Make your travel plans on AA.com, use your Mastercard, and get a gift card for up to $50

MasterCard cake by Alan Chan on Flickr

I read an interesting article the other day about how the airlines were seeing increased revenue from ancillary fees including money they earn when passengers book hotels, car rentals, even airport transfers using the airlines’ websites.

“there has been dramatic year-on-year growth in the percentage of passengers using airline websites to book hotels, up from 21% in 2009, to 38% in this year’s survey; car rental, 19% to 35%. Similar growth is being recorded in other ancillary revenue streams including purchase of travel insurance, bus and train tickets and duty free items.”

American has been pretty aggressive this year, offering a 250 bonus AAdvantage Miles for making a hotel reservation using AA.com.  Now they’ve teamed up with MasterCard and are offering up to a $50 MasterCard Gift Card for making your travel plans at AA.com and paying with your MasterCard.  Here are the details:

To sign up for your gift card, go here.  You have to purchase your travel by December 15, 2010 but you have till March 31, 2011 to complete your travel.