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There were reports, last week, of AAdvantage Aviator Red credit card holders receiving a promotion in the mail that offered them 30,000 AAdvantage miles if they spend $2,500/month on their card for the next 6 months. I can’t say I was particularly impressed.
That’s $15,000 spend to earn a bonus of 30,000 miles. Not only is that a lot of cash to part with but, if you’re not going to manufacture spend, it would almost certainly require you to forego spend on other credit cards that could be earning you more valuable miles.
I didn’t get the offer and, for once, I didn’t really mind not feeling the love from Barclaycard.
As it turns out, Barclaycard didn’t forget me…they were just waiting to send me a better offer 🙂
An email from Barclaycard dropped into my inbox yesterday with a very tempting offer:
This is actually an identical offer to one they ran back in July this year…only that time I really didn’t get any love from Barclays.
The offer may be for “only” 15,000 AAdvantage Miles but the spend required to get the bonus is so much easier than the snail-mail offer that appeared last week.
All the promotion requires is for the cardholder to put $500 spend on their AAdvantage Aviator card for the next three months. How easy is that?!
The total spend required is $1,500 so, when you compare that to the $15,000 spend required for the 30,000 point offer, this is a much more attractive proposition.
The terms of the promotion confirm that it’s targeted….
Offer is valid for select cardmembers and is not transferable
….but, if you didn’t get it, there’s no harm in calling up to see if you can get the promotion added to your card.
There’s speculation going around that this has something to do with Barclays wanting to retain customers and that this promotion is going out to those whose credit card renewals are coming due. Well, in my case, that’s certainly not true as my renewal date is months away – who knows what Barclays is thinking?
Other Important Terms & Conditions
- No signup required. If you’ve been targeted, the offer is automatically loaded to your card
- If you do not spend $500 in any of the three months of the promotion you will not be eligible for the bonus.
- Spend must occur in January, February and March 2016.
Bottom Line
I’m in the midst of an attempt to collect as many Chase Ultimate Rewards points as possible (for a big trip next year) so I’m not inclined to go for any promotions that take a lot of spend away from my Chase cards…but this promotion is definitely worth it.
$500 per month isn’t going to cost me a material number of Chase Ultimate Rewards points and, if I can work some American Airlines spend into the mix, I would come out with even more AAdvantage miles than the minimum 16,500 I’d pick up for hitting the promotion target spot on (the AAdvantage Aviator Red card give 2 miles/$ on American Airlines spend).
Did anyone else get this promotion (or any other promotion for that matter)? My spend on the Aviator Red has been very low for a few moths so I suspect that’s why I got a relatively easy promotion – is that what others are finding?
