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It’s back, but don’t get too excited!
A couple of years ago SimplyMiles ran an incredible deal, giving 240 miles per dollar when donating to Conservation International. It seemed too good to be true, but in fact it wasn’t as SimplyMiles paid out.
It sounded like Conservation International wasn’t happy about the way things panned out (some people bought literally millions of miles), but they’ve returned to SimplyMiles for another offer this year. Unfortunately you’re limited as to how much you can take AAdvantage of it though as it’s capped at a total of 5,250 miles and Loyalty Points.
The Deal
- Earn 1,750 miles & Loyalty Points when donating $50+ to Conservation International with a card linked with the SimplyMiles program. Can do offer three times.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- Offer is valid from November 20, 2023 until the earlier of December 20, 2023 or when the Spend Cap is reached.
- The total maximum miles and loyalty points available for this promotion is valued at 55.8 million (the “Spend Cap”).
- The Offer may be redeemed up to 3 individual times. Each individual donation of $50 or more has a maximum earn of 1,750 miles and 1,750 loyalty points. The maximum reward earned on 3 donations (minimum donation of $50 per donation) is 5,250 miles and 5,250 loyalty points.
- Donations must be made through donate.mastercard.com/v3/#/site/simply-miles on or before the Offer expiration date.
- Offer valid on donations in the continental US only.
- Donations made without using a U.S. issued Mastercard and/or donations made without prior activation of this Offer do not qualify for bonus miles and loyalty points.
- Please allow up to eight weeks for your miles to be posted to your AAdvantage account.
- Donations can only be accepted in U.S. dollars.
- Donations made in connection with AAdvantage miles program are not refundable.
- The value of miles and loyalty points received may exceed the value of your contribution and accordingly, your contribution may not be tax deductible. You will receive an acknowledgement of your contribution. Please consult your tax advisor for tax related questions.
Quick Thoughts
Earning 1,750 miles when donating $50 is a 35x return which is a far cry from the 240x on offer a couple of years ago, but still a generous return for a charity donation, especially seeing as you’ll also earn 1,750 Loyalty Points towards status.
You can earn a total of 5,250 miles and Loyalty Points by donating a total of $150, but be aware that you’ll have to do that as three separate $50 transactions as it looks like a solitary $150 donation will only earn one set of 1,750 miles and Loyalty Points. While this is an expensive way to buy miles and Loyalty Points, this opportunity could still be worth it if it gets you to the next AAdvantage status level with American Airlines. Remember that the status year runs from March 1 to February 29 nowadays though, so you still have just over three months (at the time of publishing this) to be able to earn Loyalty Points for the current status year.
If you’ve been racking up Loyalty Points since March 1, you might be able to earn in excess of 1,750 Loyalty Points per $50 donation. That’s because when you earn 60,000 and 100,000 Loyalty Points, you get a 20% and 30% Loyalty Point bonus respectively for select partners which includes SimplyMiles. That means for every $50 you donate you’ll earn 1,750 miles and 2,100 Loyalty Points with the 20% bonus or 2,275 Loyalty Points with the 30% bonus.
If you’re not familiar with SimplyMiles, it’s a card-linked program that earns you miles and Loyalty Points when paying with a linked card. That card has to be a Mastercard, but it doesn’t have to be an American Airlines Mastercard; it can be a Citi DoubleCash card, a Chase IHG Premier or Freedom Flex card, etc.
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[…] Conservation International is back at SimplyMiles but no longer a screaming deal, still if you need 5,000 Loyalty Points towards status you could do worse than donate $150. […]
I have been looking for the Conservation International offer on the SimplyMiles offers website and it’s not there. Does anyone know if this offer is currently active?
I’m still seeing it on my account. SimplyMiles offers are sometimes targeted, so that might be why you don’t see it.
Thanks for that information. I will keep checking SimplyMiles offers portal daily till the 20th just in case it becomes available.
Disappointed indeed… missed out on the last go around waiting for this promotion to happen again. Now that it did I’m disappointed to say the least.
It tells me the donation link site is not secure. What am I doing wrong?
“It sounded like Conservation International wasn’t happy about the way things panned out (some people bought literally millions of miles)…”
Why?
Wouldn’t they be thrilled with all the donations, even if most people were not doing it for charitable reasons?
Maybe I missed something.
In theory, but I think I saw something about them not being happy about how this all worked out. Maybe they were on the hook for a much larger amount than anticipated?
Those who question whether this gives you LP, this is what is in the offer description:
”Donate $50 or more using your SimplyMiles enrolled U.S. issued Mastercard at donate.mastercard.com/v3/#/site/simply-miles and receive, 1750 AAdvantage miles and 1,750 loyalty points (the “Offer”).”
Ditto Bill’s question. Last year I got the huge number of AA points, but I didn’t see any loyalty points posted. Was I missing something?
Also isn’t 35 pts per $ still a good bonus on a charitable donation?
It’s great if it’s a donation/purchase you were already planning to make. At 2.86 cents per mile, as an outright purchase of miles/LPs, it’s not at all a good value. Last year you were buying them for less than half a cent per mile.
The promotion was only for redeemable miles because it precluded the Loyalty Point switchover from the old AAdvantage program.
Last year when it was 240 miles/dollar, were these also loyalty points? That is, could you buy not only 1,000,000 miles but also 1,000,000 LPs?
“Last year” was actually 2 years ago in 2021, which was before LPs were a thing. So it was just miles, but you were buying 240 per dollar so it really made sense (as long as you were confident in them actually paying out).
This was my mistake. As jeph36 pointed out, the deal was two years ago and so it was before Loyalty Points were introduced.
2.86 cents per mile.
Plus the points/miles/cashback you would get from your rewards Mastercard.Example (BofA Flying Blue MC):($50 x 1.5 mi) + 1,750 mi = 2.74 cpmLol. ;-)Even a card earning 5x wouldn’t make it a good deal from a financial perspective.
Yeah it’s clearly not an appeal for miles. It’s now become an appeal for those looking to make up ground to qualify for status.
This is not a winner. Nope , not interested