Yesterday I moved money from one bank account into Fidelity Investments and scored free American Airlines Frequent Flyer miles through a special promotion. You can also get bonus Delta and United airline miles with Fidelity Investments. The promo ends March 31, 2015 so now is the time to act if you have some money sitting around that you don’t need for up to 9 months. The Points Guy has an excellent summary of the program.
This is the second time my husband and I have taken advantage of this promotion. The first time was several years ago and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t squeeze in one additional promo between then and now although they will probably offer it again in the future.
We each deposited $25,000 into our separate accounts and will each receive 15,000 American Airlines miles. Honestly, it’s not a ton of miles but it’s better than nothing. The maximum amount you can earn is 50,000 miles for a deposit of $100,000, which is enough for a free roundtrip ticket to Europe anytime but peak season, which is a value of about $900.
The biggest negative of the promo is the money can not be part of a retirement account. You can be an existing customer or open a new account but the money put into the account for the promotion must be NEW money transferred into the account. Also, you must go through the airline website and register your account BEFORE you deposit the money into the account. It takes several weeks before the miles post so don’t expect to book a flight the next day.
I’ve been pumping up my American Airlines frequent flier account with purchases from the online shopping portal so moving some money to Fidelity is another nice way to build enough miles for our next trip to Europe.