American AAdvantage Award: Do You Lose Miles When You Cancel Your Award Card?

Generally, when you cancel a credit card, you won't lose the miles or points you have. However, there were discussions online that say you will lose points when you cancel your American AAdvantage Award.

One issue that has been raised when you cancel your American AAdvantage award is that you lose the accumulated miles you have. One American AAdvantage award cardholder raised concern after he lose the accumulated miles when he canceled the card, according to View From The Wing Boarding Area.

"About two weeks ago I cancelled a first class award between the US and Indian Subcontinent," says the concerned passenger. "I was expecting a refund of 360,000 miles. When that didn't happen after three days, I emailed AAdvantage Customer Service. So I sent the note via the AA.com website. That was last Friday. It's now been 6 business days, and no reply. And no 360,000 AAdvantage mile redeposit, either."

It is said that when you cancel your American AAdvantage Award, these three things must be remembered:

• When you cancel your American AAdvantage Award online, it doesn't automatically redeposit your points. You must call their agent and inform about the cancellation so they can redeposit your points.
• Take note of the time the points will be deposited. It's not instant, and can usually take some days.

One improvement in American AAdvantage Award website is that they show your award ticket cancellation. You can track down the date the award was issued with the miles you got back after cancellation. However, take note that the ticket number is not written that makes it hard to know which miles were returned from what ticket.

Meanwhile, a different view was cited in the site Million Mile Secrets. According to the site, the cardholder must be very careful when canceling a card issued by Chase Ultimate Rewards points, Citi and American Express Membership Rewards as you can lose all your points. The case is also different when you cancel your credit card. Points with A Crew site reports that when you cancel your Citibank card, which is a credit card, your American AAdvantage Award points remain.

The bottom line is, when you cancel your credit card, your accumulated American AAdvantage Award points remain in your account, but you have to be careful to follow up its transfer to another account you own.  Make sure you track your miles, just too be safe that you don't loose your  award points.