American Airlines is no longer allowing AwardWallet users to track American Airlines accounts. It’s unclear why American Airlines made this decision as it seemed that AwardWallet had a strong relationship with AA (you were able to earn a small amount of miles by leaving comments on AwardWallet’s blog for example). AwardWallet was using the AA API so passwords weren’t stored either.
Hat tip to VFTW
What kind of penalty (so to speak) might I face if I simply stop using American’s loyalty program — stop submitting my AAdvantage number with any purchase connected to American and let my loyalty account with them die? I don’t use American nearly enough to pussyfoot around anymore with rigmarole like this. If American has a more affordable fare when I’m flying in the near future I can buy a ticket but if I want to earn anything I’ll do it through other means like other shopping portals or credit card benefits.
What kind of EXTREMELY BASIC treatment might I lose if I give them no loyalty connection or data anymore? Anything?
With this (and the fact that I haven’t taken a trip in two years!), I will probably cancel my AW premium subscription. Even at the lower grandfathered annual rate, I get nothing from it now.
Similar note – redeeming British Avios for AA flights is also no longer possible. I absolutely hate AA… wish I lived near a StarAlliance Hub
Bask Bank, $5000 deposit ( minimum) equals 1,000 miles. Miles reported to the IRS ( is this going to be a trend ? ) . . I’ll pass
We all need to inundate AA’s twitter account asking them about miles expiration and where to find the info etc. Why not? And tag their CEO in the tweets?
Prediction: Availability is about to become even worse and they don’t want AwardWallet or anyone else to have an easy time seeing just how bad it is.
IIRC, American (years ago) had lawyered up to aggressively prevent AwardWallet from access to this data, but that Alexi was eventually able to negotiate a deal with them (which included the 5 mile bonus posting, a great feature.). I suspect like in many of AA’s relationships, AA sought ever more absurd stipulations or compensation.
As other commenters have said, we should at least give credit that AA ever threw us a bone because most other domestic carriers haven’t. Of course we like to game these programs but we’re also promoters, so I think it’s shortsighted. These carriers have certainly driven me to use international partners and Alaska by being jerks
Just FYI – you can add a loyalty program for manual tracking.. and enter the expiration date for your miles, and I hope (assume) award wallet would still send you a reminder when that date approaches.
I would test that with setting a date in 93 days and see if they send an email.
Those 5 AA rewards for blog comments were really helpful. Now to find another low maintenance method to extend my P3-P4 accounts…
Any folks have experience with Bask Bank?
AA shopping portal is pretty easy. Buy something small for pickup at a local store.
Unfortunately, it used to be easy years ago. But then they added all sorts of exclusions.
For Walmart, for example, no consumables, food, tires, computers/hardware, etc. The list for Macys is even longer, many name brands for clothing, no discount/coupon sales, etc.
Bask Bank is as painless as it gets. You get 1k AA miles for putting $5k in the account for 90 days, but after they post there’s no minimum balance. I’ve kept $100 in there for about a year now and earn something like 9 miles a month, but it keeps them from expiring.
Simple reason! AA doesn’t want customers to keep track of their miles and they want their miles to expire so they can’t redeem or pay huge fees to restore expired miles ! It is a greed and as the name says , it is always AAdvantage for AA and disadvantage for customers