Update: A couple of readers have informed me that there is a maximum of 2 redemptions allowed per account. This is still a good way to get a few free miles or to keep a mileage account active.
A New Game
American Airlines and Avis have setup touchscreen kiosks in some of the Admiral’s Club locations that offer 50 Aadvantage miles after playing a quick game of virtual golf.
The game is quite simple. You have a choice of three different courses to try for a hole-in-one! The game gives you three chances to win, but even if you don’t get the ball in the hole, they give you the miles anyway.
Hack That Game
For me, the interesting thing is that this is repeatable. At the end of the game you are asked for your email address so they can send you a code to claim your miles. If you play multiple times and give the same email address, the system will always send you the same code.
The trick comes in if you use a different email address each time. I only tried this with two email addresses since I was limited on time, but I received two unique codes. Once the code comes, you go to a web form and enter it. You then get a confirmation that the miles are being processed. It took a day and then I received a confirmation email that the miles had been deposited. Not bad.
Theoretically you could do this over and over to gain the miles. The game is fun to play a few times, but I could see it getting old pretty quickly. It takes about a minute for the whole game once you get the hang of it, so it is a personal decision as to whether this is worth it.
Does This Make Sense
Most people value Aadvantage miles at $.015-$.02. If you play the game for one hour, then you will get a total of 3,000 miles. Based on the estimated value, those miles could be worth $45-$60. I wouldn’t personally do this just for the miles, but if you like the game and have some time to kill then why not? It definitely has value.
This & That
I saw the kiosk in the Admiral’s Club at O’hare which sits between the H & K concourses. While I am not sure if there are more kiosks at other locations, given the recent partnership and promotions between the two companies I think it is a safe bet that there are.
If you don’t have multiple emails, Gmail has a neat trick that you can use. You can add a “.” anywhere in the email address and it will still go to the same place. For instance joe@gmail.com goes to the same place as j.oe@gmail.com and jo.e@gmail.com. The system sees those addresses as different, but the mail all goes to the same place.
Finally, if you don’t have Admiral’s Club access, you can always get it with the Citi Executive Card which still has that amazing 100,000 mile offer.
Conclusion
While this isn’t the most lucrative deal ever, it is a decent enough way to pass some time if you are stuck in the airport. Miles are miles after all and I’m sure we have all done worse things to pad our accounts anyway.
Have you seen these kiosks at any other locations? Let me know in the comments below!
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My 15 yr old son and I had a few hours to kill in DFW before an int’l flight. He liked the game and won 50 times quickly. Had the same above issue. He was really hoping to add 2,500 miles to his Aadvantage account.
Each AAdvantage account will only accept 2 codes from this game, regardless of what email you send the winning code to, so you hit the max.
Thanks Simon. I am updating the post now.
Max 2 redemption codes per account… it stopped me after I entered the third code
Thanks Jonathan. I have updated the post.