My 2014 Cadillac CTS Test Drive for 7,500 American Airlines Miles was Awesome
After reading Dan’s post last night (Points with a Crew), I decided to partake in the Cadillac test drive promo to earn 7,500 American Airlines miles. To schedule your test drive, please call 844-469-2234. You will be asked a series of questions on the phone before you can schedule your test drive. Please scroll to the bottom of this post to see the questions that they will ask (name, address, current vehicle, etc.) I called at 8:30am this morning and made my reservation for 3pm this afternoon.
At the dealership, I walked in and asked for the test drive guy. Apparently there is no test drive guy, but all the salesmen will be able to help you out. I told one of the salesmen that I was here for a 3pm test drive. He asked for my drivers license and went to the back office to make a copy of my drivers license and to print out the confirmation form (same form as below).
This is how excited I was for my test drive (P.S. I got a new haircut yesterday).
Since I have never driven a Cadillac or gone on a test drive, I was looking forward to driving a Cadillac Escalade. Apparently they didn’t have any available so we took a 2014 Cadillac CTS out for the test drive. The car was very nice from the front and equally nice from the back.
Here is the spec sheet from the passenger window.
After explaining some of the features of the Cadillac CTS, we took the car for a short test drive. The salesman I was riding with was very nice and knew just about everything there was to know about this Cadillac model. He had very interesting stories to share as we drove around Tustin. After a short 10 minute drive, we came back to the dealership.
I know some of you will try to get the 7,500 American Airlines miles just for showing up at the dealership, but I really enjoyed the test drive. I don’t get to drive many different cars, so it was nice to drive something other than my 2007 Kia Sportage. (PS no one tell my car that I test drove a Cadillac, I don’t want to make her angry/jealous).
Here is the form I received from the salesman (all info was given over the phone when I originally called). I removed all my personal information from the below form, except my name at the top of the page. I was told that the American Airlines miles will post to my account in the next 4-6 weeks and to follow up with American Airlines if the miles do not post by then.
Get off your butt and go for a better-than-free test drive. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Nice. The only time I’ve ever actually driven the car on one of these test-drive offers (I’ve done like 10) was when I was in the same situation – I really was interested in driving the car. Normally I just don’t want to waste the salesman’s (or my) time
Apparently neither I nor the salesman had much else to do this afternoon, so we went for a test drive. I really think he enjoyed talking to me about the Cadillac, which made him happy :)
Weird question: I used to get TWG along with a host of other blogs sent to my email. Just today I decided to experiment with RSS (feedly). My intention was because I thought that RSS gets everything faster. My surprise, when this Cadillac post popped up in my email, but I still can’t see it in feedly, despite refreshing the page.?
Great post Grant. I wasn’t going to do this test drive because of perceived high-pressure sales, but your post has completely changed my mind. Thanks! PS: that CTS is one sweet looking ride!
PSS: thumbs up on the stylish new ‘do! Looks good!
Thank you Christina. I can’t guarantee you won’t get the high-pressure sales pitch, but it was definitely much more fun than a mileage run :)
Enjoyed your post today! Light and funny IMHO. Many bloggers talk about how they wouldn’t spend the time for those points and you turned it into an enjoyable experience so bravo to you. Love the pic too btw I think you should use it on your blog instead of the one you have bc I can’t decide what you are doing in that pic! Throwing a ball with your left hand??? :-) maybe its just my poor eyesight but seriously wtf? lol
Thank you Smay, in my opinion, 7,500 AA miles is worth $112.50 to me (1.5 cpp). There are a many worse ways to make $112.50 than driving a nice car around town for a few minutes.
By the way, this is the full size image in all its glory: http://travelwithgrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Grant-Jumping-Around.jpg
Alrighty then! Looks like some sort of kung foo move or perhaps a seizure? LOL
I never took any martial art classes. I’m all self-taught :)
This post makes me sad for my red ats turbo that I had to leave behind to come to Mongolia. I did get a free iPad when I bought it though.
Hopefully you will be reunited with your car soon :)
I sold new cars for years, long before I got directly involved in this game, but test-drive incentives have been a car industry staple since before banks started giving out free toasters. In those days I took a lot of vacations to Acapulco, and the commissions resulting from these lured test-drives (some of these people actually buy cars!) were often converted to Pesos before I spent them. So, I guess I was in the travel game before I knew I was in the travel game.
Very impressive, I really like these test drive incentives. I’m confused by your Acapulco story, did you do test drives in Mexico?
Sold the cars in Detroit, for USD. Often spent the money in Acapulco, for MXP, when Pesos were cheaper than wallpaper when it came time to remodel the bedroom.
Now I understand. Pesos have always been very cheap compared to the US Dollar. Glad you got your remodeling done on the cheap.
Sounds like a plan to me as I think I will have my wife, her sister and father packed in our 2010 HHR at least to see me test-drive any Cadillac and …. get those 30K miles combined :)
That’s a great plan. You can probably make a test drive appointment for all 3 of you at the same time. Nothing better than free/easy miles.
Just scheduled my test drive for this Saturday. Thanks for the tip!
Excellent, I hope you have a nice test drive :)
when you go for the test drive, you have the tell them you are here for the 7500 AA miles test drive promo? or just as about it after you finish the test drive?
I told them when I first arrived that I was there for the AA promo and they had a printout ready to give me.
Grant, thank you for sharing your successful story. Unfortunately I can’t say that mine was as such, at least for now. Yesterday I called the promotion number and after waiting for no longer than 15 minutes and giving my information to the rep. I scheduled a test drive at the nearest Cadillac dealership for me and for my wife for tonight. So far so good. At 8 pm we arrived at the dealership, walked in and told the first available salesman that we scheduled the test drive for the AA promotion. The first guy clearly didn’t know what we talked about so he sent us to the second guy who was as clueless as the first one. He asked us which website he needs to go to retrieve our info etc. He asked us which car we wanted to drive. I told him that I would like to try the new Escalade. He said that he will try to locate it. After a couple of more questions he figured out that we are not on the market for a car and obviously decided not to waste his and our time. We were okay with that. Then he went to ask the General Manager on how to access the our files. GM came in and started asking the same questions clearly showing that he had no idea what we are talking about. After 10 minutes of us being there I suggested to our salesman to try and access their internal website and see if he can get any info about the promo.He finally saw the advertisement and printed the instructions on how to get to the promo system. Then it turned out that he needed some login and password which he did not have and supposedly the only guy who could access it was off. When I asked him to get a help from his GM, he said that he was busy with something else ( the place was deserted with no customers whatsoever) and that the GM advised him to wait till tomorrow to get the info from his immediate supervisor. Then he even tried to call the promotion phone number to see if he can get more info. To our luck he was on hold for 45 minutes and by that time the dealership started closing. The salesman told us that he felt so bad that could not help us and promised to do the whole thing tomorrow. I don’t know if I should hold my breath on his promise but I will call the dealership tomorrow if I won’t hear from them. One hour of wasteful time is my experience so far. Oh well…
Good evening Dimi, I’m sorry you had such a bad experience. I have heard other dealerships are as clueless as the one you went to. It is unfortunate since it wastes everyone’s time trying to get it all straightened out. For anyone who has not participated in this promo, I would advise that you call the dealership before you head over and make sure that they are aware of the promo. Keep me posted on what happens if you go back to the dealership. Good luck!
Well, in the end it worked! The car salesman kept his promise and called back the next afternoon to inform me that he entered our information into the system. 3 business days later our miles did show up on our accounts. Apparently there are some honest car salesmen able to keep promise. Go figure… I’m sending a thank you email to the dealership and also going to leave a good feedback on some social sites.
Special thanks to you, Grant, for spreading a word about this promo.
Good morning Dimi, glad it worked out for you. I got my miles last week too. The date they posted on AA was the same date that I did the test drive, which is strange. My salesman was very nice as well. On to the next promo!
In my case they have posted the miles as of the day I called to schedule the test drive which was a day before our visit.
Interesting, their system seems all messed up.