Tag Archives for elite status.
American Airlines is looking to fast track business travelers to elite status. There’s no registration required, all you need to do is book your tickets including your AAdvantage number and either a Business ExtrAA (small business program) account number or corporate travel program identifier.
Rewarding customers who spend more on tickets isn’t the same as rewarding customers who are most profitable to an airline company, let alone incentivizing customers towards becoming more profitable.
It’s one thing to say that American Airlines doesn’t want a $15,000 a year flyer, who doesn’t also engage in the program in other ways, to have top status – since those other activities are often more profitable to American.
It’s another, I think, to say that whole classes of members are shut off from much of the new program based on their geography, or that new millennial flyers they supposedly want to attract have a higher hurdle to clear for status than older business travelers who last had to meet standard criteria for status in 2019.
The new American Airlines elite status-earning system going into effect next year makes it super easy to keep elite status if you engage with the program across a variety of earning streams, rather than just by flying. Here are 10 takeaways on what’s going on with the new program.
The new American Airlines elite status-earning program that goes into effect next year is going to make some flyers very happy. Anyone who can spend a lot on credit cards is going to find status-earning much easier. In fact, you can earn Executive Platinum status with $200,000 in spend alone.
It turns out that in addition to having a longer period in which to do credit card spend, you don’t even need to spend as much next year.
British Airways elite members whose “Tier Point collection” (12 month member year) end date is between January – March 2022 will have their status extended for another year. Elites will have access to ‘pre-flight dining’ in lounges where this is offered regardless of class of service.. And Gold Guest List members will have access to British Airways Concorde Rooms.
The airline isn’t doing a straight-up status extension like Delta and Hilton are doing. Instead, their plan to keep elite members who don’t qualify in 2021 is more of a ‘winback’ offer.
Alaska Airlines has introduced a new top elite tier beginning ‘end of January’ 2022 as expected: MVP Gold 100K.
This new level requires flying 100,000 qualifying miles or 140 segments in a year, and in either case including a minimum of 24 Alaska Airlines flights.
Hilton Honors is straight up extending elite status again. They’re also rolling all elite nights earned in 2021 over to qualifying for status in 2022 (for the 2023 elite year) as well as reducing elite qualification requirements in 2022. They’re also extending the pause on points expiration.
American and United are still trying to press elites into service for 2021 revenue, but there’s only so much that can be done because business travel isn’t back and the Delta variant of Covid-19 is slowing down its return. Large companies and corporate travel buyers are going to be more conservative about pushing employees back into the office and ultimately onto the road.
Looking at Saturday data from American Airlines shows just how skewed towards leisure travel the skies are right now. The number of elite frequent flyers traveling is paltry especially at the very top level.
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 »
