American and Citibank are offering up to 40,000 bonus miles with a new American Mastercard. The offer is:
- 20,000 points for spending $750 in 4 months
- 10,000 points for spending $10,000 during the first year
- 10,000 points for $10,000 in purchases during the second year
- First year fee waived
Upside of the offer: lots of points if you can meet the spending requirements (which really aren’t that onerous on a monthly average basis).
Downsides of the offer: you need to keep the card past year one (while the fee is waived) in order to max out the miles — so you need to pay $85 in the second year or receive no more than 30,000 miles.
The offer is available for both the personal and business cards so you can actually earn 80,000 miles through the special offer…
And despite the strange structure of the bonuses (designed to get you to make this a heavily used card and to keep it over time), the offer is better than the regular offers available with the card.
I don’t really see the benefit of this promo. Citi will give you an AA credit card with a 20,000 mile bonus for only spending $250, first year free. Last I checked, you can apply for a new card (and repeatedly get the 20,000 mile bonus) every 90 days.
Seems like an easier way to earn free miles.
iahphx – The benefit is they’re giving you double miles on $10k of spending. You’re going to spend $10k on some card this year anyway, so it might as well be for double miles.