Earn up to 50,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles With Partner Activity

Through the end of the year, American Airlines is offering up to 50,000 bonus AAdvantage miles for completing qualifying partner activities as part of its "Be a Holiday Hero" promotion. You must register at this link to earn the bonus miles, and while AA claims that "Earning is as easy as 1-2-3," there are a few more steps.

There are four tiers in this promotion:

• Multi-tasker: Earn 2,000 bonus miles when you download the AA mobile app and earn 10,000 miles with participating partner activity. If you already have the app, that will count toward this promotion.
• Go-getter: Earn 5,000 bonus miles when you earn 25,000 miles with qualifying partner activity and earn at least 250 miles by donating to a participating charity.
• Boss: Earn 10,000 bonus miles when you earn 50,000 miles with qualifying partner activity and book and fly an AA marketed and operated flight by the end of the year (excludes basic economy tickets booked in fare class "B").
• Hero: Earn 33,000 bonus miles when you earn a total of 100,000 miles with qualifying partner activity and book and fly an AA marketed and operated flight in a premium cabin (including premium economy, domestic first class and international first and business class) by the end of the year.

TPG values AA miles at 1.4 cents apiece, so if you're able to be a holiday hero and complete all four tiers of this offer, you'd walk away with $700 worth of AA miles.

The eligible partners for this promotion include ones that are affiliated with American Airlines as well as other corporate partners. Some of the easiest partners to take AAdvantage of are the AA shopping and dining portals, as well as purchasing miles. Through Nov. 18, you can earn up to a 4,000-mile bonus when you spend $1,200 through the AA shopping portal, and new AAdvantage Dining members can earn a 1,000-mile bonus on their first meal of $25 or more. If you're buying miles, note that only 50,000 purchased base miles will count toward this promo — any bonus miles you earn will not.

Other retail partners include Hyatt (you can stack this 1,000-mile bonus), Sprint, Vinesse, Bank Direct, LifeLock, Teleflora, Simplisafe and AA car rentals and hotels.

This promotion can be a great way to earn bonus miles on purchases you were already planning to make, but it's not lucrative enough to go out of your way for. You should certainly register for this promotion either way, especially if you use the AA shopping or dining portals frequently, as you might find yourself earning some bonus miles this holiday season. If you'd been eyeing AA's current bonus offer on purchased miles, this might be enough to sway you. If you were to purchase 50,000 miles for $1,621, you'd receive 22,500 bonus miles for the purchase, plus another 17,000 miles (assuming you download the AA app, make a small donation to charity and complete one AA-operated flight this year). At that rate you'd be walking away with 89,500 miles at a cost of only 1.81 cents per mile.