American Airlines announced its AAdvantage frequent flyer program changes for 2025 this morning and it’s really great news by omission. There’s nothing bad. In fact there are really just program additions. That’s not something we see often, though it was the case last year with American AAdvantage as well.
- American is happy with their ‘Loyalty Points’ approach to earning status. Alyssa Heath, Managing Director of AAdvantage, tells me they view it as a “quite big success” to count most of the ways that members interact with the program towards status.
- They aren’t changing the number of Loyalty Points required to earn status or Loyalty Point Reward choices for 2025. This is the second year in a row they’ve kept the requirement to earn status the same.
- Gold: 40,000 Loyalty Points
- Platinum: 75,000 Loyalty Points
- Platinum Pro: 125,000 Loyalty Points
- Executive Platinum: 200,000 Loyalty Points
United raising its requirements for status by 20% certainly raised the question of whether American might do something similar.
- Gold: 40,000 Loyalty Points
Heath offers that watching “engagement levels [and] expansion of loyalty point earn happening across the partners” is exciting and they want to “build on that structure [and] add more benefits and choices at all the different levels.”
So what is changing for the new member year that starts March 1? (Unlike competitors, American’s status year runs March through February.)
- New higher lifetime status levels. Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum at 4 and 5 million lifetime miles are being added to the program.
- Small additions to Loyalty Point Reward choices. At 15,000 Loyalty Points members will be able to select a “personalized, collectable luggage tag” as a choice but nothing is being taken away. Sustainable Aviation Fuel in the airline’s operation replaces carbon offsets at 175,000 Loyalty Points. The airline is seeking government subsidies for this, I’m not sure should be redeeming your elite benefits for it. But it reflects the current direction of the airline, which emphasizes SAF over carbon credits (Delta got in a bit of a scandal over their carbon offsets).
- Redeem miles for inflight food and beverage purchases. There aren’t as many flights offering food for sale as on United or Delta. I haven’t been on one in a long time. But where this is offered, you’ll be able to redeem miles instead of spending cash, though this isn’t likely to represent strong use of miles. You can also redeem miles inflight for wifi on ViaSat-equipped aircraft.
- More time to use systemwide upgrades Starting March 1, their expiration will align with the end of the program year rather than a year from selection.
American New Boeing 787-9 And 777-300ER Business Class Suites
Already known to readers of this blog, but not previously announced by American, they’re highlighting Oman Air joining oneworld as well as upcoming Aer Lingus redemptions on top of the already-in-effect status benefits and JetSmart redemptions now that AAdvantage is being used as its frequent flyer program.
I had the opportunity to ask Chris Isaac, Director of AAdvantage, about award pricing. That’s not something being saved for a later announced. He offered that American doesn’t “have anything we are planning to announce related to partner awards.” While he’s not going to save partner award prices will never change (surely they will!), there’s nothing in the offing there. Great news!
Last year American teased mileage upgrades on partners and all we got was spending miles for PlusGrade upgrade bids instead of spending cash. Alyssa Heath told me that they have “every intent to continue down the path they laid out with Qantas upgrades, [however] the was timing not right to put it in release.” Expect to see more as they “get through 2025.” Timing here is a function of technical challenges to work through.
Qantas First Class
Finally, American previewed a plan to let members spend miles to pay for post-ticket purchase upgrade offers back in October but they don’t have anything to announce about this yet.
‘No news’ in terms of negative changes to a frequent flyer program is always good news. And American is adding lifetime status benefits, which has been a real hole in their program compared to competitors. It’s something that’s honestly made me wish I’d been flying them more – so that I’d be closer to lifetime Executive Platinum instead of lifetime Platinum Pro. And realizing that this would have share-shifted my own business makes me also understand the power of what they’ve just done for keeping members within their ecosystem going forward.
Loyalty Point requirement for Gold is 40k not 30k. It was raised last year IIRC.
Gold is now 40k. It was only 30k the first year.
Gary – will premium awards on more partners go to dynamic pricing? Or is FJ the only one?
@Gary “Flat Award Prices” — What are you talking about? Since last year, AA switched to dynamic pricing, causing award prices to skyrocket in most cases. Now, American is more like Delta’s ‘SkyPesos’ with award flights often requiring +300K points for one-way business class. That change was a major devaluation of our points.
What a slap in the face to 3 million milers . DL and UA understand lifetime recognition. No reason to go beyond 2 million miles with AA .
“More time to use systemwide upgrades: Starting March 1, their expiration will align with the end of the program year and not calendar year.”
I’m confused as to what this means.. don’t SWU’s expire 1 year from getting/selecting them?
@ Gary — Been sitting at 2.95 MM for several years now, and I don’t see that changing one bit. All my paid AA travel will continue to be credited to AS. The partner award pricing is practically irrrelevant since there are never any premium partner awards available to book.
The newly-introduced “wrong boarding group” alarm will make those lower tier statuses more valuable too.
I achieved lifetime Gold status years ago. It doesn’t mean squat and gets me nothing. I still watch at least 30 people board every flight ahead of me if I ever fly AA
AA marketing will never lure me back. AA is my carrier of LAST resort on most routes I fly.
LT EXP! Yippee!
I earned 2 million mile lifetime status miles from just flight activity, as I barely ever used non-flight partner activity with AA before hitting 2 million miles with AA. I don’t really see the point of me going for 4 million lifetime miles with AA given how little more I would get out of lifetime Emerald than lifetime Sapphire.
Yawn. 3MM Lifetime here, I get nada new. Same old worthless Platinum status. Whereas, in UA my 3MM status gets me Lifetime 1K, which is a thing. This is not even close to competitive.
@JimC2: You wrote, “The newly-introduced “wrong boarding group” alarm will make those lower tier statuses more valuable too.’
I agree. Thanks to American Airlines, I use the “wrong boarding group” alarm as my standard and favorite cellphone ringtone. While standing near the boarding gate, the wrong boarding group ringtone is a good reminder never to answer your cell phone before boarding a flight. Coincidentally, I frequently get a phone call while a Concierge Key or an Executive Platinum elite status passenger is boarding.
So do my 5.9 million lifetime miles now qualify me for lifetime EXP status or does this apply only for mileage earning going forward?
“SAF instead of regular” is an award niw.
LOL. Pay us money so we can do stuff that err….were going to do anyway.
Bob thinks rubes will fall for this.
Well, they will.
One thing that would be helpful on the way to Plat Pro Lifetime would be to have the Loyalty Points counter reset to the level of your current lifetime status. Right now a Plat lifetime starts the year with zero loyalty points and then needs to spend/fly all the way up to Plat Pro or higher in that year to enjoy plat pro emerald benefits. Thats from zero. If it was reset to 75k each year as the status to Platinum is, then you would just have to do 50 k more to get to the Plat Pro benefit for one year while you are working towards your 4 Million. That would make it more worthwild to fly on AA since you are not starting from zero loyalty points.
@John
AA has Flat award prices for partners.
How is this better? ”More time to use systemwide upgrades Starting March 1, their expiration will align with the end of the program year rather than a year from selection.”
I like waiting until Feb to redeem and then I have a year to book with it.
It took me 28 years to have 5.6 millions miles and now I am an executive platinum for life , well it paid off at the end
It took me about 15 years to be a million miler, how many people can realistically reached 4-5 million miles?
I joined the Advantage program in June of 1983 and just completed my 4 Million Miles in November 2024 flying mostly domestically. Moving from Life time Plat to Plat Pro in March 2025 is a very welcome surprise and bonus for my years of loyalty.
Thanks, Ken