American Airlines eShopping Experience: A Dreadful Journey

If you are looking to earn extra miles on future airfare redemption, be sure to utilize your airline’s online shopping portal. American Airlines has its own online shopping portal, and it poses a great opportunity to score amazing bonus miles when used for the right item. I was able to earn an additional 4,269 AAdvantage miles from a single purchase, but I found the process to be frustrating. 

You can earn AAdvantage miles using your regular cashback cards! Photo credit: American Airlines

Last year, I had decided to buy myself an Apple watch Series 5 for Christmas. By the grace of the Point God, right before I was about to order it online, I got an email from American Airlines’ eShopping portal notifying me that AA is running a special promotion for one day. By shopping on AA’s eShopping portal, I would earn 10 AAdvantage miles per dollar spent, instead of the typical 1 AAdvantage miles per dollar. The Apple watch I was eyeing was $426.93 with taxes and fees, and I was planning on buying it with my Citi Business AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard (I really hate this card’s unnecessarily confusing name).  This would have originally earned me 852 AAdvantage miles due to the card’s multiplier of 2X back on AAdvantage miles. However, with the promotion, I would earn an additional 4,269 AAdvantage miles on top of the original amount, earning a total of 5,121 AAdvantage miles. 

Definitely worth it if you were already planning on buying Apple products.Photo credit: American Airlines

5,121 AAdvantage miles may not seem substantial at first, but American Airlines frequently runs award sales, and you can often find a good bargain on a domestic, one-way flight. These award flights can be short hauls like from Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LAS), but occasionally you can score a really decent deal like from Seattle (SEA) to New York (JFK). I was thrilled and instantly made the purchase through the portal, and everything went downhill from there. 

At least the representative kept following up with me.

Although I did receive the additional miles qualified from the promotion, the process was exceptionally awful. I did not see my bonus miles posted for about 2 weeks, so I sent an email to American Airlines. They quickly got back to me and told me they would look into the issue and talk to Apple. American Airlines continued to send me follow-up emails, saying my inquiry was still under investigation. 5 email exchanges and 73 days later, I finally got an email telling me that they were able to verify the purchase and would award me the missing miles. After 5 more business days, I received the miles and my American Airlines profile correctly reflected the change.

Finally received my miles.

While I enjoyed earning a hefty chunk of miles from a single purchase and appreciated American Airlines agents following up with me multiple times, the entire process took well over 2 months. It was very frustrating and inconvenient, but 10X back on purchases when I would normally get 2X back are too good to pass up. I advise everyone to double and triple check bonus miles posting after utilizing promotions through American Airlines’ eShopping portal. Hopefully, I’ll have better experiences in the future.