Tag Archives for aadvantage.
American Airlines, through a leaked employee presentation, announced significant changes to its AAdvantage program, including a new approach to earning and redeeming miles, especially for partner airline awards.
Qatar has the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’ — revolutionary suites with doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space. Right now there’s strong availability on routes with QSuites especially as we look out to the end of the schedule – March through June 2021 – for four passengers from most of the U.S. cities they serve.
American Airlines was first among U.S. airlines to offer premium economy and expand it across their fleet. They introduced premium economy awards on their own flights back in January.
Now British Airways premium economy awards can be booked using AAdvantage miles. We can expect American to expand premium economy award redemptions further on other partner airlines as well, though they haven’t given a timeline for when to expect this.
Barclays has been running an interesting new cardmember offer for their AAdvantage Aviator Red Mastercard that includes both miles and a companion ticket. I’ve confirmed that the offer will end August 31. The new offer is better — 60,000 miles and a companion ticket.
During the American Airlines second quarter earnings call they offered several metrics of success for their AAdvantage loyalty program. They offered that redemptions are up; their elite population has increased; yield growth among their elites outpaces the airline’s average; co-brand credit card acquisition and spend is up.
What’s going on here?
One of my most frequent and best uses of American AAdvantage miles over the past 7 years has been booking first class awards on Etihad. I’ve used them to fly to the Maldives four times, to India, to the Gulf region and from the Mideast to Australia to name just a few.
And they offer an excellent hard product in first class – on their Airbus A380 the ‘First Apartment’ with an on board shower.
American Airlines has two card issuers, Citibank and Barclays. I have (3) different American Airlines credit cards. One of those cards has a weird new perk, and it’s more versatile than I initially realized.
Here’s a search of available first class award space for two passengers in November. I searched Los Angeles – Sydney, but it brings up Los Angeles – Melbourne space where there’s connecting availability to/from Sydney, and Dallas Fort-Worth – Sydney where there’s connecting availability on American between LA and Dallas.
Some space appears to exist October through February, in other words when Americans want to travel to Australia.
Two months ago American AAdvantage and World of Hyatt announced a new partnership. Registration is now live so that elites in each program can double dip with the other, and fast track elite status is offered too.
The AAdvantage Aviator Business Mastercard has a new best-ever offer with an initial bonus up to 75,000 miles.
What’s cool is that you can also get the American AAdvantage small business card from Citibank, the CitiBusiness / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard, and it has a best-ever initial offer too.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
