American Airlines has introduced elite status in their small business program. Companies that credit $250,000 or more in a calendar year receive (3) incremental benefits:

• “Exclusive savings up to 4% on eligible fares.” I have inquired which fares count (whether it’s all non-basic economy, only specific fare classes, and how the discount varies)

• “Preferred Group 5 boarding for travelers.” That’s credit card customer preferred boarding, ahead of AAdvantage member boarding in group 6.

• “Immediate access to using company earned miles for free travel and employee transfer.”

It’s good to reward your best customers more, and nothing is taken away from the small business program with this change, so that’s great although I’m not sure how much this moves the needle.

AAdvantage Business was introduced two years ago, when American was focused on:

1. Walking away from corporate travel. They believed they didn’t need to discount – that they would fill their planes either way, and customers in Dallas would fly them regardless. So they didn’t need as many corporate deals, or the overhead like sales and servicing that went with them.

2. Moving to all digital experiences. While American certainly had a tech deficit in terms of being able to do everything online on a self-service basis, the way other carriers offered, the push was to require this.

Both were initiatives closely associated with former Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja, who departed the airline last spring.

The AAdvantage Business program did several things.

• Was initially all digital. They didn’t allow agent servicing, but the technology didn’t always work right.

• Eliminated the overhead of a separate small business program (Business ExtrAA) by just awarding and spending AAdvantage miles.

• Reduced the value offered to small businesses by about two-thirds. The Business ExtrAA program was simply more valuable, offering rewards for significantly less spend, and richer rewards like status and travel on British Airways and Japan Airlines without capacity controls.

• Attempted to drive small business cobrand card adoption, since that meant greater earn in the program.

American has restored customer service to the AAdvantage Business program. And they’re working hard – mostly via deep discounts – to bring back managed business travel. This program is the small business strategy to attract those customers in a light touch way, but it makes sense to offer discounts to companies that bring significant business (albeit in a one size fits all approach).

The AAdvantage Business program, though, is still much less lucrative than what American used to offer and that seems to be quickly forgotten inside the company. Earning rates probably need to be improved in order to sway business – if not tailor redemption options to the needs of businesses (status for employees, flexible travel including on partners since American’s own network to Europe and Asia is limited).

And considering that a $50,000 AAirpass could get you ConciergeKey status up until just three years ago, $250,000 spend seems like it should come with more than preferred boarding.