People who passed the first million mile mark were given lifetime Gold status and Platinum status at the second million mile mark. What made AA different from other airlines was that miles from any source counted towards the million mile program even miles from credit card spending. That’s all about to change.

Here’s a snippet of the announcement from AA.

We are announcing a new AAdvantage^® Million Miler^SM program which recognizes and rewards AAdvantage members when Million Miler thresholds are reached. Starting December 1, 2011, AAdvantage base miles earned by flying on American Airlines, American Eagle^® or the AmericanConnection^® carrier or any eligible AAdvantage program participating airline will count towards Million Miler status.

Check out aa.com/millionmiler for more info.

Starting Dec 1st, 2011 only base miles earned from flying American Airlines will count towards the million mile status. There’s a limited time offer for those with the new Citi Executive card to continue earning miles that count through December 2012 but that card comes with a $450 annual fee.

So if you’re interested in million miler status then the race is on to accumulate non-flying miles until December 1st.

Have your AAdvantage number handy.

The requirement to get the bonus is to simply spend $1,500 within 6 months of becoming a cardholder. The $85 annual fee is waived the first year. I’ve also heard it’s possible to get more than one bonus by signing up for the 2 or all 3 of the card types (Visa, Amex).

I thought everybody knew about this and was jumping on the deal but I discovered a lot of people haven’t yet heard of it and the current 75k offer expires at the end of the month. While the promotional offer may or may not be renew I don’t suggest taking that chance. If you waited too long to hop onto past great deals such as the 100,000 British Airways offer then hop on this one before you regret it.

I plan on applying for the Visa branded card sometime within the next week. 75,000 miles would certainly be useful and help me out in my quest for a million miles (to achieve lifetime AA gold status). As of date I’ve accumulated 260,691 miles or 26% of the way there. An additional 75,000 miles would push me 7.5% further along.

Find more information on the offer at the BankAndFinanceDeals.com post.

What is Rewards Network? Rewards Network allows you to dine at various restaurants and bars to earn miles across a variety of frequent flier and point programs of your choice. I’m only interested in the airline miles/hotel points so I’ll only list those dining programs here:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Delta
• Midwest
• Southwest
• United
• US Airways
• Hilton HHonors
• Priority Club
• Complete list at RewardsNetwork.com

Currently I’m enrolled in the American Airlines, United and Hilton HHonors programs. Technically these dining programs are separate but you’re allowed to sign up for each of them as long as you use a different credit card with each (more on that later).

How does it work? The premise is simple. The first two steps are initial setup.

• You sign up for a dining program for which you wish to earn miles/points towards.
• You register your credit card which you plan on using when dining.
• Locate participating restaurants & bars.
• Dine at participating location.
• Use your credit card to pay.
• Your dine is automatically recorded and should appear in your Rewards Network account in 5-10 days.

I first joined this program thinking I would passively stumble across participating restaurants and earn miles. It didn’t happen that way because I generally don’t eat out much and when I do eat out it’s generally at the same 2-3 locations. Looking at the participating restaurants on Rewards Network got me to try new restaurants and earn a good amount of miles at the same time.

How do you earn miles and what’s the reward structure? The membership structure is divided into three tiers and how many miles you earn depends on which tier you are in. I’ll use the American Airlines Dining Program here on out as an example.

• Member. This is a person who has joined but does not have an online profile setup. You earn 1 mile per each dollar spent.
• Online Member. You have an online profile and choose to receive e-mails from AA Dining. You earn 3 miles for every dollar spent.
• VIP Member. You meet the online member requirements and you have 12 or more qualified transactions in the calendar year. You earn 5 miles per dollar spent and generally more bonus offers.

The miles earned per dollar spent not only includes the bill but the amount paid for tax & tip. Obviously the most beneficial and lucrative earning potential is at the VIP Member level. 12 transactions may seem like a lot but I’ll talk about how to get there easily.

Fast track to becoming a VIP Member. Using conventional wisdom the quickest way to get the qualifying 12 dines would be to eat out at participating locations 12 times. However there are a couple tips and tricks you can use to get there faster.

• Quick meals add up. I’ve noticed that some areas have fast food locations that participate. I don’t have any participating fast food locations by me or condone eating too much fast food but this means you can stop by and enjoy a burger and fries for a couple bucks and rack up a dine.
• Split up transactions. If you decide to go out to a participating location try ways to get multiple charges on one visit. For example if you sit at the bar first, pay for your drinks with your card. This counts as a qualifying transaction. Then have your meal and use your card to pay again and this is another qualifying transaction. You’ve just earned two qualifying transactions in one outing. Also, if you’ve registered for multiple dining programs with different cards you can ask to split the check between the cards.
• Have a drink or two. There’s a bar near me that I’ve visited several times and never realized that they participate. Grabbing a beer or two here and paying would be a very quick and cheap way to rack up a dine.
• Buy gift cards ahead of time. Let’s say you’re planning on having a big dinner at a restaurant where the bill would amount to say $300 and you only have 10 dines in the program. This would mean you would earn 3 miles per dollar or roughly 900 miles for this dine. The smart thing to do is go ahead of time and buy 2 gift cards for say $25 and $25 (best to do on separate occasions to avoid transaction looking like duplicates or do different amounts). You’ll still earn 150 miles (3 miles/$) for the $50 in gift card purchases but you’ll also have 2 qualifying dines to get you to VIP status where you’ll earn 5 miles for each dollar spent. For the $300 dinner tab you’ll redeem both your $50 worth of GCs and pay the remaining $250 balance which would net you 1,250 miles. So for a dine which you would’ve earned 900 miles originally you’ve now netted 1,400 miles (1,250 + 150).

Also note that buying gift cards ahead of time is good for earning miles for restaurants/bars that don’t participate on certain days (usually Friday and Saturday). Now that you’re a VIP member you’ll earn 5 miles per dollar spent here on out. You’ll also receive more bonus offers and opportunities.

Bonus, bonus and more bonuses! Every now and then the various dining programs will have different bonuses. AA Dining recently had a 500 miles for a $10+ dine and United currently has a 500 mile bonus for every $75 spent. These bonuses are on top of your regular earnings.

You only get access to the different bonuses if you’re a member of that particular dining program. This is why I recommend joining all the various dining programs that you already accumulate points and miles on. The various bonuses help to pad your account plus the activity keeps your miles/points from expiring.

Tips to avoid bad restaurants. I mean unless you’re dining solely for the miles you want to have a good dining experience right? I would not rely on the restaurant ratings on the dining program websites because they seem to be overrated. This is why if I find a participating location I check out reviews from other sources such as Yelp to get a better idea of the place. Using this method for screening restaurants I’ve found that there are a lot of bad restaurants participating in the program which makes sense as they’re trying to attract customers. However I’ve also discovered really great restaurants that participate in the program.

Make sure you’ll earn miles on the visit! Some restaurants and bars only participate on certain days of the week so make sure you can earn miles on the day of your visit. As I mentioned before you can still earn miles if you buy gift cards ahead of time. Also some restaurants do not allow miles to be earned on certain credit cards used even if they accept them. Usually this is the case with either Amex or Discover. The restaurant will accept the card for the purchase but you won’t get miles for them. Check the restaurant’s info page on Rewards Network to make sure they accept that card to earn miles.

Remember that these earnings are on top of your credit card rewards. If you have a cash back or miles card you’ll still earn the rewards from dining through your card issuer. If I use my Citi AAdvantage card which nets me 1 mile per $1 spent with my dine that nets me 6 miles per every dollar spent. If you dine out a lot 6 miles per dollar spent adds up very quickly.

Maximize the situation when you’re eating out with people who don’t care about miles and pay cash. Collect the cash and offer to pay the table’s tab. With a group of people you can earn thousands of miles each time.

“Hi, I was doing some research on the american advantage miles and ran across your website. I was just wondering what it actually means to have lifetime gold status. Do you get benefits, discounts, etc? I have personally racked up alot of miles by churning through the citi cards just to get free flights. I was never aware that they kept track of the total accumulated over the lifetime of the account. Anyway, good luck if you are still trying to get there!! ”

- Derek C

I replied with:

It’s an unpublished benefit that once you reach 1 million miles on American Airlines you get lifetime Gold Status and lifetime Platinum status at two million miles. AA is the only airline I know of that counts all miles earned regardless of source although this could change at any time or could have changed at any time. I’m not actively pursuing the million miles at the moment by churning the citi cards because I enjoy the big credit lines but I did accumulate around 100,000 miles this year through credit card charges alone.

For the benefits of each status check the official AAdvantage site.

I’m always happy to answer questions that are sent in. One of the reasons I’m not actively pursuing million mile status on AAdvantage is that I figure with just continued credit card usage and occasional flights I’ll hit that million mile mark sometime in the future. The future of the unpublished benefit and American Airlines itself is uncertain so I’ll just continue to earn miles and use them like I would with any other airline.

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.

The 500 miles bonus is just a small perk. I’m always looking for ways to pad my mileage account though so it’s nice to grab free miles here and there. The 500 miles is equivalent to a $10 bonus however.

The 4% yield is what you should be looking at. 4% is one of highest yields you can get on a liquid savings account.

link

Offer expires October 31st, 2008.

link

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.

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.