Wacky Airmiles versus Real World Miles

pjbltd

Hi all

I am looking into getting a credit card which will earn me airmiles.

I was tempted to sign up for the Citi® / AAdvantage® Visa Gold Card:
http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/cards/cards_aadvan.htm?type=cards&merchant=citi&offer=A139

My reasons being I am already a AAdvantage member because on the rare occasions that I have to travel on work we are encouraged to fly American Airlines. I was attracted by the 5000 free airmiles for signing up to the card but turned off by the £25 annual fee. I thought I could sign up and then a few months down the line cancel the card, thus getting the 5000 miles put into my AAdvantage account but avoiding the annual fee (it is waived on the first year).

I thought this would all work perfectly until I read something I thought was very strange: "You can travel for just 30,000 AAdvantage® miles to the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska), Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean - over 200 destinations on American Airlines"

30,000 AAdvantage miles?!! I was going on the assumption before that an AAdvantage mile = 1 regular mile. Which would be great as I thought London to New York was about 3000 miles.

How much does 1 AAdvantage mile equal in real world miles?

On that matter how much does:
1 BA mile equal?
or 1 Virgin mile?
or 1 BMI baby mile?

I am very confused
Did the circumference of the Earth grow or did the definition of a mile change?

battyboimatt

I have the citi AAAdvantage Card, yes the £25 a year fee is a downer but I got a lower apr than advertised great stuff, if you do read the stuff that comes with it, it does say that 1 AAdvantage mile does not equal 1 proper mile, but also you gain points with some hotel chains, car hire etc and is nice and easy to build and Citi do indeed tranfer the points to them monthly, I have nealry 7000 miles now, and im flying to LHR to Orlando, Orlanodo to Las Vegas, Las Vegas back to Orlando and then orlando to key west, then key west to Orlando then back to LHR next year all on AA in business class which should clock me up quite a few miles lol, and then if I book the flights on my AA card I get the flight cost in points as well, mwahhhhhhhh so if you do use them regular, then the £25 fee works for itself really

pjbltd

thanks battyboimatt, but how much does 1 AA mile equal?

pjbltd

I got about 7500 from flying return Heathrow to JFK.

n.b if you're at the airport and get SSSS stamped on your boarding pass it means this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_Selection

Wasn't that bad and was actually quicker than the regular security line, only bad thing was the yank in the queue who starting freaking out about why he was being checked and how his taxes were being wasted.

battyboimatt

I dont think it says, it justs say 1 AA mile is not equivelant to 1 nautical mile

battyboimatt

Infact thats all it says

† Excludes cash advances, the purchase of foreign currency or travellers cheques, balance transfers, interest and other charges. One AAdvantage® mile is not equivalent to a nautical mile.

pjbltd

that's pretty rubbish if there is no set conversion and they can adjust it however they want!