I haven’t checked up on how many miles I’ve accumulated in awhile so the result was a bit surprising for me. At the end of 2007 I had 27,397 miles sitting in my AAdvantage account.

Today I checked to discover that my year end total is 71,086 miles which means I earned 43,689 miles this year. I haven’t been keeping track of where I’ve been earning miles too well but I’m sure 95% of the miles earned are from credit card spending on my Citi AAdvantage card which nets me 1 mile per dollar spent. The rest were from flying, e-rewards (discontinued), opinion place, and

So what does 71k miles get me on American Airlines? According the awards chart if I fly off peak I have enough miles for myself and another person to fly something interesting (Hawaii, Central America, Columbia, Ecuador, etc.).

One of the question I ask myself is if it worth it to earn miles over cashback? Most of the purchases I charged to earn miles would have netted me 1% cashback. Therefore I would have netted $400 or so in cashback if I chose to go that route. I’m pretty sure I can get more than $400 of value out of the miles so I don’t regret getting the miles over the cashback.

After skimming through my backlog of hundreds of e-mails I spotted one from e-rewards which stated:

Effective June 11, 2008, e-Rewards will no longer be a participant in the AAdvantage® program. The final date to redeem the eligible portion of your e-Rewards Currency for AAdvantage miles is June 11, 2008. Visit www.e-Rewards.com/rewards.do to find out details on how to redeem e-Rewards Currency for AAdvantage miles.

Boo! I do surveys from time to time at e-Rewards for some miles and I guess after June 11, 2008 I’ll have no reason to participate in their program anymore.

My sister e-mail me to let me know that she passed the million mile mark. The majority of the million miles came from credit card spending. She flies roughly 2-5 trips a year.

Hitting the million mile mark wasn’t difficult in that she owns her own business and charges a lot of her expenses to her mileage card. She’s doubtful about hitting the 2 million mark because she charges most of her expenses to her Plum card now which is a better deal with 2% back on all purchases or defer payment up to 2 months.

Another update to my million miles quest. January was an okay month in that I accumulated 3,647 miles. 500 miles from E-Rewards for filling out surveys and 3,147 from credit card spending.

Total miles accumulated is now 31,044. I’m still a long way from my goal of a million miles but I’ve just begun. I’m looking into the possibility of doing some mileage runs this summer. 968,956 miles to go!

The last time I updated was at the end of August and my mileage total then was 23,350. Since then I haven’t made much progress as I haven’t flown anywhere or been actively looking to obtain miles.

I earned an additional 4,047 miles exclusively through credit card purchases bringing my total to 27,397.

Summary:
Citi AAdvantage Mastercard – 26562 miles
Points.com – 10 miles
E-Rewards – 500 miles
Opinion Place – 325 miles

Total miles earned in 2007: 27,397

So I have enough for a flight but I still have 972,603 miles to earn before I hit that million mile mark. I know at this rate it’ll take me 40 years or so but hopefully as I age I’ll be able to charge more everyday expenses and fly more often.

Earn 25,000 miles after $750 in purchases here. You have 4 months to charge $750 which is pretty attainable for most people with no change in regular spending.

Earn 15,000 miles after your first purchase here. Good for people that don’t want to bother with charging $750.

This is the August 2007 update of my Million Miles Quest.

For those of you that don’t know, my million miles quest is a personal goal to achieve a million miles on American Airlines’ AAdvantage program. Achieving a million miles gets you gold status for life. It couldn’t hurt to have a ton of miles to use every now and then either. I chose AA because they allow all miles regardless of however they’re earned to count towards your million miles.

I’m going to detail how many miles I earned this month and by what method those miles were earned.

UFB Direct
I opened the UFB Direct AAdvantage Checking and savings but never got around to setting up a real deposit for those accounts. I tried to do PayPal transfer to fake a couple of direct deposits but UFB doesn’t recognize them as direct deposits, there goes that.

Citi AAdvantage Mastercard – 22515 miles earned
I got a huge boost in miles when I signed up for the Citi AAdvantage Mastercard. You get 20,000 bonus miles after spending $250 on the card. You also get 1 mile for every dollar spent on the card. I charged tuition and all my lunches at work on this card. For gas and supermarket expenses, I use another credit card that nets

Points.com – 10 miles earned
Points.com has a 10 miles bonus just for signing up. You can track your balances from multiple frequent flier accounts on Points.com. Before I decide I was going to dedicate all my miles aquiring to AAdvantage I had multiple frequent flier accounts at several airlines so points.com lets me keep track of most of them easily.

E-Rewards – 500 miles earned
At e-rewards, I filled out random surveys from what soft drinks I like to what shaving products I use. It took about 3 weeks of filling out surveys here and there to earn 500 miles.

Opinion Place – 325 miles earned
Opinion Place involved filling out two surveys that took about 30-45 minutes each to complete. Miles were credited in about 2-3 weeks. I can come back about every 2 weeks to fill out more surveys.

Recap – Total of 23,350 miles earned this month.
My Million Miles Quest finally kicks off to a start. This isn’t a bad start, however I’m still 976,650 miles from my goal. The large number of miles earned this month was essentially due to the 20,000 miles credit card bonus. I’m planning on applying for the business AAdvantage credit card for another bonus sometime in the next several months also.

I’ve known from the beginning that most of my miles were going to be earned via credit card spending. However I only charge purchases where the most cashback I can earn is 1% on another card. A million miles is probably going to be a long long time away, but at least I’m starting towards that goal now at 20 years old.