[Update 2020.8] Citi sent out emails saying that any credit card account linked to a locked AA account will be closed within 30 days. If you still want to keep a Citi card, you can try calling to product change it to Double Cash or rewards+; both are quite useful. In short, this round of account closures looks final, with no way back. (Image from DOC)

[Update 2020.7] Because their account was locked, a user filed a complaint with DOT against AA. AA then responded to DOT about this incident, and the response is pretty interesting. In short, AA actually knows about a lot of these things; it just depends on whether they want to act.

  • AA knows applicants can bypass bank verification to apply for credit cards
  • AA knows applicants use multiple addresses and multiple names to get offers and apply
  • AA knows applicants have used other people’s offers to apply
  • AA will use your address, name, phone number, billing, ticket information, and other data points to determine whether AA accounts are related, and then lock accounts
  • AA regularly watches Reddit and Flyertalk, and probably major blogs too, to see all the tricks people are using
  • AA knows some people take advantage of inexperienced customer service agents by repeatedly calling, hanging up, and calling again to try to get AA miles refunded or accounts unlocked
  • The full DOT filing 

[Update 2020.3] Although the buzz around this has died down, people are still getting shut down one after another. Here are a few recent DPs, plus several good articles I’ve seen about what people did after their accounts were closed:

  • DP1: Another friend had more than 300,000 miles shut down after churning 4 cards within a year. The timeline was that the account was found locked in December, award tickets stayed pending, and then an official shutdown email arrived at the end of February.
  • DP2: Churned 4 cards three years ago and already got shut down by Citi across the board. The AA account was not locked or closed, with around 40,000 miles remaining.
  • DP3: Churned who knows how many cards, probably in the teens or around twenty, basically applying right up to the line of what could still get approved, about one per month. The account has been locked since December and has 1,000,000 miles in it. No further updates so far.
  • DP4 (M2M): He and his LD received shutdown emails 10 minutes apart. Both of them did churn, though.
  • Reader DP: Even AA Platinum and other elite accounts were not spared and were shut down all the same.

In short, AA is being ruthless here. My irresponsible prediction is that AA will start by locking accounts with larger mileage balances, then review the remaining accounts starting with those that still have more miles left. After all, the more they can prevent those miles from being used, the smaller AA’s losses will be.

Also, I recently saw a series of articles about how M2M and his LD handled things after their shutdowns. The angle is quite fresh, so I want to share them here:

  • AA Shutdown My Account – Forget What We Thought We Knew: His wife’s account was not locked in the first wave, but it was locked in January. His own account had been fine the whole time, but was closed four days after being locked. Each of them churned five cards total during 2018-2019, with 280,000/330,000 miles left.
  • Barclays Is Clueless On The AA Shutdown Shenanigans: After his account was shut down, he immediately filed a claim with DOT against AA, and also filed a claim with CFPB against Citi and Barclays. The reasoning was simple: some of his miles were earned through normal flying and everyday spending, and there was also a retention offer involved, so confiscating all miles outright made no sense. Barclays eventually replied to the claim and seemed completely unaware of the situation, saying they would contact AA to ask what happened and would respond later. Citi did not reply, though I’ve heard many people already filed claims and Citi has said the shutdown has nothing to do with them, so there’s nothing they can do.
  • Barclays Inquires About AA Shutdowns, Gets Told “None Of Your Business”: Barclays contacted AA’s relation manager, and AA declined to comment. It really feels like AA is being extremely aggressive this time. Also, Barclays said they could not waive this year’s annual fee on the AA co-branded card...

If you have a lot of miles in your account, I’d also suggest pushing back through DOT and CFPB. Also, I think if enough people are involved, some eager lawyers will probably come out of the woodwork. Don’t miss that if it happens—just like when Citi shut down cards before and people could lawyer up and go after them. If a settlement happens, the compensation could be pretty decent.

[Update 2020.2] I’ve heard a few more DPs recently, both from people who were shut down and people who were not, so here they are:

  • Shut down after churning five cards: The account was shut down on Jan 24, but a ticket issued on Jan 12 was never canceled and the trip was flown normally. There were still 35,000 points in the account. LD had only churned two cards and had not been locked yet, so they quickly booked four tickets, all of which were fine.
  • 300,000+ AA points account shut down: Only churned two cards
  • A previous DP from kuku after being shut down: Called AA to try to appeal. The AA agent directly said they could not find that number in the system.

Personally, I feel AA is really cracking down hard this time. I suggest everyone take aggressive measures in response as well: if your account has already been locked, then leave it to fate; if your account has not been locked, try to ticket as quickly as possible (or find a broker to sell the points), get out early, and reduce your losses. Of course, if you applied normally and used everything normally, then there should be no issue.

  • If tickets issued from your account get canceled, even though the miles are gone, AA says you can still get back the taxes and fees on those tickets—don’t forget:
*** To request a refund for any taxes or refundable fees related to awards, you may contact reservations directly at 1-800-882-8880.

[Update 2020.1] Today is Lunar New Year’s Eve / New Year’s Day, so first of all, Happy Lunar New Year to everyone! Thank you to all our readers for your continued support of this site!

We had thought AA’s “shutdown across the board” campaign was already over. Unexpectedly, on Lunar New Year’s Day, our author—the frequent flyer who has written a lot about “shutdown across the board,” KUKU—had his AA account shut down. It now appears that AA is still manually reviewing and shutting down accounts that churned AA credit cards, just one by one, so progress is slow, and they seem to be prioritizing people who have already issued tickets.

  • Background: After legitimately holding the first Citi AA card, he later churned 5 credit cards, but never used any AA miles.

Today he received an email from AA saying the account was closed (he can no longer log in), and the points were confiscated.

  • The email was in Spam...
  • Email subject: AAdvantage Account Suspension
  • Sender email: <[email protected]>
  • Email body as follows:
Dear KUKU

A recent investigation has determined your involvement in multiple violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions. These violations are related to the accrual of ineligible miles and benefits; through fraud, misrepresentation and/or abuse of the AAdvantage Program. Additionally, any award tickets obtained through an “Exploitive Practice” are in violation  of the AA Conditions of Carriage and are not valid for travel. Per the AAdvantage program governing terms:

  • Fraud, misrepresentation, abuse or violation of applicable rules (including, but not limited to, American or American Eagle® conditions of carriage, tariffs and AAdvantage® program rules) is subject to administrative and/or legal action by appropriate governmental authorities and American Airlines. Such action may include, without limitation, the forfeiture of all award tickets and any accrued mileage in a member's account, as well as termination of the account and the member's future participation in the AAdvantage® program. If your account is terminated due to inappropriate conduct or while under investigation, you may not open a new AAdvantage® account or participate in the AAdvantage® Program in any capacity without obtaining the express written permission of American Airlines. In addition, American Airlines reserves the right to take appropriate legal action to recover damages, including its attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting any lawsuit.

From the conditions of carriage:

Your ticket (s) are not valid when:

  • We find that the ticket (s) were bought using an exploitative practice

As such, we must now exercise our right to terminate AAdvantage account # USCC101. All membership benefits associated with this account, including all remaining miles and issued award tickets, are forfeited, effective January 24, 2020. Award tickets obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, or violations of the AAdvantage Terms and Conditions and or Conditions of Carriage are not valid for travel. Any tickets issued from these accounts have been cancelled and you will need to make alternate arrangements for any upcoming travel plans.

Because it is clear from our investigation that you have been engaged in one or more violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions, any additional accounts in your name or that you control must also be terminated. All membership benefits associated with these accounts, including all remaining miles and unused tickets, are forfeited, effective January 24, 2020. You are no longer eligible to participate in the AAdvantage Program.

*** To request a refund for any taxes or refundable fees related to awards, you may contact reservations directly at 1-800-882-8880.

Regards,

NNND NDYD

Analyst

American Airlines

PO Box 619616

MD 5555

DFW Airport, TX 75261-9616


After an account is shut down, the Citi online banking interface will also show the AA account Balance as 0, but the credit card itself will not be closed. It’s unclear what will happen to miles earned from future spending.

At this point, redeeming miles feels bad, and not redeeming them feels bad too. I guess the points in the account are just a donation to AA, and from now on I’m done with AA entirely. As you can see from the email, if you paid taxes and fees when booking award tickets, you can request a refund. KUKU thinks it’s better not to overuse certain bug methods—there may always be a reckoning later on, like with a certain rideshare loophole?

  • With credit card churning, it’s still best to take the long view—after all, banks, hotels, and airlines are not charities.

—Written above through tears by a victim

[Update 3: 2019.12] This round of AA account closures and reviews is clearly affecting a lot of people, so it looks like they are getting serious. Friends around me and people online have gradually started reporting all kinds of DPs about account shutdowns. While everyone is understandably nervous, people are also trying to figure out whether their own accounts have been locked. Here’s the latest information.

  • DP 1: Churned two cards this year, three in total. One award ticket in the account was canceled directly, and they received the account closure email (see below). The account was shut down. They had never bought or sold miles.
  • DP 2: Churned three cards this year. The account had multiple AA discount award tickets, and after receiving the email all award tickets were canceled. Received the account closure email, and the account was shut down.
  • DP 3: Churned more than 10 cards this year, with 1,000,000 miles in the account. The account was locked, but no closure email has been received yet. A lot of miles were redeemed this year. Miles currently cannot be used.

From online DPs, it appears AA is not shutting down all accounts at once. They are probably locking accounts first, then doing a manual review, and finally deciding whether to unlock them or shut them down outright. The biggest reason seems to be churning Citi AA cards. Accounts currently appear to fall into the following categories:

  • Shut down: award tickets are canceled, all miles are confiscated, an email is received, and login no longer works
  • Locked: award tickets are temporarily unaffected and nothing looks obviously wrong. Award bookings remain pending, miles cannot be used to book hotels, and calling AA to book a ticket automatically routes you to customer service.
  • Unaffected: not impacted by this wave of investigations for now

Another major concern is how to tell whether your account has been locked. It is not recommended to test by booking an award ticket. First, the booking may remain pending, and after 24 hours you may no longer be able to cancel for free. Second, using a large number of miles can look like you are trying to cash out and may attract even more attention from AA. Current methods include:

  • Log in to the account: if you can log in, the account has not been deleted; if you cannot, then it’s game over
  • Call to book a ticket: 800-882-8880. Normally, after you enter your AA account number into the automated system, it will continue asking for your departure city, destination, dates, and so on. If you are transferred directly to a live agent, your AA account is very likely locked.
  • Book a hotel through AA Hotel: https://bookaahotels.com/. Pick one of the cheapest hotels in Vietnam, which costs only 1000 miles. During the booking process, log in with your AA membership number and pay with miles. If the payment goes through, the account is not locked; otherwise, it is. Note that if the booking succeeds, the miles will not be refunded. At 1.5c each, that means spending about $15...

[Update 2: 2019.12] Here is a detailed breakdown of the AA account closure email:

A recent investigation has determined your involvement in multiple violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions, related to the accrual of ineligible miles and benefits（this seems to refer to using someone else’s mailer to apply for Citi AA cards and obtain a large number of AA miles），through fraud, misrepresentation and/or abuse of the AAdvantage Program. Additionally, it was determined that there are multiple violations to the AA Conditions of Carrier regarding Exploitive Practices related to your issuance of ineligible AAdvantage awards（this probably refers to selling miles to book tickets for other people）。Per the AAdvantage program governing terms:

  • Fraud, misrepresentation, abuse, or violation of applicable rules (including, but not limited to, American or American Eagle® conditions of carriage, tariffs, and AAdvantage® program rules) is subject to administrative and/or legal action by the appropriate governmental authorities and American Airlines. Such action may include, without limitation, the forfeiture of all award tickets and any accrued mileage in a member’s account, as well as termination of the account and the member’s future participation in the AAdvantage® program. If your account is terminated due to inappropriate conduct or while under investigation, you may not open a new AAdvantage® account or participate in the AAdvantage® Program in any capacity without obtaining the express written permission of American Airlines. In addition, American Airlines reserves the right to take appropriate legal action to recover damages, including its attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting any lawsuit.（The terms already make this clear: if you violate them, they can claw back all your miles, cancel all award tickets, and prevent you from opening an AA account again in the future.）

From the conditions of carriage:

Your ticket is not valid when:

  • We find that the ticket was bought using an exploitative practice（If the miles were obtained illegitimately, the ticket is illegitimate too.）

As such, we must now exercise our right to terminate AAdvantage account <your number>. All membership benefits associated with this account, including all remaining miles and issued award tickets, are forfeited, effective Dec 5, 2019.（As of Dec 5, 2019, your account is shut down and your miles are confiscated.） Award tickets obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, or violations of the AAdvantage Terms and Conditions and or Conditions of Carriage are not valid for travel. These tickets have been cancelled and you will need to make alternate arrangements for any upcoming travel plans.（Any unflown award tickets are void, so you’ll need to make other arrangements yourself.）

Because it is clear from our investigation that you have been engaged in one or more violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions, any additional accounts in your name or that you control must also be terminated. All membership benefits associated with these accounts, including all remaining miles and unused tickets, are forfeited, effective Dec 5, 2019. You are no longer eligible to participate in the AAdvantage program.（Your other duplicate accounts will also be shut down, all miles confiscated, and you are no longer allowed to open an AA account in the future.）

It looks like AA is getting serious this time and is shutting down accounts before Citi takes action. That makes sense, because Citi can at most shut down your credit cards; the miles sit in your AA account, and Citi cannot confiscate them, so AA has to be the one to act. Over the past few years, all the Citi AA churning plus mileage selling has probably cost AA quite a bit. If your churning has not been too aggressive and your miles are still sitting there, I strongly recommend not selling miles. Selling miles could very well trigger a review. If possible, do not touch those miles for now and wait until things cool off before using them. If you absolutely need to book an award ticket, it may be better to book near-term travel and fly before any manual review kicks in...

【Update 2019.12】According to DOC and Reddit reports, there was another wave of locked accounts today. Those whose accounts were locked were told to call a certain department, and even already-booked award tickets would not be issued. Personally, I think this shutdown wave is related to Churn AA credit cards, but only indirectly. After all, these miles were purchased by Citi from AA, so if anyone were to crack down first, Citi should be the one doing it. The main reason is that some people who accumulated large amounts of AA miles were selling award tickets, booking tickets for other people, or even selling entire accounts to ticket brokers. That is exactly the kind of thing AA has to investigate or crack down on.

What should we do? If you are sitting on a large balance of miles, it is probably best not to sell them while things are hot, especially if your account already has unflown award tickets. And if you opened many small accounts to apply for AA credit cards, with each account holding AA miles, trying to use different addresses might possibly help a little.

This round of account lockdowns

Recently, quite a few users on Reddit and FlyerTalk have reported that their AA accounts were locked and they could not log in. The suspicion is that this was caused either by repeated AA credit card applications or by selling Mail in offers they had received.

According to an AA insider, this round of account lockdowns is indeed related to the AA bug application method.

What should we do?

  • Check whether your account has been locked.
  • For now, do not use Mail in offers to churn AA cards, and do not sell Mail in offers sent to your address or your AA account.
  • For now, do not sell AA miles, especially by letting other people use your account to book tickets.

Sigh, it looks like this bug may finally be coming to an end.

Background

Here is a quick explanation of this application method, which has been around for several years.

Application restrictions for Citi AA credit cards

Now all AA application links show 48-month language. Specifically, if you have received a welcome bonus on an AA Platinum card within the past 48 months, then this application will not be eligible for a new welcome bonus. (Previously, the restriction was that if you had opened or closed a card in the same family within the past 24 months, you would not be eligible for the bonus.) Personally, I think this new change is fairly reasonable, because it means you can go through and apply for each similar AA card once. Under the old 24-month open/close rule, things were actually pretty annoying: closing a card would reset the 24-month clock, but keeping it open meant continuing to pay the annual fee. With the new rule, you can safely product change your old AA Platinum to a Double Cash or Rewards+ card. Here is the application link:

OFFER AVAILABILITY

  • American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles can be earned by new Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card cardmembers approved through this offer. American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles are not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® account in the past 48 months.

The workaround

A few years ago, people discovered that if you received a targeted AA mail offer, including an email offer, and that message contained an invitation code, you could enter that code on the designated website and get to an application link without the 48-month restriction. Based on actual data points, people really were able to get approved and receive the welcome bonus.

As a result, many people started doing two AA cards every 65 days. (Citi allows only 2 personal card applications every 65 days, whether you are approved or not.) By repeatedly using this bugged application method, some people racked up millions of AA miles. People then found that these codes could be used by others, and that some codes could even be used multiple times, so they began sharing them within small circles. Later, Citi appears to have caught this bug, and each code could then be used only once, regardless of whether the application was approved or denied.

Once a code has been used by the intended recipient, AA will stop sending out new codes to that person. However, people could still use someone else’s mail-in offer by changing the name and AA number on the application to their own. If the original recipient did not personally use it, AA would continue sending that person more codes. This ended up creating a whole market for buying and selling codes. People who wanted one would buy someone else’s code and then apply for an AA card. Others spent a lot of time figuring out how to receive these mail-in offers or email offers.

This also reflects a weakness in AA’s own review system. Getting approved for a card through one of these codes was famously easy. Other than possibly getting a somewhat lower credit limit afterward, there were very few data points of denials. Even if someone was denied, a phone call often got the application approved. If you managed your timing well under 2/65, you could basically get one card a month, which led people to hold more and more credit cards. A typical reader often had at least four or five cards, if not seven or eight.

Buying and Selling AA Miles

With AA miles earned this easily, some people used them for their own travel, but quite a few also sold them through ticket brokers. Selling miles is, of course, against AA’s terms. In the past there was the well-known Linda, who used various sting operations to catch ticket brokers. Once AA caught a broker or someone selling miles, it would lock the account or confiscate the miles involved in the transaction. AA even created a reporting mechanism under which people who reported ticket brokers could receive reduced penalties. Later, there were even cases of AA employees posing as ticket brokers on mitbbs as part of these stings, and for a while the whole community was on edge.