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24 Best Ways to Earn Lots of American Airlines AAdvantage Miles

BY 

Andrew Kunesh

- UPDATED: July 21, 2021   |    38

1. Travel  / 
2. Airlines

38

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American Airlines is the world’s largest airline, with the biggest fleet and highest revenue of any airline company in the world.

This translates to the airline not only having a strong route network from its various U.S. hubs, but a powerful program that can be used to book airfare on all Oneworld airlines and other partners.

For example, you can use American’s AAdvantage miles to book everything from Qatar Airways QSuites to Etihad Apartments, giving you access to some of the world’s best first and business class products at solid redemption rates.

With so many good redemptions available, we recommend that all U.S.-based travelers keep a stock of AAdvantage miles in their mileage bank. In this article, we’ll show you all the best ways that you can earn them.

Sign Up for an American Airlines AAdvantage Account

Airline loyalty programs like AAdvantage differ from bank-established points programs (like Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards) because you don’t need an affiliated credit card to start earning miles right away.

Instead, simply create an AAdvantage account the American Airlines’ website and you can start earning AAdvantage miles right away.

Be sure to remember the unique AAdvantage member account number they provide you. You’ll need this number to earn miles on your flights with American (and its partners), purchases through American’s shopping portal, and other earning methods.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into all the ways to earn AAdvantage miles

Earn AAdvantage Miles With Credit Cards

1. Citi® / AAdvantage® Credit Cards

Citi provides some of the easiest ways to earn AAdvantage miles through their co-branded cards, which include 3 personal credit cards and 1 business card.

Recommended American Airlines Cards

The most common card is the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard®, which earns 2 miles per dollar on purchases with American Airlines.

It also comes with the added perk of a complimentary checked bag and preferred boarding, Group 5.

Further, the card earns 2 points per dollar spent on purchases at restaurants and gas stations, making it easy to rack up miles with your everyday spending. Plus, you can earn a $125 flight voucher after spending $20,000 in a cardmember year and paying your annual fee.

Lastly, the card earns 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases.

The premium American Airlines card offered by Citi is the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ Mastercard®.

The card earns miles at the same rate and comes with a complimentary checked bag, priority boarding, Group 4, up to $100 in credits for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, and a full Admirals Club membership.

Hot Tip: For more information, check out our dedicated article on the benefits of the AAdvantage Executive World Elite card.

Citi also recently introduced the American Airlines AAdvantage MileUp℠ card. This card earns 2 points per dollar on grocery store and American Airlines purchases and 1 mile per dollar on everything else. Plus, cardholders get a 25% rebate on inflight food and beverage purchases.

The CitiBusiness®/AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard® has a similar earning structure to the personal version of the card, but cardholders earn 2 points per dollar on telecommunications, rental cars, and gas station purchases.

Additionally, CitiBusiness Platinum Select cardholders can earn a companion ticket after spending $30,000 during their membership year. Preferred boarding, Group 5, is also included with this card.

Here’s a look at the specifics of each American Airlines co-branded card:

AMERICAN AIRLINES CARDS	CARD INFO
Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® Learn More (at Citi's secure site)	Earn 50,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $2,500 within the first 3 months of account opening. Earn 2 AAdvantage® miles for every $1 spent on American Airlines purchases, gas stations and restaurants. First checked bag free on domestic American Airlines itineraries for you and up to four companions traveling with you on the same reservation. Annual Fee: $99, waived for the first 12 months
Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ Mastercard® Learn More (at our partner's secure site)	Earn 50,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $5,000 within the first 3 months of account opening. Admirals Club® membership for you and access for guests traveling with you. First checked bag free on domestic American Airlines itineraries for you and up to 8 companions traveling with you on the same reservation. Annual Fee: $450.
CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard® Learn More (at Citi's secure site)	Earn 65,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $4,000 in purchases within the first 4 months of account opening. Earn 2 AAdvantages miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases, telecommunications merchants, cable and satellite providers, car rental merchants, and at gas stations. Earn 1 AAdvantage mile per $1 on other purchases. No Foreign Transaction Fees Annual Fee: $99, waived for first 12 months

2. AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard®

American Airlines also has a co-branded card offering with Barclays. The AAdvantage Aviator Red card is very similar to the AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite card.

It earns 2 miles per dollar with American Airlines and 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases. It also comes with preferred boarding, Group 5, and 1 free checked bag.

3. Marriott Credit Cards

You can earn Marriott points and transfer those to American Airlines at a transfer rate of 3:1. Plus, for every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer, you’ll receive an extra 5,000 AAdvantage miles bonus.

Here’s more info on these cards, including details on welcome bonuses, annual fees, and more:

Recommended Marriott Cards

4. Citi ThankYou Cards

Citi recently launched the ability to transfer its ThankYou points to American Airlines, although for now the partnership is temporary — it’s set to expire on November 13, 2021. You can transfer your Citi points over to AAdvantage at a 1:1 ratio if you’ve got a Citi Premier® Card or a Citi Prestige® Card. Otherwise, holders of the Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card and the Citi Rewards+® Card can transfer their points at a 2:1 ratio. 

Earning Miles With Your Everyday Spending

Don’t have a credit card? No worries — there are a few different ways to earn AAdvantage miles with your everyday spending.

5. Use the AAdvantage eShopping Portal

Earning American AAdvantage program miles gets even easier when you have a shopping portal at your fingertips. Thankfully, American Airlines has an excellent shopping portal called AAdvantage eShopping.

In the featured listing of stores above, you get an idea of the type of offers available. However, there are many other stores and offers to choose from (over 850). You can see all of them if you navigate to the portal and then follow the link to See All Offers.

The Additional Offers & Coupons section is especially useful since it has a helpful list of expiration dates for limited time coupon code offers.

Make sure to check this page often as you can save some serious money with these coupons and see elevated points-earning opportunities.

Using the American AAdvantage eShopping portal is simple. Just follow these steps before you begin shopping at a participating online store (or once you have a full cart and are ready to check out):

1. Go to the homepage.
2. Sign in to your AAdvantage account.
3. Search for a product or store.
4. Click on the store offer (e.g. Earn 3 miles/$).
5. The next loaded screen should look something like this:

6. Wait a few moments for the store’s website to load so you can begin shopping or finish checking out.
7. Make sure you are still logged in to the store through the portal before you head to Checkout to be absolutely certain you will receive the extra miles.

Follow the above steps and you’ll be on your way to maximizing the number of AAdvantage miles you can earn on your online purchases! Just note that miles will be credited to your account within a week or 2 of purchase.

To earn even more AAdvantage miles, you can use your AAdvantage Platinum Select card when you shop.

Alternatively, you can use a credit card that earns multiple points per dollar on un-bonused spend to earn more points and diversify your points portfolio.

Hot Tip: Look for promotional periods and special offers to earn extra miles for using the eShopping portal or shopping at specific online retailers.

6. Sign up for the AAdvantage Dining Program

The AAdvantage Dining Program is great because you can earn extra miles for eating out at many of the restaurants you’d be going to anyway.

This is in addition to any miles earned with your credit card, so it’s even more valuable when combined with cards that earn bonus points on dining.

Just follow these steps to maximize your earnings through this program:

1. Go to the homepage and sign up for an account by clicking the Join Now button at the upper right-hand corner of the window.
2. You’ll be prompted to add credit cards to your AAdvantage Dining account as you move through the registration process. Make sure to link credit cards that earn bonus points on dining so you can maximize your purchases.
3. Use the location search at the top to identify participating restaurants near you.
4. Use your registered credit card at participating restaurants and earn bonus points!

Make sure to link all of the credit cards you use for most dining purchases — you never know when you’ll dine at a participating restaurant and get a boost in your AAdvantage account.

As a new member, you can often earn a welcome bonus as well. Simply navigate to the Bonuses tab at the top and choose the Welcome Bonus.

The most common bonus offer is 1,000 bonus AAdvantage miles after spending $25 at a participating restaurant in your first 30 days of membership, but it changes frequently.

You’ll earn between 1 and 5 points per dollar spent at participating restaurants with the AAdvantage Dining program. You’ll earn 3 points per dollar if you opt-in to email notifications, and you’ll earn 5 points per dollar when you reach VIP status.

This status is earned after you dine at participating restaurants 11 times. Note that you’ll only earn 1 point per dollar if you opt-out of email notifications, severely limiting your earning potential.

Hot Tip: You can add any and all of your credit cards to AAdvantage Dining — not just your AAdvantage cards. The only catch is your credit cards cannot already be enrolled in other miles-earning dining programs that are part of the Rewards Network. This includes other airline dining programs.

7. Hotel Partner Credit Cards

If you have another co-branded hotel credit card, you may be able to transfer your hotel points to American Airlines.

However, this is almost always a terrible use of your hotel points unless you have a very specific redemption in mind or need to quickly top-up miles.

8. Big Spend Bonus

Unfortunately, there are no AAdvantage credit cards offering “big spend” bonus miles, except for 2 cards that offer elite status qualifying miles.

The AAdvantage Executive World Elite card offers 10,000 elite status qualifying miles (EQMs) for reaching $40,000 in spending within a calendar year.

Alternatively, the AAdvantage® Aviator® Silver Mastercard® also allows you to earn $3,000 Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQDs) after $50,000 of spending in 1 calendar year.

Just note that you can’t sign up for this card directly — you have to upgrade an existing AAdvantage Aviator Red card.

Elite qualifying miles are different than redeemable miles, in that they help you earn elite status membership with American Airlines. This means you will have access to the perks associated with elite status levels.

Thankfully, one of these perks is the ability to earn redeemable AAdvantage miles on flights at higher rates!

For example, American Airlines states: “Executive Platinum and Platinum members will earn a 100% bonus and Gold members will earn a 25% bonus” on the base miles guaranteed for flight purchases.

Earning elite qualifying miles through the big spend bonus with the AAdvantage Executive World Elite card will help you on your way to earning these elite status bonus miles.

Just note that you need to fly American Airlines or its partners to earn the rest of the elite qualifying miles required.

9. Other Retail Purchases

The following are other ways to earn lots of AAdvantage miles through special retail partners. Shower people with flowers, wine, and other gifts!

Hot Tip: Check both the AAdvantage eShopping portal and the above company sites to see which store is offering the most miles — sometimes 1 will earn more than the other for the above merchants.

Earning AAdvantage Miles Through Travel

Don’t forget your AAdvantage account when traveling. There are several ways to earn AAdvantage miles while on the road (or in the air).

10. Flying on American Airlines or Partner Airlines

As you’d expect, you can earn AAdvantage miles when you fly on American Airlines. You’ll earn miles based on how much your ticket costs, with more expensive tickets earning more points.

Also, those with American Airlines elite status will earn more miles per flight than those without status. Here’s how many miles each status tier earns on American Airlines flights:

• No status: 5 miles per dollar spent
• Gold: 7 miles per dollar spent
• Platinum: 8 miles per dollar spent
• Platinum Pro: 9 miles per dollar spent
• Executive Platinum: 11 miles per dollar spent

Earning Miles With American Airlines’ Partner Airlines

Further, American Airlines is a part of the Oneworld alliance. This means you can earn AAdvantage miles by flying with any of their Oneworld partners in addition to several other airline partners.

Just use your AAdvantage account number when purchasing the tickets.

American Airlines also has 9 other partner airlines, including the world-renowned Etihad Airways.

The number of miles you’ll earn depends on the fare class you’re flying. You can generally find your fare class on your boarding pass; you can then see how many miles your ticket will earn by finding your airline partner on American’s website.

To calculate this, find your match your ticket’s fare class to a fare class listed on your partner’s information page on American’s website.

Then, multiply the distance (in miles) of your flight by the percentage displayed underneath the Base Miles and Cabin Bonus (if applicable) columns.

For example, a flight from New York (JFK) to Hong Kong (HKG) clocks in at 8,050 miles one-way.

If you flew this in W fare premium economy, you’d earn 8,855 AAdvantage miles. The math looks like this: 8,050 miles flown * 100% base miles * 10% cabin bonus miles = 8,555 miles.

Just note that certain low-cost or discount fares do not allow you to earn miles, so make sure to double-check your fare class before booking a ticket.

Hot Tip: For more information, check out this in-depth guide to help you know where to credit your airline miles.

11. American Airlines Purchases

Make sure to purchase your American Airlines tickets, seat fees, and other incidental costs with your American Airlines credit card. This will help you rack up points in addition to what you’ll earn when flying.

12. Booking Rental Cars

As discussed earlier in the article, the CitiBusiness Platinum Select card earns 2x points on car rentals, but there are other ways to earn bonus miles on rental cars, too.

In addition to this credit card offer, American Airlines lets you earn miles through various its various car rental partners. See the table below to review the participating rental companies and their corresponding bonus miles offers.

Since Avis and Budget are considered “preferred” car rental partners, they will get you the most miles for each rental. Certain cardholders or elite status members can earn even more than 500 miles per rental.

If you are a Citi/AAdvantage or AAdvantage Aviator cardholder, you can earn 750 miles per Budget or Avis rental. If you are a Platinum or Gold AAdvantage member, you can earn 1,000 miles per Budget or Avis rental.

Finally, if you are an AAdvantage Executive Platinum status member, you can earn 1,250 miles per Budget or Avis rental. These are some excellent perks for being loyal in different ways to the American Airlines AAdvantage program!

13. Hotel Partnerships

American Airlines has several hotel partners where you can earn extra miles for each night you stay or based on how much you spend, depending on the hotel in question.

Check out all hotel partners on their website, or look at the table below to help you decide which hotel you might stay at next to earn bonus AAdvantage miles.

As you can see above, PointsHound has one of the largest bonus points offered. They advertise a chance at earning up to 10,000 miles per nightly stay!

This website lets you book stays at thousands of hotels (including independent and boutique hotels) worldwide and earn AAdvantage miles in the process.

The number of miles largely depends on how much you pay for your stay, with more expensive stays earning more miles. Some preferred properties will also earn bonus points.

Just note that if you book through PointsHound, you won’t be able to earn hotel points or credit towards hotel elite status at hotel chains like Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott.

Further, you likely won’t be able to use your existing hotel elite benefits, so make sure to compare the value of these benefits to the points you’d earn.

American also partners with RocketMiles for hotel bookings. Like PointsHound, the RocketMiles portal lets you earn up to 10,000 AAdvantage miles per night at thousands of hotels worldwide.

We recommend comparing and contrasting earning between the 2 booking portals to see which offers you the most points for your next hotel stay.

14. AAdvantage – World of Hyatt Promotion

AAdvantage members with Gold status and above can earn 1 mile per dollar spent at Hyatt with the AAdvantage – World of Hyatt promotion.

This is in addition to the World of Hyatt points you’ll already earn for your stays, making it an exceptionally good way to earn points and miles for American frequent flyers.

To enroll, simply link accounts here and you’ll start earning AAdvantage miles on your Hyatt stays automatically.

15. Rewards for Show Tickets

If you sign up for Audience Rewards, you can earn up to 2,200 miles per ticket for various performances. These include Broadway shows, off-Broadway shows, cabarets, operas, exhibitions, workshops, and more.

To earn miles, simply enroll with your AAdvantage account number and find tickets for a show in a city near you. Participating cities include Chicago, Durham, Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego, San Jose, and Tucson.

Here’s how to earn miles on tickets through Audience Rewards:

1. Go to the Audience Rewards homepage.

   

2. Create an Audience Rewards account by clicking the Join for Free button on the homepage. You’ll be prompted to link your AAdvantage account to Audience Rewards account as you move through this process.
3. Head back over to the Audience Rewards homepage and select your location from the drop-down menu at the center of the screen.
4. Look for a show you’d like to see. You can do this by using the search bar at the bottom of the screen or by using the Browse by Category section at the center of the screen.

   

5. Click Buy & Earn underneath the show name and look at the center of the screen.

   

6. Click the + button next to the Earn [points] Bonus ShowPoints per ticket and you can see which dates are eligible for points earning with Audience Rewards.

   

7. Click Buy now at the center of the screen and copy the number appearing in the pop-up window.
8. Click Continue and you’ll be redirected to an authorized ticket dealer website to purchase the tickets (Telecharge, TicketMaster, etc.).
9. Find tickets available within the bonus offer date period and add the Audience Rewards number you received in step 7 at checkout.

Now, enjoy the show and the extra miles in your AAdvantage account! Make sure to check Audience Rewards every time you buy a Broadway ticket — otherwise, you’re leaving valuable points on the table.

16. Booking Vacation Packages

American Airlines has long offered vacation packages. These vacation packages often combine flights, hotels, and car rentals at a discounted price. And better yet, you’ll earn bonus AAdvantage miles in the process.

You’ll earn 1,000 per vacation package booked, and you can earn up to 30,000 bonus AAdvantage miles by booking at preferred hotels and locations. You can view these bonus offers on American’s website.

Plus, you’ll earn miles for flying on American Airlines or one of its partners when booked as a part of a vacation package.

To book a vacation package, head over to the American Airlines Vacations website. Enter your destination and dates at the center of the screen and click the search button. Then, all available vacation packages will be listed on-screen.

You can book a package by clicking on the blue Choose This Deal button to the right of the hotel name. Make sure to sign in to your AAdvantage account when booking to receive your bonus miles.

Hot Tip: Need more info? See our in-depth guide on American Airlines Vacations.

17. Book AA Cruises Around the World

You can also earn AAdvantage miles when you book cruises through American Airlines’ cruise portal.

Check American Airlines Cruises for the latest bonus offers on cruises to places like Alaska, the Caribbean, Europe, and Hawaii. Currently, you can earn 1 mile per dollar spent on all American Airlines Cruises, up to 10,000 miles per cruise.

Plus, some cruise lines offer 10,000 to 100,000 additional AAdvantage miles when you book select cruises.

For example, as of the time of writing this article, you can earn up to 100,000 bonus AAdvantage miles by booking cruises with Seabourn. You can view all available bonus offers on the American Airlines Cruises homepage.

Uncommon Ways to Earn AAdvantage Miles

American Airlines’ AAdvantage program also has tons of partnering companies that offer unique ways to earn miles — this includes everything from charity donations to opening a new checking account.

Here are some of the best offers available.

18. Make a Donation to Stand Up To Cancer

American Airlines has partnered with Stand Up To Cancer to offer 10 AAdvantage miles per $1 donated to the organization.

Stand Up to Cancer is a premier cancer research charity that funds cancer research and awareness. Earn miles when you donate through this link and add your AAdvantage number.

19. Switch Your Home Utility Providers

American Airlines has partnered with 2 home utility providers to offer bonus AAdvantage miles when you switch your home utilities like electricity and gas.

These companies service different parts of the U.S. and each offers a different number of miles for both signing up and paying your bill every month. Here’s a look at the current earning structure:

Make sure to do your homework before you sign up for one of these services. The miles you earn may look tempting, but for some of these services, it may be more expensive than your local utility provider.

So with this in mind, it may not be worth staying with the service after you receive your initial bonus miles.

20. Sign Up With an American Airlines Financial Services Partner

The AAdvantage program has tons of partners in the business and financial space. Some of the products and services these companies offer will earn you extra miles when you digitally enter or verbally notify a sales agent of your AAdvantage miles number.

Many of these options offer multiple ways to earn miles through various products or services. We’ve selected examples of some of the best offers and shared them in the chart below.

If you want, you can view every offer from each company on the AAdvantage website.

You should check the rates on these offers before signing up. Make sure the rates offered do not outweigh the miles benefits, as you may end up earning less interest or paying more than if you skipped the miles.

Hot Tip: If you open a BankDirect account, you can also refer your friends for a chance at an additional 1,000 AAdvantage miles. 

21. Fill out Surveys for Miles

American Airlines’ AAdvantage miles program is a participant in e-Rewards, an online data collection company wherein you can participate in marketing research and earn miles in return.

There is no public registration directly with e-Rewards. Instead, you’ll need to be invited through American Airlines AAdvantage to participate.

You can receive daily surveys by email or view them by logging into your account online. Usually, they offer a certain dollar amount in e-Rewards currency for completing the survey.

You can earn as little as $0.10 and up to $15.00 in e-Rewards currency for completing a single survey. As soon as you complete it, you’ll see your balance increase, and you can convert your balance into miles.

The above example from e-Rewards shows that once you accumulate as little as $25, you have the option to turn this balance into 500 AAdvantage miles.

Hot Tip: Use e-Rewards to top up your AAdvantage miles account when you’re getting ready to purchase award flights on American Airlines. Alternatively, use this currency to keep your AAdvantage miles from expiring.

22. Use Points.com to Transfer Points Into AAdvantage Miles

American Airlines is partnered with Points.com, a program in which you can transfer points/miles between various programs.

However, this is not usually a great choice since the transfer rates are generally pretty awful and always significantly less than 1:1. The transfer rate varies by the type of points and miles you exchange.

On the other hand, it’s useful if you would be closing out the origin program anyway, or you need a quick way to earn some AAdvantage points to keep them from expiring.

23. Bank with Bask Bank

Bask Bank has the innovative approach of allowing you to open a  savings account that lets you earn American Airlines miles instead of cash interest. With Bask Bank, account holders earn one AAdvantage mile for every dollar deposited annually. So, if you were to deposit $15,000 in your Bask Savings Account, after one year you will earn 15,000 AAdvantage miles.

You can also get a 5,000 point bonus for depositing $5,000 when you first open your account, plus and additional 1,000 points for completing a survey on your experience.

But the earnings don’t stop there, you can even earn additional bonuses for maintaining a certain balance level over the course of a year. a $25,000 balance for 12 months earns you 10,000 bonus miles, a $50,000 balance for 12 months earns you 20,000 bonus miles, and  a $100,000 balance for 12 months earns you 40,000 bonus miles.

24. Buy AAdvantage Miles

Buying miles is the last way we’ll mention to earn points, although it is often a poor way to get AAdvantage miles.

However, when American Airlines has mileage sales that earn bonus miles, you might be able to get a decent value for the miles if you need to top off your account so you can book an award ticket.

Leave buying miles for times when you absolutely need the miles in your account immediately to book an award.

Do You Earn Extra Points With the Concierge Key Program?

Concierge Key is American’s non-publicized elite-status program that American Airlines offers to its top-paying customers. There is no publicly available way to earn the status and you must be invited by American.

Unfortunately, while there are many great perks to American Airlines Concierge Key, you do not earn any additional bonus points for being a member.

For more information, check out our complete guide to American Airlines Concierge Key status.

Final Thoughts

As shown in this article, there are plenty of ways to earn extra AAdvantage miles, including American Airlines credit cards, the AAdvantage eShopping portal, and the AAdvantage Dining program.

With little to no effort, you can use these programs to earn extra miles on purchases you’d make anyway. Just sign up for accounts and remember to use them whenever you eat out or make online purchases.

0If you’re really savvy, you’ll have tons of AAdvantage miles in your account in no time — so, be sure to check out our recommendations on the best ways to use 100,000 AAdvantage miles.

Safe travels!

The information for the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard®, Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard®, and AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard® has been collected independently by Upgraded Points. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

For rates and fees of the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card, click here.
For rates and fees of the Marriott Bonvoy Business™ American Express® Card, click here.