American Airlines is sending out challenges for some customers to earn coveted ConciergeKey status. It even comes with trial status for four months, and achievable benchmarks to keep that status – through early 2027.

The offer of a ConciergeKey challenge comes with a personal phone call.

I just got a very interesting phone call from AA. I have been selected for a Concierge Key status challenge. Basically if I earn 250,000 loyalty points for 3 consecutive 4-month periods I could have the status through March/April 2027 free of charge (no fee to initiate the challenge).

…Last year I earned 503k loyalty points (with 95% coming from flying), and am based in a hub city.

Annualized 750,000 loyalty points is equivalent to an Executive Platinum member spending about $68,000 on tickets, which checks out. Of course, loyalty points can be earned in any number of ways such as spending on AAdvantage credit cards, making purchases through their online shopping portal, and booking hotels through them as well.

ConciergeKey is the status that American Airlines gives to its top spending customers and top corporate travel influencers. It’s the status that George Clooney had in Up In The Air. I had the status briefly and the best thing about it wasn’t:

• top priority for upgrades
  
• being met with golf carts and driven to American’s international business class lounges on domestic flights
  
• being driven across the tarmac if you had an especially tight connection.

I would absolutely jump on an offer like this. I easily earned over 415,000 loyalty points last year and made a concerted effort to stop since it would have taken some effort to reach the next loyalty point reward level of 550,000. But I would only need to do an incremental couple hundred thousand points – spread out in equal chunks across each third of the coming year – to meet this challenge. (Sadly it was not offered to me.)

• prepay bills
  
• pay property taxes, income taxes, rent or mortgage by credit card
  
• take advantage of every trial offer in their shopping portal
  
• buying and liquidating gift cards
  
• booking all hotels and even some no show stays through AAdvantage hotels
  
• reimbursable work meals only at AAdvantage dining restaurants

The best thing about ConciergeKey was getting confirmed on sold out flights when a flight is severely delayed or cancelled – American being willing to bump another passenger to get you where you’re going.

But I admit to missing the calls and texts from premium services as I set out for the airport, being met at gates and thanked for my business, and the proactive monitoring of my flights with someone meeting me when I’d land with a tight connection either to help me make it or with a new boarding pass and escort to the Flagship business class lounge.

American offered some ConciergeKey that didn’t get their status renewed the opportuntiy to buy back the status. Just like American has regularly offered other elite frequent flyers who didn’t requalify the ability to buy back their status (an Executive Platinum member might be asked to pay $2,300, for instance), Concierge Key members were given paid offers as well.

• Most were asked to pay a whopping $10,000
  
• Some were asked to pay ‘only’ $5,000

That is a little harder to justify, though the credit card spending it would take (since I’m not doing the paid flying to get there) has a real opportunity cost. Every dollar spent on an AAdvantage card is a dollar not spent on a card that generates more, more rewarding points. If I generated $300,000 in credit card spend on the quest for ConciergeKey, that means probably generating 300,000 AAdvantage miles – instead of 600,000 Capital One points – and a loss in value of perhaps $4,800. So maybe those $5,000 buy ups, no effort required, weren’t as bad as I thought at first.