In 2022, American Airlines debuted a new simplified system for earning status: Loyalty Points (LP). In addition to earning Loyalty Points by flying, they can also be earned via many other avenues, including by shopping through the American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping portal.
The AA Shopping Portal has been a popular place for folks cruising for both American Airlines status and redeemable miles. Apple products in particular have been hot items via the AA portal (and others), both for personal use and for resale.
Unfortunately, there is now language on the portal’s Apple page that specifies it will only pay out earnings on up to six Apple phones or computers, 32 AirTags and 8 AirPods…for your entire life. This language also appears on other Cartera-run airline shopping portals such as Alaska Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest, etc.
Quick Thoughts
Here’s the full language on the AA portal:
Your rewards are subject to lifetime limits of: (a) six (6) units per model in each of the following product categories: iPhone, Mac, iPad, Watch, Vision, Apple TV, and HomePod; (b) thirty-two (32) units of each of the following: AirTag 1-pack and AirTag accessories; (c) eight (8) AirTag 4-pack; and (d) ten (10) units of each of the following: AirPods and other eligible accessories. The lifetime limit applies to any purchase you make from the Apple Store website and app. Rewards will not be issued once you exceed the lifetime limit for a product.
What’s surprising to me about this isn’t so much that Cartera is setting limits on Apple devices, it’s that they’re setting a lifetime limit. After all, a family could easily hit six devices in a year between phones, watches and iPads and then they’d be done. For life.
Cartera portals recently restricted earnings on giftcards.com purchases as well, but that was a yearly limit, which makes much more sense (and is much easier to track). I’ll be interested to see if this policy continues to stay in-place and is enforced. In the meantime, gather ye AirPods while ye may.
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As I read that it’s 6 phones, plus 6 Macs, plus…. You get the idea. Not 6 total from that list. And, it really reads as 6 of each model of each type of device (iPhone 16, 16Max, 17, etc). Gotta agree that the only folks affected are probably resellers.
My guess is this is to deter resellers and those using their AA number on the portal but having someone else pay (e.g. for their new iPhone).
Yes, a family could do 6 units in a year of watches, iPhones, and iPads if they plan to shell out $8k-$10k in a single year on all of that (and really, who is going to do that unless they are 100% in the Apple ecosystem where Apple doesn’t want to pay out for that?). Even then, the spouse could do the same thing in 2-4 years when they decide to buy it all over again. And then they can repeat with Best Buy, etc.
This really feels like it stops those doing reselling, and honestly, how many people are truly affected, especially if it lasts 5 years or fewer?
It’s also interesting that this is limited to certain products, and not Apple writ-large. The lifetime language is truly bizarre, and I do wonder if it’ll stick…