aby

Hi 111op
here are some free tips

<red> <b>1</b> join Free and earn 100 Aadvantage points</red>
join Points.com !!!
https://www.points.com/join/c?c=0504-61-010

<red><b>2</b> Play games or search the web and get Aadvantage points </red>
at "Live Search Club"
http://club.live.com/

another rather cheap option is buying used books from "abebooks" but it must be through "SkyMall" entered fom AA web site.
for some reason i find it hard to find "Sky Mall" at the AA site when i need it. is it camouflaged or just not user-friendly <red>?</red>

aby

PS since i'm a non-american i can't have an AA cc
<brown> please send some more "tricks" for keeping points alive

yk

hi aby-

To find the aa shopping link, from AA's home page, click on
AAdvantage tab on the L hand column, then
Partners & Milage programs, then
Retail and Gifts

You will see the link to AAdvantage eShopping. I bookmared the AAdavantage eshopping URL to my favorites, but I agree, it's not easy to find the link from AA's homepage.

aby

Thanks yk. indeed it is https://www.aadvantageeshopping.com/

Kyliebaby3

I just posted this thread, but I think it applies to you and also answers your question: http://www.fodors.com/community/airl...e-use-them.cfm.

Kyliebaby3

Posted my reply above before I actually read through the thread.

Definitely check out the iDine option that YK talked about. It works exactly the same as the United program, and the miles post pretty quickly. I'm not sure that's a help for you Aby if you're out of the US, because I think it's only domestic restaurants that participate. But this is a really easy way to keep mileage balances alive and kicking, and it requires little to zero effort on your part short of finding a restaurant by zip code if you're actively looking for one that participates. And there are lots of them that do.

111op

Thanks. I haven't checked the iDine program in detail yet. But is it 5 miles per meal? So for you to rack up 10,000 miles, you had 2000 meals in a year? I think I must have missed something.

Also, must the card holder's name match the name on the AA account? So for example, can you register credit cards of a different name?

yk

No, it's 5 miles per $ spent!

I assume the name has to match. I don't remember now, but you can enter multiple CCs for your account.

AAFrequentFlyer

<i>But is it 5 miles per meal?</i>

no, it's 5 miles per $1 spend, sometimes it's 10 miles, sometimes 3 miles. It depends on the restaurant.

Kyliebaby3

Yes, 111op, you can register any credit/debit card under the program, and link it to your account. I have one of my parents' hooked up to mine because they often have me pay the bill with their card when we go out to dinner as a family, so I figured I'd see if it works, and sure enough, it does.

111op

Thanks. iDine does sound like a good method to keep miles from expiring in the future. I'll be sure to remember.

Rastaguytoday

111op,

Yesterday I received an email promotion from AA that they would "give" you an extra 30% for mileage purchased.

Maybe you should think a bit longer term and decide if you just want 1,000 miles or ????

bettyk

I bought 10,000 miles back in November to help me get a ticket to the UK. AA had a 20% promotion on then so 30% is really good. But it takes a full 8 weeks after the promotion ends to get the bonus miles posted to your account. In my case, the last day of the promotion was 31 December so my miles just got posted on March 1st.

111op

Hey thanks. I saw the bonus offer too, but I didn't think too much about it as I just wanted to do something before it was too late. The miles have been posted already.

Actually it'd have been better to wait a few days for another reason. The 18 month window gets counted from the last activity date, so the miles will expire in late August 2010 instead. I could have squeezed out a few more days by buying the miles closer to the actual expiration but I forgot about this.

Patty

I also have credit cards in both my husband's and my name linked to the same idine account.

Not specific to the OP but if anyone else finds themselves in ms_go's situation and doesn't get such a generous reinstatement offer, you can try asking for the re-engage challenge. My mom had 23,000 miles expire last September (oops, my fault) and I signed her up for that. There are different requirements for fulfilling the challenge based on whether you had more or less than 50,000 miles expire. My mom signed up for 2 AAdvantage emails and applied for a Citi AA credit card and I called back in December to get her miles reinstated (you have up to 12 months to fulfill the requirements of the challenge).

111op

That's interesting. Is the reinstatement option on the web, or do they send letters to those whose miles expired? Thanks!

111op

P.S. It sounds like a lot of people are caretakers for their moms' miles. We should teach our moms to look after their own miles.

Patty

I don't think it's on the web and they don't send letters as far as I know. I think the challenge is sort of unofficial. I was only able to find info on reactivating miles for $50/5000 plus tax plus processing fee on aa.com. When I called the rep actually offered to discount that to a flat $100 for all of her miles but I chose the free option since she didn't need them right away. I now maintain a semi-updated spreadsheet since I realized that trying to keep up with multiple programs for multiple family members in my head wasn't really working

ms_go

<i>It sounds like a lot of people are caretakers for their moms' miles. We should teach our moms to look after their own miles.</i>

I wish! My mother's FF account situation is actually much more complicated than mine, even though I fly a lot more than she does. I think she has balances with just about every major US carrier--but I'm only watching (yes, I learned my lesson) the larger balances at this point.