You can earn 30X AAdvantage miles per dollar at Magazines.com in the American AAdvantage eShopping Portal, or buy AAdvantage miles with up to a 35% bonus and a 10% discount. Is either offer worth it if you need some AAdvantage miles?
As always, it depends on your current situation. If you're planning far in advance and won't need AAdvantage miles for a few months, and if you qualify, the least expensive way to earn AAdvantage miles is with the current 60K Citi AAdvantage Card Bonus Offers since no annual fee is charged the first year. But for those who have opened or closed these AAdvantage cards within the past 24 months and don't earn AAdvantage miles with paid flying, these buying miles offers may be the best options. Here are the two offers:
Buy AAdvantage Miles with up to a 35% Bonus and 10% Discount
AAdvantage regularly runs buy miles offers with bonuses. Here's the current offer, which as usual is tiered by how many miles you purchase:
- Buy 20,000-39,000 AA miles, earn 7000 bonus miles + 10% off
- Buy 40,000-59,000 AA miles, earn 13,000 bonus miles + 10% off
- Buy 60,000-79,000 AA miles, earn 20,000 bonus miles + 10% off
- Buy 80,000-99,000 AA miles, earn 30,000 bonus miles + 10% off
- Buy 100,000-150,000 AA miles, earn 35,000 bonus miles + 10% off
If you maximize the bonus and buy 100K or more AAdvantage miles, you'll pay $2884 including taxes and processing charge, so you're effectively buying AA miles at 2.1 cents per mile. This isn't as good as the Buy AAdvantage Miles with 100K Bonus Miles offer from last year, which was effectively buying miles at 1.91 cents per mile.
Earn 30X AAdvantage Miles per Dollar at Magazines.com via the AAdvantage eShopping Portal
In the past there have been offers as high as 60X, 50X and 40X, but the regular Magazines.com bonus is 10X-20X, so 30X is still worth mentioning for those who just need a few AAdvantage miles to top up their account. You're buying miles at 3.3 cents per mile, but that's not taking into account the value of the magazine.
Note the terms:
- Not eligible on automatically renewed subscriptions (for this reason, I recommend setting all your Magazines.com subscriptions to NOT auto-renew)
- Orders cancelled within 90 days are not eligible.
- Not eligible on select Magazine Titles including American Patchwork & Quilting, Better Homes & Gardens, Country Gardens, Diabetic Living, Do-It-Yourself, EatingWell, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Family Circle, FamilyFun, Fitness, Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings, Midwest Living, Parents, Siempre Mujer, Successful Farming, Traditional Home, Wood, Fit Pregnancy, Flex, Globe, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, National Examiner, Natural Health, OK! Magazine, Shape, Soap Opera Digest, Star and The National Enquirer.
- Not eligible on purchases made with coupon or discount codes that are not found on this site. Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents.
Are AAdvantage Miles Still Worth Acquiring?
At the time of last year's 100K buy AAdvantage miles bonus, I was fairly harsh with the AAdvantage miles program, for several reasons, most of which are still true. It's still the case that U.S. AAdvantage agents, and some international AAdvantage agents as well, don't see or won't book award availability that is there, and which some other international AAdvantage agents can book.
Many of the attractive international first class awards, from JAL First Class to Etihad First Apartment on the A380, have become more difficult to find award space for, unless booking soon after the award calendar opens, or soon before departure, particularly for flights to and from the U.S.
And there remains poor saver award availability for many AA flights within the U.S., making it challenging to include positioning flights for international awards.
That said, I often run into clients who have plenty of Chase Ultimate Rewards points and AMEX Membership Rewards points but wish they had AAdvantage miles. That's because, while both UR points and MR points transfer to British Airways Avios, Avios international first class and business class awards are expensive compared to the AAdvantage award chart. Neither Ultimate Rewards points nor Membership Rewards points transfer to AAdvantage.
And as I've mentioned before, while Alaska MileagePlan has an attractive award chart, frustratingly, it doesn't have access to all the award space AAdvantage does, so there are times I've only been able to book a client's preferred JAL First Class or Cathay Pacific First Class or Cathay Business Class award with AAdvantage miles, as Alaska didn't have access to the same award space.
Do you plan to top up your AAdvantage miles buy buying miles or earning them at 30X on Magazines.com via the AAdvantage eShopping Portal?
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