Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
If you live outside of the United States, you probably don’t pay much attention to the online shopping portals offered by the major U.S. airlines, even though they regularly offer bonus mile promotions. These offers might not seem relevant to you, but luckily you don’t actually need to buy products that are shipped to you. You can simply make hotel reservations and earn AA miles in the process. Whenever there is no cashback option from Topcashback or Quidco, this is a great way to earn a little bit extra for hotel bookings you were already planning on. And because it’s an affiliate marketing bonus, it will stack quite nicely with your usual points or miles earning direct from the hotel chain.
The hotel chains currently offering “miles back” through the AA shopping portal – click here for details – are:
- IHG hotels – 3 miles per U.S. dollar spent
- Hilton hotels – 2 miles per U.S. dollar spent
- Country Inn (but not other Club Carlson brands) – 3 miles per U.S. dollar
- Choice hotels – 2 miles per U.S. dollar
- Best Western hotels – 2 miles per U.S. dollar spent
Joe recently wrote about the Choice hotels promotion, which is worth revisiting.
I received an email about yet another bonus miles promotion, and this one appears so appealing that I decided to write it up for the benefit of UK-based readers.
Between now and 14 April, 2017 if you make three separate transactions of $50 or more, you will earn 1,500 bonus miles (on top of the 2 or 3 regular miles earned from the shopping portal). You can quite easily qualify by making three one-night hotel reservations, which almost surely are going to cost more than $50 each. The actual stay can take place after 14 April, although you won’t receive any miles (or bonus miles) until after the stay has taken place. (so it won’t work to book a hotel night and cancel later…)
I have previously used the AA portal for IHG stays when they weren’t showing up elsewhere. The only option used to link to the Crowne Plaza site, but that allowed you to book the whole range of IHG properties.
Yes, I find that I avoid any problem with clashing cookies by booking via Candlewood Suites or something random that I would never visit normally. It has always tracked fine, and lots of bonus AA miles when chasing Accelerate targets.
Yep, particularly good given the regular bonuses for 1000-2000 Miles usually require quite high spend (~$500) which isn’t that easy if buying ‘stuff’ you actually would buy anyway (even if you were US-based) but is easily covered with a few hotel stays. I haven’t done it in a while, but it used to be possible to get Miles on award bookings and BRGs sometimes too…
Yep, always worth making award or Points & Cash bookings through an obscure shopping portal. You never know if you might end up earning some miles you aren’t necessarily entitled to.
Plus it keeps your account alive.