A Better Way to Buy AA Miles

A Better Way to Buy AA Miles

American Airlines miles can be tough to collect because they don’t have any credit card transfer partners worth using. Currently, AA’s only transfer partner is Marriott and the transfer rate of 3:1 isn’t exactly stellar. Without transfer partners earning large quantities of miles can be challenging if you’re not into signing up for lots of AA cards. Buying miles can be expensive, but AAdvantage allows you to earn miles by completing offers. Here’s how I “buy” AA miles.

Related: Earn a Ton of Points with AA Simply Miles

Ways to Earn AA Miles

• Credit Card bonuses and spend
• Flights with AA and it’s partners
• AAdvantage Shopping Portal, Dining Program, Hotels and Vacations
• Promotional Offers
• Simply Miles (Don’t forget about the 2021 deal of the year where a whole bunch of people copied my post and then pretended they found it themselves)

This post will focus on the AAdvantage Programs and promotional offers.

How Much Does it Cost to Buy AAdvantage Miles

American often runs promotions to save on mile purchases, basically you can buy miles during a promotion and pay a variable rate ranging from 1.8 cents each during promotions and nearly 5 cents during non sale periods.

AAdvantage Promotions: Get Stuff and Earn Miles

Also Read: Everything There is to Know About Inflight Wifi

Travel Offers

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have my cake and eat it too. Rather than purchase miles or points outright I prefer to check bonus offers through the AAdvantage promo pages. Recently, if you booked a vacation package at specified hotels, you’d earn 20k bonus miles, in addition to any miles you’d normally earn from your flight. Call me crazy, but I’d much rather take a trip to Cancun for an extra $70 than buy the miles outright and have nothing else to show for it. There are a bunch of current offers like this as well.

Shopping Offers

Similarly, there are times when you can find a deal through the AAdvantage Offers that can be stacked for cheap miles and discounted goods or services. For example, AA and 1-800 Flowers are offering 30 Miles per dollar on every order. There also happens to be an Amex offer for $15 credit (or 1500 Membership rewards) on a $50 1-800 Flowers order. If you stack the two and keep the total as close to $50 as possible you’re basically earning 1500 miles on $35 and hopefully getting some stuff or gifts for others at awesome prices. In this example, you’re “buying” miles for 2.3 cents each.

Related: How I Maximized $900 in American Airlines Amex Platinum Airline Credits

A few other great offers to stack are the Winc Offer, you’ll get 2,000 miles on a $50 purchase and $15 back if you have the Amex offer. Additionally, Stitch Fix has an Amex Offer for $25 on a $50 purchase and AA is offering 25 Miles per dollar spent.

Final Thoughts

I’m not saying you should buy things you don’t need or spend money you wouldn’t have spent otherwise but you can earn a ton of miles through promotional offers like these.