New AAdvantage member offer: earn up to 5,000 bonus miles

American Airlines is offering a couple of bonuses for new members that might be intriguing to those who are not yet members of its AAdvantage frequent flyer program: you can earn 2,000 bonus miles by booking and flying two trips with them after you join and another 2,000 bonus miles through easy partner activity along with an extra 1,000 miles for completing both.

The Deal

• American Airlines is offering the chance for new members to earn up to 5,000 bonus miles:
  • Register within 30 days of enrolling and before booking your flights. Then, book and fly 2 eligible flights to earn 2,000 miles
  • Earn miles with 2 of the eligible partners listed below to earn 2,000 bonus miles. Eligible partners:
    • AAdvantage eShopping
    • SimplyMiles
    • AAdvantage DIning
    • Avis Budget Group
    • Rocketmiles
  • Complete both of the above and earn 1,000 more bonus miles for a total of 5,000 bonus miles.

Key Terms

• This exclusive offer is only for members who receive an email directly from American Airlines
• You must register within 30 days of enrolling in the AAdvantage® program and before creating a flight reservation and / or completing partner transactions in order for your activity to count toward this promotion
• You must register for the promotion before placing a flight on hold for that reservation to count
• Flight reservations created and ticketed before registration aren’t eligible to earn toward this promotion
• Eligible flights must be flown, and partner activity must be completed within 3 months of registration in order to count toward this promotion
• Offer only applies to eligible flights marketed by American and operated by American, American Eagle®, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, JetBlue, Finnair, Japan Airlines or Qantas
• Flights marketed and / or operated by other codeshare partners aren’t eligible
• Flights that don’t earn AAdvantage® miles won’t count
• Airline partners are excluded from the partner requirements of this promotion
• Miles earned with American Airlines AAdvantage® credit cards, Buy Gift Transfer, Boost & Renew or miles earned from customer service bonuses, won’t count toward this promotion
• After completing the flight requirements, 2,000 bonus award miles will be deposited into your AAdvantage® account
• After completing the partner requirements, 2,000 bonus award miles will be deposited into your AAdvantage® account
• Some partner transactions may take 6-8 weeks to post
• If you complete both flight and partner requirements, an additional 1,000 bonus award miles will be deposited into your AAdvantage® account
• Bonus miles don’t count toward status qualification or AAdvantage® Million Miler℠ status
• Miles are subject to the standard AAdvantage® program terms and conditions
• American may, at any time and without notice, change, stop or end this promotion in part or in full

Quick Thoughts

I stumbled upon this while helping my in-laws use some flight credit from 2021-cancelled travel.

They had originally booked flights on American Airlines last year and made the booking through Amex Travel. That meant that they needed to contact Amex Travel to use those AA flight credits, a pain point with which I know many readers can sympathize.

Their flight credit had originally been scheduled to expire in June 2022, but I knew that American had announced that they were extending the validity of those credits due to expire this year until December 31st. They had a new flight they wanted to book in November, so it seemed like a good opportunity to use this credit.

Interestingly, the Amex Travel rep insisted that American Airlines had only extended flight credits through 12/31 for AAdvantage members. They rarely ever fly and hadn’t created accounts, but the agent said that if they joined she could add their numbers to the old flight credit booking and then the validity would be extended to 12/31.

I therefore helped them each sign up for an American Airlines AAdvantage account in a hurry. Upon creation of each account, I checked out the “Promotions” tab in their accounts and found the offer shown above.

The two required flights within 90 days could be very easy for some folks. My in-laws won’t meet that since the outbound flight they have is nonstop and on another carrier, so they will likely only have one flight during the eligibility window.

However, it should be very easy to help them earn miles with 2 partners between AAdvantage eShopping (and the many cheap / free ways to earn miles there), SimplyMiles,  and AAdvantage Dining. While 2,000 miles each won’t give them enough for a ton, it’s still a nice little bonus on top of the miles they’ll be earning for their flight. I imagine many people would find it relatively easy to haul in the full 5,000 bonus miles which could be enough for a one-way web special award ticket — that’s worth a little bit of effort for many.

Keep in mind that flights on some of their partners (including Alaska and JetBlue) do count and that you need to register before you book flights or engage in the other activities. Also remember that bonus miles like these will not count toward status.

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