Earn Airline Miles For Amazon and eBay Purchases

Up until a few years ago, Hawaiian Airlines used to award airline miles for Amazon purchases.  During that time period they were the only loyalty program I was aware of that did so.  When the Chase Ink cards came onto the scene, they provided a path to earn 5 points per dollar on Amazon (by purchasing Amazon gift cards at office supply stores) that could be transferred to a number of airlines.

While that path still exists, it’s only for people who hold one of those Chase Ink cards, which are for small business owners.  Now, there’s a way to earn miles both for Amazon and eBay purchases.

I heard about it first on Milepoint, where ThomasK posted the info.

That lead me to poke around the airberlin website, where they have more details about earning 3 miles per Euro on Amazon transactions and 2 miles per Euro on eBay purchases(you might need to use Google Chrome to translate, though most pages of the site have a language selection).  For clarification, 1 Euro is worth about $1.14 today.

ETA: Per T’s comment below, it doesn’t appear you can shop out of the US store for Amazon.  I haven’t tested if you can buy something in .de and have it shipped in your region (or if gift cards will work).  But, I have been able to use eBay a bit.  If I “watch” something from my US account, the German site linked from topbonus will allow me to place a bid.  Haven’t won an auction or paid yet, so still testing.

Admittedly, I don’t know a ton about the airberlin program (topbonus).  But, here are a few positives.  For starters, they’re a member of the oneworld alliance.  I contemplated redeeming American Airlines AAdvantage miles on both airberlin and their low-cost partner Niki Air.

They were one of the easier ways to status match and earn oneworld status, but that path has tightened significantly as of late according to Points to Be Made.

The airberlin business class product actually looks pretty good from the review Ben of One Mile at a Time published last year, especially considering that I’m most concerned with the seat.

And, a bunch of cheap award bookings according to EU Flyer.  With flights as cheap as 1,500 miles, you need $500 in Amazon purchases to redeem for some of these flights.

A quick look shows airberlin flights from Germany to the US are 30,000 miles one-way in coach and 60,000 one-way in business class.  That’s the same price for saver coach booking with AAdvantage miles.  It’s a bit more than the cheapest award flights in business class using AAdvantage miles (50,000) but less than the other variable categories on the new AA chart.  And, Etihad also has a significant ownership stake in airberlin and topbonus, so you should be able to take advantage of that relationship as well.

I need to do some more research to figure out the value of the program overall, but if you’re an Amazon and eBay purchaser, it’s definitely worth considering.