A year and a half ago American AAdvantage introduced the ability to redeem miles to gift status for a day. The status you’ve earned unlocks the ability to do this. However in my view it was too expensive to be useful. American heard that feedback and has adjusted down mileage costs significantly.
An American spokesperson offers,
Beginning today, Oct. 2., AAdvantage status members will notice a better deal on mileage redemptions to give the Gift of status for a day.
American introduced the Gift of status for a day in 2023 to continue to give members more ways to use their miles and give their friends or loved ones a chance to experience the benefits of status.
Now a year in, American is adjusting the mileage redemption amount to provide even more members with an opportunity to gift this experience.
To redeem miles to gift status for a day, members should log in to their AAdvantage profile. They’ll find the option to redeem miles for the gift under Enhance with Miles in the Rewards Hub along with relevant details including how many times the redemption is available, total mileage cost and expiration date.
Here’s the difference between old pricing and new pricing:
| Was | Is | % Change | ||||
| Gold | 15,000 | 5,000 | -67% | |||
| Platinum | 20,000 | 8,000 | -60% | |||
| Platinum Pro | 30,000 | 12,000 | -60% | |||
| Executive Platinum | 40,000 | 20,000 | -50% |
One thing you’ll notice is that any rewards earned in 2023 still are subject to ‘old’ pricing, while rewards earned in 2024 feature this new pricing.
I’ve long argued that that airlines should offer the opportunities to gift status to friends and family for a single trip.
Loyalty isn’t primarily about points or benefits. It isn’t transactional. It’s about building a relationship based on taking care of customers and building trust. That’s difficult to do in a mass way, even with elite benefits because that group can number in the tens of thousands (for top elites) to the seven figures (for lowest level).
A program systematizes how guests are cared for. Benefits are part of doing that. In formulating a set of benefits it’s most important to understand what matters most to the customers that matter most. That’s often how a travel brand cares for the people the member cares most about.
At the same time the quickest way to lose a customer is to treat the people who are important to them badly. That doesn’t just hit a loyal member more than a single instance of bad treatment for themselves, it embarrasses them as well for the loyalty choice they’ve made (“I can’t believe you are loyal to ____, they are such a bad company”) in front of someone whose opinion really matters to them.
Air Canada has done a great job with their ‘status pass’. Hyatt lets Globalists confer their status for a single stay with the Guest of Honor program. It’s great to see American improve upon their similar, albeit paid (in miles) offer.
Under the ‘Enhance With Miles’ brand or category, American promised for this status year that Platinum Pro members and higher would be able to redeem miles for access to the airline’s Flagship First Dining. Hopefully that’s still coming as well.
How is that even worth it for Gold? I had Gold for a number of years. I didn’t use the free checked bag (comes with my credit card anyway), very rarely, did I ever get a seat upgrade and usually it was just an extra legroom seat (there’s too many others and not enough seats for other members with status). Boarding early, no real value there. Why would anyone spend 5K miles for that? Even the higher status, I’m not sure if they are worth as I’ve often heard people complain there weren’t upgrades for them. Seems like they’re still charging too much. Three trips on an airline should give you gold status.
Interesting and something I may actually use. After many years of travel as EP I retired with almost 3 million “miler miler” miles. However, as you know that only gets me lifetime Platinum. Even that would be useful for a trip if my wife or daughters were traveling and could get 2 free bags plus a MCE seat assignment in exchange for the 8000 miles to award them Platinum for the day (plus group 3 boarding). Value of that would be $100-$150 based on cost of MCE seat which is decent return for 8000 miles but need to do more research on ability to designate it in advance versus simply day of travel.
i am starting to get the feeling that they’re never going to actually offer the flagship first dining passes as an enhance with miles option (like how they treated free messaging/free wifi after announcing in 2017)
I wonder how this would work for partners. If you upped your status to Plat Pro for the day, would you be able to use the first class lounges at LHR when traveling on British?
Tim S.- and to further your question, will award ExPlat status give the traveller on an international ticket access to the AA Flagship Lounges?
So how does this work in practice? Can you gift Plat status 4 weeks in advance so your friend can reserve an MCE seat? Or do you have to wait until the flight date for benefits to kick in. Seems pretty worthless if the latter.
And your linked post suggests that F upgrades do not clear until the day of travel, which again is mostly worthless.
Boraxo, the challenge is that even though someone has gifted tier status, the upgrade goes to those with the highest Loyalty Point count. As a practical matter, the recipient will simply have a higher earn rate on revenue tickets and (potentially) Tim’s and Mark’s desires regarding lounge access. I book a lot of family and friends on BA awards and it would be particularly handy.