A few days ago, I was getting really nervous that the last 50,000-mile bonus I needed to book our son’s return ticket from Australia still hadn’t hit my AAdvantage account. The first monthly billing period of the card I’d opened to get the bonus had closed, and I’d spent the requisite $3,000. I called Citi to ask why my miles hadn’t posted and the agent told me that yes, I’d earned them, but it would take 4 to 6 weeks for them to hit my account.
That didn’t worry me, because they always say 4 to 6 weeks after the statement closes. In my experience, though, bonus miles usually it your AAdvantage account right after the statement closes.
Sure enough, the next morning, there they were. I had to call American Airlines to book that last ticket because, being a minor, I couldn’t book my first-grader’s ticket online all by itself. I was lucky enough to get a patient and experienced agent, who not only took my miles and booked the ticket, but also linked the reservations of our five family members and my mom, so that now every time I call with a question about our trip, all TWELVE separate flight segments will pop up together.
He also explained to me how to select our seats. Because we are flying American partner Qantas, we have to log into the Qantas web site to select them. We needed a Qantas record locator for each reservation to do that, which he gave us. So I will log onto Qantas to do that asap.
But first I will dance around my kitchen, because I just got $12,000 worth of airfare for miles and a few hundred bucks taxes and fees. Whoo hoo!
The Miles Mom 