How My Wife Helped Boost My American Airlines Mileage Balance
One of the question people ask most often is can my Player 2’s (spouse, significant other, friend etc.) miles or points be transferred to my accounts? The truth is that sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t. The rules depend on the bank, loyalty program, point or mile. Chase will allow you to combine points with other household members or other business owners etc. American Express will allow you to move your points to an authorized user’s frequent flyer or loyalty program (after a set time frame). I have to say Citi may be the most lenient of all the bank programs though. For as much crap as I give Citi this is something they did right. You just have to remember that there is a 100,000 point max per year transfer amount though.
The best perk of the ThankYou points program is you can transfer your points to pretty much anyone and vice versa. The points may then have some super confusing expiration policies but it can be very useful. Don’t even get me started how it is easier to give your points to someone else than it is to merge the points between two of your cards.
It is this very reason that my wife was able to help me beef up my American Airlines mileage numbers. This system will also let you take advantage and maximize the perks of all of your cards.
How My Wife Helped Earn Me American Airlines Miles
My wife was able to grab the Citi Premier card a few months ago and earned 60,000 ThankYou points in the process. That offer has since been increased to an all time best 80,000 points. As you can see, our timing is not always the best 😢.
I had planned on having her cash those out and use the money towards my kid’s college education fund but then Citi threw me a curveball. They added American Airlines as a transfer partner for a limited time and that changed my game plan.
At first I figured I would just have her move the points to her American Airlines account since I could book flights for myself using her miles if needed. The problem with the plan was that most of our American Airlines miles are already in my account. Plus, if I ever have a Hyatt status match to American, or another challenge from FoundersCard, I would want those miles in my account to maximize it. That is when it dawned on me to just transfer her ThankYou points to my account. A simple solution that was initially beyond me for some reason. Hey, sometimes I do stupid things! Since I would be transferring the points to American right away the quick expiration of transferred points wouldn’t be an issue either.
Maximizing Your Citi Cards Via Two Player System
There is another nice side benefit to this system. Last week I told you that I missed out on thousands of Citi ThankYou points because I messed up Citi’s convoluted rules. I hadn’t combined my ThankYou accounts before making a big redemption which ended up costing me the Rewards+ card’s 10% rebate.
Transferring my wife’s points to myself gave me a chance at personal redemption. I first combined my ThankYou points accounts so that my Citi Premier card and Rewards+ card would work in unison. Once they were combined I transferred my wife’s 70K ThankYou points from her Premier account to my Premier account. That gave me around 85,000 points in total that I then moved to my American Airlines account.
I did all of this a few minutes after combining my accounts with Citi. I received the email confirming my 10% rebate immediately after making the transfer. They should post on my next card statement. So if you were wondering how long you need to wait after combining accounts, it takes no time at all.
This is a great way to maximize your Rewards+ card too. If only one person in your household has the card you can transfer ThankYou points to the account with the card. Then you would transfer those points to your loyalty program of choice to get the 10% rebate. Remember that you can do this to get a better cash out rate too. This will help ensure you hit the 100,000 point rebate cap each year. Playing around with this option a bit can make sure you max out the perks of your Citi cards every year.
Final Thoughts
If you have a two player system at home, and use Citi’s system to your advantage, you can come out a winner. You can also max out the perks of your cards this way too, including the Rewards+ 10% back. That is how my wife was able to help me boost my American Airlines account balance.
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Combining our own thank you points accounts does not have any negative impact, such as a time limit to use them (I think moving points from another’s account into my own does have a time limit to use them?)?
Thanks for the insight.