of course….
JL100
I think AA+MC realized the mistake. Maybe a rookie was asked to update. Keeping fingers crossed.
Raghu
Now that wording was taken off. Seems like they are trying to sort though this.
Did you see the latest banner?
The 5X AAdvantage promotion offer has reached its cap and has ended.
We hope you continue enjoying earning miles with participating merchants in SimplyMiles.
Yes . This is much more encouraging. Which to me looks like, I am leaning on the side that AA+MasterCard will honor the eligible transactions when the banner was up at least till yesterday
Raghu
It looks like the site is EXTREMELY slow right now. On top of that, I just got it to load and don’t see the language stating 5x. It looks like they are making updates…
Yes, they’ve had it basically locked out for the past couple of hours.
5x bonus was a mistake offering. They didn’t realize the 40x would make this offering so lucrative.
AA confirmed to VFTW yesterday that it wasn’t a mistake.
But they also confirmed that the miles available for the 5x promo were limited…
Can you check out at best buy using paypal and the mastercard to stack?
No such offer showed up for me. Oh well, might have been too tempting to go overboard on it.
Can I use the same offer multiple times? Like for the winc offer, can I place multiple $30 orders and get 6,000 miles each time?
Offers that allow multiples will explicitly state so when you click on the full terms of the offer. Everything else is single redemption.
Just signed up and can’t see the offer. It’s 11:20 here in central time, but already Tuesday on the east coast. I guess it’s been pulled?
It’s not going to show up immediately after sign up. It took a few days to show up for new accounts.
1 Day for me. Right around 24 hours I’d say.
Its alreadypulled
How long is it taking you guys to get confirmation emails from SimplyMiles? I got a CI receipt right away but nothing from SimplyMiles yet.
I don’t think anyone has gotten an email. These are card-linked offers, so I wouldn’t expect anything for days at least if they even send an email. I’d just keep an eye on your SimplyMiles / AAdvantage accounts for this stuff to hopefully show up in maybe the next week or three.
That was my thought also but I just read Ben at OMAT write that he got confirmations on 3 different card transactions.
He means the confirmation email from MasterCard that they received your donation, which also notes the 40x base miles.
Can you use a Mastercard Debit card? I was able to register via a Mastercard debit card. Just want to confirm that it will work. Tried to read thru the T&Cs, but could not find anything on what works and what does not. BUT for registering, it worked using debit Mastercard.
I don’t know for sure.
Greg
I signed up on Sun and found no deals for 40x – I thought it was dead
– then the offers became available on my account today (Monday) and I cashed in.
I opened up new accounts for family and they show no good offers (neither movie club or conservation)
I think you can only buy with a mastercard that is linked to account for the 5x bonus
So sign up
Wait
Add the cards you are going to use
Activate the offers you want
Verify the 40x then buy WITH THE CARDs that are registered
US Airways lives on in promos!
Not seeing any of the good deals – the movies at 23x, conservation international 40x, or even blue apron.
I see intimissi so I can get my wife some lingerie at 15x which is fun but not quite the same as a million miles.
I don’t see conservation international is it still up there?
I do.
can you post a screenshot of the icon?
Just type “Conservation” in the search box.
If you just created a new account, it won’t show up yet. I have the offer synced in my wife’s account and in mine and I see the offer on both.
Yes, I just created a new account.
Then I wouldn’t expect to see the Conservation offer right away – it did get added tonight for many people who had new accounts created over the past few days, but I expect you won’t see it until they add a new round of offers to your account (if it’s still alive then).
I don’t see the offer on an existing albeit not used account. Do you recommend opening another?
The offer is not for everyone
I suspect that since AA’s SimplyMiles program does not see the purchases until the credit card issuer pushes the purchase activity to their database to track/credit the miles, this offer will not be pulled until the systems sync up in a few days (after thousands of people donated under the understanding they will earn 240x) and there will be a majority of people holding the bag having donated a lot of money without the promised miles to show for it.
They’ll pull the offer, say that they issued the max amount of miles allowed under the program, and not honor it for majority of people. Members of this community will be left asking a reputable charity for massive refunds at no fault of their own (or, if they do not provide refunds, initiating chargebacks), and Mastercard/AA will be to blame for mismanaging the promotion. I can see the news headlines now…..
The donation site and the simply miles say that donations made through simply miles are non refundable. All chargebacks can be defined on that basis.
Your donation would also have been made with reasonable expectation that you would be credited with the advertised bonus miles given it is still being advertised even now, and probably still will be tomorrow. The interesting thing about this is that Mastercard is the one fronting the miles for the 5x promo, and Mastercard is the one that was processing the donations for the charity… Could end up being a PR nightmare for them.
What’s advertised is that the bonus is subject to availability. To consider that a guarantee is not a “reasonable expectation.” However I didn’t realize MC is paying for the miles, and maybe that reduces the risk quite a lot.
Sweet I got the offer and donated $1000. I don’t cook but it looks like it’s time to try Blue Apron. I’m slightly skeptical…hopefully they will stop showing the 5x promo once the bonus miles are gone.
Wyndham portal is also offering 5400 points for Blue Apron. Should stack. My wife is working on picking recipes right now. 🙂
Cool thanks. that’s perfect…that’ll give me enough wyndham points for a free night
What does a purchase via Simply Miles code as? The end merchant?
With 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of offers, it’s a card-linked offer. You’re not purchasing through SimplyMiles. For example, the CVS offer triggers when you sync the offer to your Mastercards and shop at CVS, whether in-store or online. Same for the Best Buy offer. You don’t purchase anything from SimplyMiles. It’s like Amex Offers — you sync these up and then use them.
The Conservation International is an oddity in that there is a specific link after you sync the offer that you click through and go to some “Priceless Planet Coalition” site that looks like it is created by Mastercard to donate to Conservation International. It’s pretty intuitive.
The charge from Saturday is still pending. It shows up as “Conservation International” and the category is “Other Services”.
I did the Blue Apron offer yesterday before seeing this “Conservation” Bonanza. It can’t process my 1st order until Dec. 22, so now I’m wondering if I should cancel … (if I even can)
same!
The deal ends on 12/31 so you should be good right?
It ends sooner if they “run out of points” but the trickey thing is that no one knows when that will be. So I’m just gambling — if I cancel the order, it could get a bunch of miles. If I don’t, I might only get the base points …
Has anyone tried paypal key for simply miles?
Someone confirmed that they were able to link it and use it. Personally, I’d be a little hesitant. This deal is obviously getting tons of traction. I imagine an astronomical number of miles have been earned at this point. I wouldn’t exactly fall over with shock of Mastercard / AA look for a reason to not pay out and decide that PayPal Key backed with your Visa card isn’t really a Mastercard. Maybe I’d take that gamble on a couple hundred bucks, but not on a larger donation.
I have to finish my Hyatt $15K annual spend so I gambled a couple hundred. I will let you know how if it works!
[…] 12/13/21 7:43 p.m.: Frequent Miler notes that many more accounts have had offers added to them, and a lot more now have the 40 miles per […]
Will prepaid rate at IHG count? have a business trip in 02/2022
Check your accounts! This offer is now showing up on the new account I created on Saturday. I saw a member in our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group mention that a slew of new offers are appearing on new accounts and it looks true!
Ugh, I wish it would appear for me.
Thanks! Showed for me on a not new account. Donated a thousand!
Just because someone says “Yep, the promo is valid” doesn’t mean that in the end, they will honor it. Let’s say they had a budget of 10 million miles. After spreading like wildfire, now they are on the hook for 10 BILLION miles. Do you REALLY think they’ll come through? I have a skin in the game but mark this post because my experience tells me this will be a long saga for all involved. Conservation Int’l must be freaking out right now, LOL.
Yes
I’m guessing 10 billion miles is LOW. May be more like 50 billion…Even if this costs MC $500 million, they’ll be OK. Their market cap is over $300 billion.
Just used some miles last night. Offers shows up with “conservation” search. Premier card linked. Did 1k and worked. Tried signing up with P2. No previous simply miles account. Tried a few cards and couldn’t find with same search. Congrats to all those who had it!
Does it show in your SimplyMiles history already? I donated earlier, but nothing showing. I’ve had so many tracking issues with them so no idea if it’s just me or if it’s a standard delay on this
hey Jon, i donated $300 about 6 hours ago, nothing in the history yet.
I’m not seeing the offer on my account. 83 offers available and that’s not one of them
Any thoughts about how many loyaly points this offer will generate? On their site ( https://exploreamerican.com/newaadvantage/ ) it says “Eligible AAdvantage Miles include all base miles you earn as well as elite bonus and cabin bonus miles you earn. ” with no mention of bonus miles. My statement cuts Jan 5th so theoretically this offer should generate at least some loyalty points.
These miles aren’t earned on your credit card, they’re earned via SimplyMiles. It doesn’t matter when your credit card statement generates, the miles aren’t from these offers typically post with the date of the original transaction to my recollection. I don’t think there’s any plan earning loyalty points since those aren’t a thing until January in this promotion ends in December, likely sooner rather than later.
But the actual dollar amount spent should count for loyalty points if the statement closes after Jan 1st. That’s what Gary posted, and it makes sense.
In my experience AA miles get back dated. Miles that don’t show up until Jan will have a dec date.
This is accurate based on my history as well.
I meant the miles for the co-branded credit cards. These miles post all together after the closing statement for that card. AA does not get a date breakdown. My statement closes Jan 8, so I’ll find out soon. I mean, it’s not that many miles, but would be a nice little bonus for the status.
You’re right. Those will be loyalty points if your statement closes Jan 8th.
Any idea how frequently they reload offers? Wonder how long this might take to appear for new accounts that currently only show 83 offers.
Not available for me 🙁
Dead? I don’t see Conservation International in the offers list P1 or P2.
Hi, I made a big mistake: I forgot to add my mastercard to my simplymiles account but made $1000 donation. What is the best way to fix it? Thanks!
I just called credit card company but they can’t do anything and let contact the charity to cancel it.
I don’t understand, to sign up you need to use a Mastercard credit card or debit card. Assume it will not allow you transact a different way. Should have the MC as the prefered way of paying…
I thought my card was added to my SimplyMiles account but it turned out NOT.
Oh sorry understand. When you went to their protal to pay you did not use linked MC. Sorry was not thinking right… 🙂 Sorry to hear.
Ouch. I don’t know. Maybe you can get Conservation International to refund your donation, but whether you can get that worked out and get a new donation in on time to take advantage of this is anybody’s guess.
Nick
I just did 300 and another 301. That was my limit. Hopefully I will get 144K AA miles which I can use for Q Suites to India. I am guessing this will count towards tax deduction in which case I bought AA miles at 0.275c/mile which is nice
Thanks for real time updates
Best
Raghu
You are required to subtract the value of anything received in exchange for your donation. If you get 240 miles per dollar, there wont be anything left for a tax deduction.
Thanks Gene. How do I estimate its “cash” value. is there some place I can get value guidance
Search for “RRV” on this website. Other blogs, including VFTW, OMAAT, and TPG post their own values, too.
Bask Bank values them at 42 cents per mile, I assume that’s what IRS would go off – though I am not a tax expert
Thanks Jon and Gene. Jon I think you meant to say 0.42 cents a mile, other wise it comes to $60K in value, which means I have to pay income tax on $59.4K!! for donating $601
Thanks everyone
Whoops – yes .42, not 42
I saw it “immediately” yesterday but waited until today and donated $2K. Based on Gary’s info it seems positive but I should probably start working even harder to burn existing AA miles in case they get out of this thru inflation (i.e. devaluation). I might have to figure out a good reason to try out Qsuites.
“Through December 27, 2021, you can earn an additional 5X American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles* on every purchase with participating merchants on SimplyMiles™.”
ya all validated that bonus is 5 times of what ever you earned from the offer not ‘5’ miles per dollar correct 🙂
ah so tempted to do more. I see that my wife’s account has the offer too. it seems old accounts have the offer but newly created account today will not.
Yes. That’s well established in the post, the email that AA sent (which is quoted in the post) and the confirmation Gary received from AA (which is linked to within the post).
so, I’m in for $2500 donation and received the email from mastercard confirming 40 miles/$ donated. I am guessing we won’t see 5x bonus miles posted until promotion is over? I wanted to do more but not knowing that I will really get 5x bonus miles for 100% sure, 2500 was my nerve limit.
Looking at Stephen’s post from 2019, it looks like he saw both the base offer miles and the promotional 5x component within about a week after making purchases last time. So I expect that the bonus miles will hopefully all post (at least on the SimplyMiles side) in about a week, but if this lasts for a week I would be amazed beyond description.
Did not get targeted on my account. Inwill try to see if I have charity on other accounts
I tried three cards with zero luck.
Make that 4 cards. Just tried Double Cash.
This offer has not shown on three Mastercards I tried. I show a total of 83 offers available.
I see the 83 as well. Searched for charity no luck. I will try three more AA accounts later. Does anyone think it is related to card or account for offer?!
I wonder. I just saw on the Frequent Miler FB board some people are still finding this. I could try my wifes account tonight and see if that might work?
Interesting… my two simplymiles accounts, never bought anything before… I created them a while ago and forgot. both showing 150 total offers also including 2500 miles best buy offer. 150 offers vs 83… that’s big difference… I wonder what is making the difference.
I just created a new simplymiles account for my mom and it’s showing 83 offers. so it seems new vs old established accounts? anyways, if you guys see 83 offers, don’t bother looking for this 240miles/$ deal. you have to have 150 offers to begin with.
I have created accounts for wife and I. Same thing. 83 offers only. Oh well. Please let us know if you get 1.2M miles Nick!
same
I have it on my account. I assume if it doesn’t work this charity is going to have a LOT of disputed unauthorized credit card charges from many people. Ha, ha. Seriously, I bet a lot of people just dispute it on their credit card if it doesn’t work.
It’s sad but the new reality these days when things like this don’t work.
I just called mastercard and citibank. i only inquired about my ability to get a refund in the event i am not happy with my donation. i was told that conservation international is a legit charity and that the normal refund process would be in place in the event i choose to ask for a refund. my citibank representative even made a note on my account about the conversation. It would appear that the risk is very very minimal. I just “donated” $20k in three separate transactions and received emails from “mastercard donate” for each one confirming i will receive 40 miles per dollar. Here is the text from one of the emails:
Thank you for your donation of $8000.00 to Conservation International. Your contribution will help restore forests in Earth’s most vulnerable geographies and is part of the Priceless Planet Coalition goal of restoring 100 million trees by 2025. Learn more at PricelessPlanet.org.
Conservation International has charged your card ending in 6293 for the full donation (less any applicable standard card processing fees) and will appear as the merchant of record on your card statement. Conservation International is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Please consult with your tax advisor about any deductibility.
You’ve also earned 40 American Airlines AAdvantage® miles for every 1 dollar donated. Please allow up to eight weeks for the bonus miles to be posted to your AAdvantage account. Donations can only be accepted in U.S. dollars. Donations made in connection with AAdvantage® bonus miles program are not refundable. The receipt of miles may reduce the tax deductibility of your contribution, please seek a financial advisor for tax related questions.
Return to the SimplyMiles Program
If you have any questions, please contact our Customer Support team at 844-475-8335.
Sincerely,
Priceless Planet Coalition, in collaboration with Conservation International
The donation confirmation email clearly states that “Donations made in connection with AAdvantage® bonus miles program are not refundable.”
yes, i noticed that and this is why i called – i should have called first…. i was told by the citibank rep that if something about the offer is different than what i was told, it would still be refundable. i am saving emails and screen shots so i am pretty confident that if points dont come according to the emails and screen shots then i will be able to get a refund.
It sounds like you forgot to tell Citi the terms state the bonus is limited and subject to availability.
Also who listens to Citi reps?
i gotta think citi has the power over conservation international, thus i believe i would win in a fight over whether or not the promotion held up to the advertising. i could not find this anywhere online but i suspect that if they pull the offer and do not honor it, they would give us the option of getting our money back. this is not “jim’s backwood bbq” out of someone’s garage. we are dealing a four star non-profit and citi. citi is huge and is for sure seeing the dollars flow into this offer and would do something to stop it rather than incur the wrath of a PR nightmare.
“whether or not the promotion held up to the advertising” The advertising says the bonus is subject to availability. It doesn’t say the bonus is guaranteed until you see a notice on our website. And yes of course Citi has sway as a huge company. I’m talking about the reliability of Citi reps in general.
Any idea whether the Conservation International offer is valid for multiple donations? The terms state “This offer applies to *a* valid purchase/donation,” but then is says “Offer valid on donation*s* in the continental US.” Donated $250 yesterday but am tempted to give more…
I don’t know. I might have made a second donation but didn’t want to risk anything interfering with my first donation. I expect it should work for multiple donations, but I don’t think we could be 100% certain. It’s probably worth a shot if you’re doing relatively small donations.
Thanks. I have two cards linked to my SimplyMiles account, so may just donate another $250 using the other card.
i made multiple donations and received confirmation emails for each.
ok so it shows up on mine, I had an existing account, used it yesterday. Created new simply miles account using p2s info and won’t show up. I guess I am going in for 1k….
I logged into simplymiles and other than BestBuy’s “1500 miles on a purchase of $200 or more” I am only seeing 1-2 miles/$1 offers.
Boo.
dang. sucks. i dont see the offers on my end. wish nick would have just mentioned it in the original post. i saw it and read it but didn’t jump on it because there was no mention of a killer deal so I was going to peruse the list tonight. had I known there was this killer deal I would have ran to my laptop. my fault for not looking, but more of a heads up would have been nice also.
I got on this in the beginning and still didn’t see half the offers everyone else did.The only one I got was BB and the rest were crap.
Like I said, I knew if I highlighted this deal specifically, there would be heavy hitters going in for tens of thousands at a time and likely killing it on day 1. I tried to be explicit that you should log in and check and that I thought it might not last in a couple of places in the post. I’m sorry that you didn’t see it sooner — but on the other hand, if you don’t see the offers, they probably weren’t there. This deal still shows up in my wife’s account.
This deal is DOA. Way too late. Others must have been hitting this hard. I checked three different Mastercards.
worked fine for me – i have card already on file?
still showing it live on my end!
Dang new account so not seeing it. Any advice on a BB purchase?
i just opened a new account and really only see the BB offer as worthwhile.
I don’t see Conservation international as an offer. Any trick to getting that as an offer? Thanks
Delete (made a post related to my company matching the donation, but they don’t match when you receive something, so never mind).
Bummer — saw your original comment and that would have been nice!
Technically, my company just wants you to subtract the value of what you receive, so if something goes wrong and I only get 40x, then I could still get some company match. But I’d have to call the charity and agree with them on the value of the miles because my company verifies my donation with the charity, not me.
Anyway, hopefully I just get my 240x and all of what I wrote becomes a thought experiment 🙂
I got my donation in, but when I tried to do it for P2, the Conservation International button was gone.
kudos on getting it first time around.
I haven’t had luck on my 1st one yet.
In for $250 to charity mostly just to have a stake in what is likely to become either the biggest boondoggle or the biggest sham of the 2021 miles and points game. The shame of all this is that the chance of getting extra loyalty points by having the promo go to the end of the month is now zero. I assume this promo won’t last the day. Gary reports some people donating $20k.
That’s crazy 20K? I did $300 about 20 minutes ago fingers crossed
Hey Lary is the transaction pending under your recent transactions?
I only can see a “miles earned” link and have nothing there for either my winc wines transaction (earlier today) or the charity.
Will I get the points if I use P2 AA Mastercard on my AA SimplyMiles account? It let me added but I wonder if the cards have to be in my name as well?
Thanks
That has worked for me for other offers in the past, but I have no idea how closely these 240x transactions will be monitored for reasons not to honor them.
Do you think the shipping charge counts toward the $30 spend threshold on Winc.com?
Good question. Worst case I get $15 from rakuten and 4 bottles of wine and the hassle of having to cancel the subscription in a month.
I’m expecting a clawback, but 6,000 MR just posted to my Rakuten account for the Winc deal. Nothing on Simply Miles yet.
[…] noted by Frequent Miler, at the moment SimplyMiles has a special promotion (you’ll see this after logging into your […]
Two questions about how SimplyMiles works: 1) If I activate an offer and then later add a new credit card, would the new card be eligible for the offer? 2) The FAQ says “You may register up to three payment cards in SimplyMiles”. However, I have unknownly added more than 3 cards (like 5 or 6) and the SimplyMiles website never prevented me from doing that. What would happen in this situation?
I’ve got at 8-10 registered and have had offers post. I’m not 100% certain on adding a card after activating an offer.
I’m not sure on adding a card after activating the offer.
I am travelling now and do not have my AA citicard with me. Is there a deal with BestBuy. I need to buy a dryer and this would be a nice Christmas gift. Would someone take a look and post it here.
I have 2500 miles on a $200 Best Buy purchase so it would be 15,000
Wow, that is weird, mine is showing 1500 miles on a $200 purchase. I wonder if that changed or is it based on my card?
You don’t need an AA MasterCard. You can sign up with any MasterCard.
I believe you but unlike other offers the BestBuy one reads, “ Must first add offer to AAdvantage Mastercard and then use same card to redeem. Only U.S. issued AAdvantage Mastercards are eligible. “
That’s interesting. I don’t see that. Here are the full terms under the Best Buy offer for me:
OFFER DETAILS
Earn 1500 AAdvantage miles when you make a purchase of $200 or more. Best Buy is a leading specialty retailer of computers and computer accessories, electronics, video games and home appliances. You can find the latest and best deals on popular laptops, quality cameras, iPods, iPads, iPhones, HDTVs and gaming consoles like Xbox, Playstation and Wii, along with savings on all other electronics.
View full terms & conditions
Excludes Best Buy Express, Geek Squad services made outside of Best Buy, Best Buy Parts Store, Best Buy Direct, Best Buy Education, Best Buy Ignite, Best Buy Secondary Markets, Best Buy Private Store & Auction or as standalone Pacific Sales stores. Offer is non-transferable. Limit of 1 mileage earn per card member. AAdvantage Miles will be rewarded in most cases in 3 to 5 business days, but in some cases can take up to 15 business days. If American Airlines SimplyMiles does not receive information that identifies your transaction as qualifying for the offer, you will not receive your miles. For example, your transaction will not qualify if it is not made directly with the merchant. By adding an offer to a card, you agree that American Airlines may send you communication about the offer. Not valid for gift card, e-gift card, or corporate gift card purchases. Offer valid for instore and online purchases.
For what it’s worth, neither my wife nor I even have an AA Mastercard linked to SimplyMiles (and I don’t have an AA Mastercard at all). We both have the offer and have linked it.
I have more than 1 card registered but only 1 AA card. Mine says I have “2 reward redemptions” which I guess means I can use the offer twice. The first sentence implies I have some control over where I add the offer but of course I don’t.
View full terms & conditions
Must first add offer to AAdvantage Mastercard and then use same card to redeem. Only U.S. issued AAdvantage Mastercards are eligible. Limit 1 enrolled card per card member across AA SimplyMiles program. Your enrollment of an eligible Mastercard for this offer extends only to that card. Valid at any participating location in the US and US Territories on purchases of $200 or more. Not valid for gift card, e-gift card, or corporate gift card purchases. Offer not valid at outlet locations.
Excludes Best Buy Express, Geek Squad services made outside of Best Buy, Best Buy Parts Store, Best Buy Direct, Best Buy Education, Best Buy Ignite, Best Buy Secondary Markets, Best Buy Private Store & Auction or as standalone Pacific Sales stores. Offer is non-transferable. Limit of 2 reward redemptions earned per card member. AAdvantage Miles will be rewarded in most cases in 3 to 5 business days, but in some cases can take up to 15 business days. If American Airlines SimplyMiles does not receive information that identifies your transaction as qualifying for the offer, you will not receive your miles. For example, your transaction will not qualify if it is not made directly with the merchant. By adding an offer to a card, you agree that American Airlines may send you communication about the offer. Not valid for gift card, e-gift card, or corporate gift card purchases. Offer valid for instore and online purchases.
I wonder what would happen if you removed your AA Mastercard. I’m not telling you to do that — especially if you’ve linked the offer already — but I wonder whether it would still show up that way.
Indeed, one of my family member’s SimplyMiles account has 2500 miles on a $200 Best Buy purchase. The offer also requires using an AAdvantage MasterCard which he doesn’t even hold. The only card registered in his account is a Citi Rewards+ card. I am tempted to use the Citi Rewards+ card to make a $200+ purchase and see if the bonus miles post.
At one time simply miles did require an AA card. My guess is the Best Buy offer was copy pasted from those days and your R+ will prob still work.
Some of the linkbacks are malicious sites.
Could you explain “malicious sites?”
I forget which one, but one of the two pingbacks that are NOT from Gary at VFTW took me to a malicious website. It was either “The Drum” or “Jay’s Travelogue”. I would check again to narrow it down, but I don’t want to click the links again.
Thanks, I removed the ones with which I wasn’t familiar. Those linkbacks are automatic when other sites link to us. I appreciate you bringing it to our attention so we could remove anything questionable.
[…] Miler writes that you can earn ‘an additional’ 5 times the usual American AAdvantage miles through […]
Are the purchase thresholds based on the price or do they include taxes? For example, for “1500 miles on a purchase of $200 or more” at Best Buy, is the $200 based on the pre-tax price, or after-tax total charge?
The last time this 5x deal came along, I bought something that was $199 pre-tax (so significantly more than $200 with taxes). I did not get miles. I am not sure it is because it needs to be above that amount pre-tax, or it just didn’t track (I have had issues with other purchases not posting). I contacted them several times, but their customer service is terrible and I just gave up after a while.
Since this is card linked, Can you use a portal for even more? Like Rakuten portal + this?
Definitely. Also Citi merchant or Chase offers can stack. I had at least one stack with another card-linked program (Choice Privileges).
how quickly I can see transaction being tracked in simplymiles. I purchased some gift cards in target earlier today but dont see anything tracking or posted in account yet. does it show up after few days ?
Do gift cards work to trigger simplymiles?
hasnt triggered for me so far
Posting Time DPs from previous SimplyMiles offers (they send a “thank you for using your SimplyMiles offer” email.
In-store Best Buy: had 2 offers for Best Buy saved at the time, 5 days for 1, 15 days for 2nd
BP Gas (via BPme App at pump): 15 days
Online AARP offer: had this stacked with a Citi Merchant Offer, the Citi offer credited automatically but the SimplyMiles offer never credited. Support manually credited it after multiple emails (2 months later)
May not be worth stacking a small savings of $5-$15 on some of these deals if you don’t want to deal with support.
If others have DPs from previous purchases that’d be appreciated.
I just checked my Citi card and it had $25 off $50 purchase at Blue Apron for an awesome stack!
Per Blue Apron Citi Offers: “Excludes gift card purchases, corporate transactions, and purchases made through third party websites and retailers.” So, may or may not work.
Several of these offers have redemption limits (1, 2, 3 etc.), but several offers including the Blue Apron offer don’t list any redemption limit at all.
Is it safe to assume that offers without a redemption limit listed can be redeemed multiple times / in multiple transactions?
I don’t know for sure.
Honestly, I want to test the 40 miles per $1 donation play (mentioned in the comments on gcgalore) with a smaller donation in hopes of determing whether or not it’ll credit correctly.
I’m concerned that this small donation will result in the offer showing as redeemed though. Then I would be unable to make a larger second donation if the first one does credit correctly.
Any thoughts on a strategy for that particular offer?
If you have a P2, then there’s no real risk doing a small transaction with P2, and then do whatever extra quantity you want once you see if it works with P1.
Already did this. No reason to believe miles will post before promotional mile allotment runs out though.
Are the offers different for everyone (kind of like Amex offers)? I don’t see the Blue Apron or IHG offers. Or much of anything else that’s useful. I do see the Best Buy one, but I bought all the electronics I needed on Black Friday.
Yes, these offers can be targeted.
Seems like I got all the not so great offers. I’ll have my wife sign up and she what she has.
The Best Buy offer’s terms state “Limit of 1 mileage earn per card member” – does this mean a unique linked credit card number can be used to redeem this offer only once?
Right, SimplyMiles offers are single use.
How did Stephen get the bonus miles twice? An error?
Two different offers. He notes that he had one offer for 750 miles with $200 spend and one offer for 1,000 miles with $200 spend. You can use each separate offer once. They don’t stack. I think whichever you link first will get used on the first transaction.
I have had them stack before not saying I’d rely on it but I had two BBY offers post on the same purchase. But that is the only time I ever had two offers for one merchant with SM so never got a chance to test again.
Do you have to use your AA Mastercard to pay for your purchase?
No. You don’t even need an AA Mastercard to sign up for SimplyMiles. Any Mastercard will work — you just need to link the Mastercard to your SimplyMiles account and then sync the offer.
Will this stack with Rakuten Best Buy 5% cash back? Looks like it’s the same interface, so my guess would be no. Time to find out for sure, LOL.
Nice angle on the 2022 Elite Status play, hadn’t considered that. Does anyone have datapoints from the 2019 promo whether various stacks worked? I’m also curious about the “participating merchants” language, since there’s no list provided. If the charity listed goes from 40 miles/dollar to 240, then that’s some serious value.
If I could get 2M AA status plus 2M spendable miles for an $8.3K donation …
I added an offer for BP using the app for $20+ and just filled up, so I should know in a couple days how the multiplier is working.
Up in the Air, Part Two!
I’m SO tempted to try it!!!
“… while supplies last as there is a limited number of total bonus miles.”
This is the most worrisome part…
Aw, man, now I am so sad that I don’t have the donation offer. But the 1500 (*6) Best Buy offer… dang, at least I have that 🙂
Jeph36, Even if we were in 2022 the donation wouldn’t count toward MM.
“Does my card activity count toward Million Miler℠ status?
Only flight activity contributes to Million Miler℠ status. Neither AAdvantage® miles nor Loyalty Points earned through your card contribute to Million Miler℠ status.”
Any data points on whether the Best Buy offer works on gift cards? The terms say no, but I’m curious about what happens in practice.