Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
This week, the Aadvantage eShopping portal is running a few exciting bonus offers. To take advantage of these offers, simply browse to the Aadvantage eShopping portal and then click through to the merchant where you want to shop. Purchases will earn American Airlines miles in addition to any miles you earn automatically from your credit card.
Let’s take a look at each of these offers…
eBags 16X
16 miles per dollar is an excellent return. The next best option for eBags is 8X at the Ultimate Rewards Mall or 10% back via BankOfAmerica. Previous reader experiments have shown that double dipping (buying and then using eBags gift cards to get double points) does not work with eBags.
Kohl’s 2X
2 miles per dollar is an awful return for Kohl’s. Go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall instead in order to earn 10 points per dollar.
Sears 8X
8 miles per dollar at Sears is excellent. Sure, it used to be common to see Sears offer 10X at various portals, but in recent months they’ve topped out at 5X or 6X. If you prefer cash, another great option is 10% cash back via ShopDiscover. With the latter, you do need to own a Discover card to get access to the portal, but past experiments have shown that you will get cash back even if you pay with a different card.
With Sears, you won’t get points for buying e-gift cards, but many recent experiments and experiences have shown that points are awarded for buying physical gift cards. Points have also been awarded when using gift cards. So, if you hurry, it’s possible to get 16X at Sears by buying and then using gift cards through the AA portal (or get 20% back via ShopDiscover). Disclaimer: the ability to get points when buying or using gift cards may be taken away at any time, so shop at your own risk!
Another angle worth pursuing is to buy Sears gift cards and then use them to buy $100 Visa or MasterCard gift cards at Sears if you can find the the mysterious gift card rack. Now that many gift cards have become very easy to liquidate (see “Gift card PINs“), this could be a great option for some. Note, though, that I haven’t yet verified that Sears’ Visa/MasterCard gift cards work in this way.
You can take the above Sears’ opportunities even further by starting with a Home Improvement gift card (for details, see “The Home Improvement gift card“).
Restaurant.com 10X
Personally, I wouldn’t bother with this offer. TopCashBack offers 35% cash back for Restaurant.com and the Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 15X.
H&R Block 9X
Seems a bit late for this to me, but you can do better anyway. ShopDiscover offers 20% back. The Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 10X.
HP 6X
This is a pretty good return for HP. You can also go to uPromise for 7% cash back. The best way to double dip here is to pay with an American Express business card that offers OPEN Savings. With HP, Amex will credit your account with 5% back if you spend between $200 and $1000 in a calendar year at HP; or 10% back if you spend more (up to $50K in spend).
Lowe’s 6X
This is only marginally better than some other offers (Ultimate Rewards Mall 5X; ShopDiscover 5%; uPromise 5%), but its still nice to see! For ideas on how to maximize this offer, see “Maximizing Home Improvement Spend”
and “Million Mile Madness: Banking on Lowe’s“.
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I did receive them…
I was pretty cautious when I made the purchases. Every time I made a purchase, I clicked through Aadvantage mall. I even log in from time to time to make sure that the webpage was not dead.
I doubt if same and large amount of purchase might trigger review
Tianyi: Have you received the gift cards yet? Sometimes I’ve noticed that points don’t post until the gift cards have been delivered.
Tianyi: The real question is whether your other purchases tracked correctly. If Sears’ computers are aware that you came directly from the AA mall to make your purchases then yes you should eventually get the miles.
I made 10 transactions through aa mall to buy sears gc. Only one transaction has been posted after several days. Do you think the rest of them will be finally posted?
I meant sears GC
FM: Have you tried using the HI card to purchase sets GC using the advantage portal? How long does it take to get points posted?
2. Are you sure the terms don’t state that you have to use an aadvantage card through the portal? I could have sworn I saw that last time I purchased w the portal. I also used the AA portal to purchase the OM GC deal you posted about the other day and so far have gotten no email from the AA portal. It’s possible that OM doesn’t work since it doesn’t w UR portal either.
Yo: Yes, it works. The AA portal is very slow. I think it takes about 3 weeks to get an email. Yes, I’m sure that you don’t need to use an AA card.
FM: thanks!!
kv: yes, you do not need to have or use a AA credit card to get miles from the AA shopping portal.
Hi FM,
I would like to try this but I cancelled my AA credit card last year. Will I still receive the points if I purchase through the portal and use other CC?
thanks
Update: I bought a $100 Visa gift card at Sears today and successfully set my PIN and used it to load Bluebird.
The $100 Visa cards sold at Sears B&M are issued by University National Bank, which also uses the giftcardmall web site like Metabank. Reports on FT say that the Metabank cards won’t allow cashback at Walmart, but they able to buy MO and BB. I can confirm that you can NOT get cashback and am confident that it should work with MO/BB although I have yet to try.
Thank you, FM. Of course, all my further questions after 1 are useless given Lowe’s does not sell Home Improvement Gift Cards.
Does anyone know of a really good bargain for a 21 inch carry on bag at ebags.com
With eBags, it’s important to check the price of each item you’re buying through the on-line mall and also directly at eBags without first logging in to the mall. They sometimes offer a substantially larger discount if you purchase without going through a mall, and this is on an item-by-item basis. I bought two bags last summer. One was the same price mall or no mall (and I went through the mall to get the miles), the other had a substantial discount if purchased without involving the mall.
Do you happen to know:
1. If you use a home improvement gift card bought at Lowe’s to shop at Sears, do you get the points through the AA shopping portal?
2. Can you buy home improvement gift cards online at Lowe’s?
3. If you do buy home improvement gift cards at Lowe’s, do you get the points through either AA shopping portal or UR portal?
The Miles Professor:
1. Lowe’s does not sell Home Improvement gift cards.
1B. Yes, if you go through a shopping portal to Sears and pay with the HI card you should get points
2. No, Lowe’s only sells Lowe’s gift cards online.
3. If you buy Lowe’s gift cards online at Lowe’s you will get points, but only if you have them mailed to you. eGift cards won’t work.