Miles for mascara? Magnificent!

A couple years ago, my American Airlines miles were in danger of expiring. I called the airline, and for a 250-mile donation to charity, I was able to hold on to my more than 80,000 miles. This year, when the notification that my miles were due to expire again (I have got to get traveling again!) arrived, I was kinda lazy about my options, knowing that the 250-mile donation would be totally worth it. Guess what, though? The donation has gone up, from 250 miles to 1,000 miles! Yikes! No! I spent some time on the phone with the customer service representative, and she suggested that I just do some online shopping through their AA.com website vendors. "Buy an iTunes card or something. The account needs to show just some activity. That'll do it, and you can keep your miles," she said. So I did a little hunting and searching ... and shopping ... and in buying the brown mascara I was going to buy anyway, I got to keep my miles, and in fact, earned some more! What an easy and effective way to deal with this particular predicament!