The Ultimate Guide to SimplyMiles: Earn American AAdvantage Miles & Loyalty Points

There are lots of ways to earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles, including flying and spending on an American Airlines credit card. However, there are other, less familiar ways to earn miles as well.

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at one of those methods: SimplyMiles.

SimplyMiles is a website that allows you to earn American Airlines miles and Loyalty Points by shopping at select merchants using card-linked offers.

In this post, we’ll answer all of your questions about the SimplyMiles program, including how it works and how you can use it to earn American Airlines miles and even elite status.

What Is SimplyMiles?

American Airlines SimplyMiles, also referred to as AA Simply Miles, is a card-linked program that enables you to earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for your everyday shopping, both online and in-store, at select merchants when using a registered Mastercard.

SimplyMiles vs. AAdvantage eShopping

SimplyMiles and AAdvantage eShopping both allow you to earn American Airlines miles for shopping, but they are entirely different programs:

• AAdvantage eShopping is a shopping portal that awards American Airlines miles and Loyalty Points when you click through the site before making a purchase. Any credit card can be used and there is a wide variety of participating merchants.
• SimplyMiles awards American Airlines miles and Loyalty Points when you link a specific offer to a registered Mastercard. There are a limited number of offers available at any given time.

These are separate programs, but they can often be used together to earn even more miles (see below on how to stack other offers with SimplyMiles).

How Does SimplyMiles Work?

To use SimplyMiles to earn American Airlines miles, you’ll first need to create an account. Then you can link at least 1 Mastercard to your account. Once you find an offer you like, you’ll add the offer to your credit card and then you can make a purchase. Your miles and Loyalty Points will be awarded automatically.

Let’s take a look at all of these steps in more detail:

How To Join/Register for SimplyMiles

To use SimplyMiles, you’ll need to create an account using your AAdvantage login information. SimplyMiles is open to any AAdvantage member who lives in the U.S. and holds a Mastercard.

How To Link a Mastercard to SimplyMiles

The next step is linking a Mastercard to your SimplyMiles account. To do that, you’ll just click on View Profile in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Then you’ll be able to add 1 or more Mastercards to your account. According to the website, there is a limit of 3 cards, but in practice, you can add more than that.

Each Mastercard can only be registered to 1 SimplyMiles account, and you can’t switch them between accounts. Once a card is registered to an account, it can’t be removed and then added to another account.

Which Credit Cards Can You Use With SimplyMiles?

SimplyMiles works with any Mastercard — it doesn’t have to be an American Airlines co-branded card. However, if you are looking to maximize the number of American Airlines miles you earn, you’ll be happy to know that all American Airlines co-branded cards are Mastercards and can be used with SimplyMiles.

If you don’t have a Mastercard yet, check out these popular options:

Hot Tip: SimplyMiles works with any Mastercard, not just American Airlines co-branded cards!

How To Use SimplyMiles To Earn AAdvantage Miles and Loyalty Points

When you make a purchase using a SimplyMiles offer, you’ll earn base American Airlines miles. That means these miles also earn Loyalty Points — you’ll earn 1 Loyalty Point for each base AA mile earned through SimplyMiles.

After browsing the offers, just click on Add to Card to activate the offer. Any offers that are currently activated will be labeled as Activated. You must activate an offer by adding it to your card before you can earn miles.

Once an offer is activated, just use any Mastercard that’s linked to your account to make a purchase. You don’t need to click through SimplyMiles as you would with a shopping portal.

Pay attention to the details of each offer as some are for online purchases and some are for in-store purchases. Additionally, some offers have a minimum spend or a maximum number of miles you can earn.

At any given point, there will be about 80 to 100 offers available and there’s no limit to how many offers you can activate at a time. SimplyMiles offers are targeted, so you may not have access to offers that other members have. New offers are added regularly so it’s a good idea to check the site often so you don’t miss anything.

Bottom Line: You’ll earn redeemable American Airlines miles and Loyalty Points by using SimplyMiles. Before shopping, you’ll need to add 1 or more Mastercards to your account and add any offers you like to your cards. A registered Mastercard must be used for payment in order to earn miles.

How To Check for Posted Miles

After making a purchase with a linked card, your miles and Loyalty Points will post to your AAdvantage account automatically within 30 calendar days, however, they usually post within 5 to 15 business days.

You can check to see that your miles have been posted in both your SimplyMiles account and your AAdvantage account.

In SimplyMiles, you’ll see a summary of your miles on the home screen, but you can see a list of each transaction that’s posted by clicking on Miles Earned.

You can also double-check that your miles have been posted in your American Airlines account. After logging in, click on Helpful Links and then Activity. Here you’ll see all of the miles that have been posted to your account. Miles earned from SimplyMiles will be clearly labeled.

Earn American Airlines Elite Status Using SimplyMiles

Because the miles earned through SimplyMiles are base miles, you’ll also earn Loyalty Points. Loyalty Points are the metric used to determine American Airlines elite status.

You’ll earn 1 Loyalty Point per 1 base mile earned through SimplyMiles. For example, if you used a SimplyMiles offer that awarded 695 miles for a purchase, you’d earn 695 redeemable American Airlines miles and 695 Loyalty Points.

To earn the base level status, AAdvantage Gold, you’ll need to earn 40,000 Loyalty Points in an elite year (March 1 through the following February). All of the Loyalty Points earned through SimplyMiles count toward that minimum.

Hot Tip: You’ll earn Loyalty Points in addition to miles through SimplyMiles. Loyalty Points are the metric that determines your level of status within the American Airlines AAdvantage program.

How To Stack Offers With SimplyMiles

The great thing about SimplyMiles is that since it’s a card-linked program, it can be stacked with an online shopping portal for even more rewards.

After linking your offer to a card through SimplyMiles, you can then shop through any portal to earn additional points or miles. If you want to maximize your American Airlines miles earnings, you’ll want to focus on the AAdvantage eShopping Portal. However, if you’re just after the best overall deal, you can use any other shopping portal. To find the best offers, a site like CashBack Monitor can be helpful to see all of the shopping portals and cash-back sites in 1 spot.

You can also take advantage of other card-linked offers in addition to SimplyMiles. You can stack offers from Chase Offers or Citi Merchant Offers to really maximize every dollar you spend.

Check out this example to see how you can use SimplyMiles in combination with other portals and card-linked offers to save money and earn lots of points and miles.

This offer on SimplyMiles earns 695 American Airlines miles for any purchase from The Farmer’s Dog:

If you use your Citi Strata Premier card for that offer in SimplyMiles, you can also add the Citi Merchant Offer for The Farmer’s Dog which is for $15 back on any purchase:

Next, you can shop through any number of shopping portals or cash-back sites to earn more rewards. Capital One Shopping is offering $25 in gift card rewards for purchases from The Farmer’s Dog, Rakuten is offering $15 cash-back, and AAdvantage eShopping is offering 250 miles.

If you’re keeping track, here’s what you could earn for 1 purchase (in any amount) from The Farmer’s Dog:

• 695 American Airlines miles from SimplyMiles
• $15 cash-back from Citi Merchant Offers
• $25 rewards from Capital One Shopping (or $15 cash-back from Rakuten or 250 AA miles)

That’s $40 worth of cash-back and rewards plus 695 miles for 1 purchase! As you can see, stacking SimplyMiles offers with other shopping portals and card-linked offers can really help the rewards add up fast.

Hot Tip: You can stack SimplyMiles offers with other shopping portals (including AAdvantage eShopping, Rakuten, Capital One Shopping, and more) and card-linked offers (including Chase Offers and Citi Merchant Offers) to maximize every dollar you spend.

Is SimplyMiles Worth It?

Since it costs nothing to use SimplyMiles, it’s absolutely worth it to have it on your radar. Any opportunity to earn extra miles on something you were going to buy anyways is a great thing.

While the offers themselves are generally not incredible enough to go out of your way to purchase something you don’t want, there are still opportunities occasionally for great deals, especially when stacking SimplyMiles offers together with deals from other cards and portals.

For example, in late 2021, there was a short-lived deal of a lifetime where you could earn 240 miles per dollar donated to Conservation International. While it would be shocking to see that kind of deal again, you never know what may pop up in your SimplyMiles offers.

Final Thoughts

SimplyMiles is a free website that allows you to earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points through card-linked offers. It’s available to all AAdvantage members who live in the U.S. and have a Mastercard.

After linking an offer to your Mastercard, all you need to do is use the card to shop and you can earn extra miles. SimplyMiles offers can be stacked with shopping portals and some other card-linked offers to maximize your earnings.