Working a Minor Credit Card Offer
Nov. 17th, 2023 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerRecently I got a special offer on one of my credit cards that pays American Airlines miles. "Earn 2,000 additional AAdvantage® Bonus Miles!" it read. Except it read it in big, bold, red, ALL CAPS letters I won't bother to reproduce here. Okay, so the font was big and bold, but how big is the offer? You've got to (1) read the details and (2) know the value of the points to decide if the offer's worth pursuing.
1. The Details
The offer requires spending $300 per month in November, December, and January. So it's a minimum of $900 spend, with the monthly couponing. In return it pays 2,000 bonus points in additional to the normal points for that spend.
2. The Value
Round that spend up to $1,000 as I'll go a bit over $300 each month meeting the threshold with organic charges. So for about $1,000 spend I'll earn a total of 3,000 miles, or 3 miles/dollar. After a devaluation early this year I consider AA miles to be worth 1.1 cents per point (cpp), so the yield here is 3.3%. That's not great but it is better than my general-purpose 2% cash back cards.
BTW, the fact that AA miles are only worth 1.1cpp nowadays is why this card, which generally pays 1x point per dollar, has been left sitting in my desk drawer after I cinched the big sign-up bonus. (It's roughly half the value of my simple 2% cash-back cards.) In fact I expected I'd just leave it there until canceling it after 12 months. This deal is just good enough that I'll pull it out and use it for a while.
1. The Details
The offer requires spending $300 per month in November, December, and January. So it's a minimum of $900 spend, with the monthly couponing. In return it pays 2,000 bonus points in additional to the normal points for that spend.
2. The Value
Round that spend up to $1,000 as I'll go a bit over $300 each month meeting the threshold with organic charges. So for about $1,000 spend I'll earn a total of 3,000 miles, or 3 miles/dollar. After a devaluation early this year I consider AA miles to be worth 1.1 cents per point (cpp), so the yield here is 3.3%. That's not great but it is better than my general-purpose 2% cash back cards.
BTW, the fact that AA miles are only worth 1.1cpp nowadays is why this card, which generally pays 1x point per dollar, has been left sitting in my desk drawer after I cinched the big sign-up bonus. (It's roughly half the value of my simple 2% cash-back cards.) In fact I expected I'd just leave it there until canceling it after 12 months. This deal is just good enough that I'll pull it out and use it for a while.
