I recently signed up for the CitiBusiness AAdvantage Visa Card, with a 50,000 AAdvantage mile bonus for meeting the minimum spend of $3000 within 4 months. Other perks that came with this sign up included a $150 Statement Credit if I spend $150 on American Airlines within the first 12 months of card ownership.
Since I needed to make the minimum spend, and also because I don’t like to forget about the perks like the Statement Credit I thought to buy AA giftcards from AA.com I purchased an eGift Card for $150, which was immediately emailed to me (and never expires) and within two weeks I received the statement credit. I used a mix of Amazon Payments and a couple of small purchases to bring up my spend over the months to $2950, plus the $150 for $3100, but was a little concerned that perhaps the statement credit would impact the $3,000 spend, and Citi would claim that I didn’t make the minimum spend in time, that would be a seriously bad situation as I would lose out on a ton of miles.
With that in mind, at the start of June I decided to process an additional $250 of Amazon Payments (I need the remaining $750 for my US Airways Mastercard 15,000 bonus) and waited patiently for the 50,000 miles to appear.
Nothing happened…
I have had some problems linking up the CitiBusiness Card with my Citi Checking Account, and as such am unable to view recent charges or balances on the account, so I called up to ask if I had a bill payment coming, and ask ‘by the way, have I made enough spend to reach the bonus?’ The agent checked through the account and informed me that the bonus of 50,000 miles didn’t post in June since I had a refund in June from American Airlines… I challenged that and stated it was just the statement credit, to which she disagreed, and noted that the account had both received a Statement Credit for $150 AND a refund from AA.com of $150, and as far as I know right now I have $150 in AA.com Giftcards sitting in my account.
It looks like somehow I have got a double bonus on the $150 Statement Credit, but when the refund hit it pulled my spend back under the $3,000 limit – luckily my extra $250 in spend on Amazon Payments pushed it back up again, else that extra bonus would have cost me the 50,000 miles as the deadline for the minimum spend is now here, and I would have just missed it. Whilst an extra $150 is great, if it had cost me 50K AAdvantage Miles I would have been very angry indeed!
Currently I cannot find any links to the 50K + $150 Statement Credit, but when I do I will post them here (or please leave them in the comments) I think this is a good experience in terms of how to max out the Statement Credit Perk by locking in some Gift Cards for future travel, but remember, put enough on the card to cover any rebates/refunds that might occur just in case this pushes you under the spend threshold.
Also, AA purchases on this card earn 2 AAdvantage Miles for every dollar spent, so buying the eGift cards from AA is a great way to help make your minimum spend, and if you are lucky you might even catch a double rebate on that. Keep your eye out for new card signup bonuses that include a statement credit, and don’t forget to consider Gift Card purchases as a way of monetizing the statement credit.
I’ve also done this successfully for $200 with my American Express Platinum card this year –American Express $200 Statement Credit , so have $350 in free eGift Cards from American Airlines to spend – what cards have you done this with?
50K’s dead, per the very active monitors at FT.
Yep – but I am sure it will come back – as will Statement Credits. I think there is a good message here in how to lock in your statement credit and maybe get a double refund – at worst right now I have got the $150 credit for nothing, at best I have $150 free eGift Cards from AA….
It is a good thing you double checked to make sure you got the bonus.
Are you sure your AA Gift Cards are still valid? It was common for them to get voided and have your money returned.
Actually I am not sure, I haven’t checked them yet. But if we knew for certain they would be voided that is actually still good news- as we could buy them, knowing that they would refund the money and trigger the $150 statement credit- making it a neat way to monetize the credit.
Can you use the AA gift card to pay for hotels booked through AA website?
Actually, Tim below was correct and my giftcard always invalidated – I still received the statement credit and the refund on the price of the giftcard so achieved my goal of hitting the spend plus monetizing the statement credit- but didn’t get a giftcard in the end so couldn’t tell you. Personally I would apply them to flights but its quite possible other things can be redeemed with them.