I’ve written in the past about earning points two, three, four, and even five ways at a time when booking travel.

One of the methods is to be a member of an airline’s small business program, that lets you accrue points in that business program account in addition to miles in the traveler’s frequent flyer account.

What’s more, you can earn points this way both for yourself when you travel and also in your business program account when other people travel and include your business account number.

Examples of these programs are Delta SkyBonus and American Business ExtrAA.

Business ExtrAA is running a birthday promotion that both existing and new accounts can register for. (Hat tip: Pizza in Motion)

Just register for this promotion using promo code BIRTHDAY then fly between September 1 and October 31, 2013. The more you fly, the more points you earn!

Registration has to occur prior to travel, and tickets must have a minimum $250 base fare ($250 prior to taxes and fees).

What’s interesting to me is the terms and conditions language, “Retroactive ticket requests may not be eligible for promotional points.” You enter a Business ExtrAA number during the booking process. You can also call to have it added, some folks might book a ticket through an online travel agency and have it added. And in fact readers report calling to have a Business ExtrAA number added for credit after travel has been completed. When I first joined the program I was told this was not possible, that only tickets booked at AA.com were eligible, but that’s not the case — although requests for credit after the fact may not (strange language) generate this bonus.

You can earn up to 2000 points total with this promotion, and in addition to flights on American as long as you’re flying using an American Airlines ticket you can earn the bonus for flights on British Airways, Iberia, Japan Airlines and Qantas.

Being able to earn bonuses for other peoples’ travel makes this especially useful. I love the Business ExtrAA program because it’s earning on top of the miles you fly, and also because relatively low point values can be redeemed to gift Gold elite status (2400 points) and to gift Admirals Club lounge memberships (3000 points).

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