American Airlines 30 Deals (Day 3)

The previous days discussion can be read here. Today’s deal is a combination spend on dining, shopping and travel for bonus miles.

Shop: Spend a total of $30 with the AAdvantage eShoppingSM mall. All you have to do is register in the program and you could be earning miles every time you shop. Just visit the AAdvantage eShopping mall and choose from leading retailers such as Apple iTunes, Groupon, Cabela’s, Target and hundreds more. Retailer’s discounts and coupons still apply, and you could even earn miles for restaurant and retail gift cards.

Dine: Spend a total of $30 with the AAdvantage DiningSM program. Simply register your credit or debit card(s) and earn miles each time you dine at participating restaurants. You’ll find a variety of establishments in your area, with new ones added all the time. Just pay your bill with a registered card and the miles will automatically be posted to your account.

Travel: Complete a flight on American Airlines, or earn miles with an AAdvantage car or hotel participant by May 27, 2011. Be sure to have AAdvantage miles as your earning preference when you travel.

At first look, I thought this has potential. The true test though is to run the numbers and see how much per mile this bonus is worth. So lets run some scenarios based on each item.

Shop

First, if you have not signed up for American’s shopping portal, go to this post and sign up to receive a 1,000 bonus miles. (Note, this 1,000 bonus miles is NOT factored into the equations below) After registering, you will notice AAdvantage is offering a bonus 500 miles for $75 spend. Here lies the first opportunity to start double dipping. So the goal is to spend $75 on things you would normally be buying anyways. Lets assume the following purchases were made using American’s shopping portal.

– $35 ValueMags.com Magazine Subscription @ 23 miles/$1 = 805 miles
– $20 FTD flowers for Mother’s Day @ 11 miles/$1 = 220 miles
– $20 Groupon purchase @ 8 miles/$1 = 160 miles
+ 500 bonus miles for $75 spend
———————————–
1,685 miles Sub-total

Obviously this number could fluctuate greatly depending on which vendors you went with and how much you purchased. So we have now satisfied the first task, so lets look at dining.

Dining

This option is pretty straight forward. Assuming you are in the higher tier of earning at 5 miles per dollar spent. At $30 spend at one of your local restaurants, you just added another 150 miles to your mileage pool.

Travel

I am making the assumption here that one is going for the minimum spend to meet the bonus requirements. There is a possibility of double dip if you would take advantage of the bonus miles offered on day 1 of this promotion (i.e. 1,000 bonus miles with one round trip). I am looking to maximize my mileage earning with minimum spend. Therefore, a weekend car rental would be preferred in most cases.

Looking again at yesterday’s AVIS deal, I could earn approximately 150 miles.

Therefore, if I combine my dine, shop, and travel miles earned, my total would be 1,985 miles (assuming double dip opportunities worked) + 3,000 bonus miles for a total cost of $135. This equates to a cost of $0.027 per mile.

For a comparison, 5,000 miles purchased from American Airlines would cost approximately $167.50 or $0.034 per mile. So is it a savings? Sure. It is nothing worth me wasting my time though hoping all the applicable bonuses come through. However, if you are already doing some of the items, might as well get the bonuses.

Since these daily deals are applicable for extended periods of time, it will be interesting to see what other deals come up with opportunities to double dip. For the average consumer, on the surface this would look like a great deal and cause people to jump right in for free bonus miles. Since I am more frugal and engineering minded, I see the true potential of my money spent with this deal.