American Airlines Shutting Down Accounts
American Express and Chase have been shutting down accounts left and right lately. Now American Airlines has joined the party, with many reports of accounts being shut down in the last few days. Reports actually started trickling in about a week ago, and now seems to be more widespread.
There are many data points on Reddit about this. But not everyone should panic. The shutdowns are mainly targeting those abusing credit card rewards. That’s Citi American Airlines credit cards. In this case that means getting multiple bonuses on the same card through targeted offers. Most shutdowns seem to be for mailer offers, but there are cases of shutdown after applying for emailed offers as well (not sure if that’s true).
What’s even worse is that American Airlines is not really letting everyone know that their accounts have been shutdown. You might want to go into your account and try to make an award booking. If you’re not able to do so, then you should worry. People are told to call American Airlines. If you are immediately transferred after giving your account info that is not a good sign. People are being told they should get a letter or call in the next week or so about their accounts. They are currently being investigated.
And it’s not just that you can not book awards. Award flight that were already booked are not being honored either (although one data point says they boarded their plane today). So definitely look into this if you are affected. You might need to re-book your flights with another airline.
Conclusion
If you value your American Airlines miles and accounts, then you should play by the rules and avoid anything that might be considered as abuse or rewards or welcome offers. Nothing you can do about the past now, just hope for the best.
Let us know if you have been affected by this wave of shutdowns.
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335k miles via (6) mailers since Sept ’18. Still safe for the time being.
I’m similar and am shut down – Have you called in or tried to book a redemption flight or hotel?
So when you say shut down, are you able to log into your AAA account and see your balance, but then you can’t actually make any reservations using that balance?
Or are you unable to login altogether?
Do you know what level of abuse is triggering these shut downs? Are we talking people doing 1-2 of these over a span of a couple years or are we talking about people doing 5-10+ per year?
More like 5-10+ a month.
How’s that possible? You could do only 1/month technically.
It sounds like the “grAAvy train” is at its final stop.
It didn’t just stop. AA is tying people to the tracks in front of the train and then running them over, wild-west-outlaw-style.