Episode
AA's 25,000 Mile Glitch, Amex Gets Stingy & The Rakuten Card Stack
- Published
- Jul 9, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1543
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Summary
Get a $200 gift card after your first payment of $500 with Melio (affiliate) - https://milestomemories.com/go/melio/ Sign-up for Rakuten! (referral) - http://milestomemories.com/go/rakuten American Airlines appears to have a coding error letting existing AAdvantage Business account holders add a promo code in settings and instantly get 25,000 miles, and we get into whether AA claws it back. Mark walks through three retention offer results, including an insulting 6,000 Hilton point offer on the Surpass, a $99 credit that saved his Citi AAdvantage business card at exactly the right moment, and no save attempt at all on the Executive card. We also cover Amex randomly handing out $50 Saks credits after killing that benefit, the Rakuten credit card offers that can stack over 75,000 Bilt points, and Mark's Charles Schwab Platinum timing now that Delta and United dropped off the airline incidental credit. Plus, Benji wants an apology. Let us know in the comments if you got your 25,000 miles. Episode Guide: 0:00 Welcome to MTM Travel 0:39 AA's 25,000 Mile Coding Error 5:16 Retention Offers 101 5:51 Amex's Insulting Surpass Offer 10:29 Citi AAdvantage Business: A $99 Save 11:42 No Save on the Executive Card 13:28 Amex's Random $50 Saks Credits 16:12 Rakuten's Credit Card Offers (75K Bilt) 19:20 Bank of America Approvals & Schwab Platinum 23:20 Benjy Wants an Apology 24:57 Final Thoughts Links Sign-up for Rakuten! (referral) - http://milestomemories.com/go/rakuten ✈️ Track your travel credit cards for free 📧 Free newsletter 💳 Join our free Facebook group (16,000+ members) 🏆 Diamond Patreon — bonus shows + Slack community 🥇 Gold Membership ($10/mo) 🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts 📖 Miles to Memories website