Tag Archives for elite status.
If your status is ending, consider booking as much future travel as you can, because some of your benefits will likely apply to trips booked before your status expires for trips that occur after.
You can book extra legroom coach seats with your status, where that benefit applies, and those seat assignments will usually stick. And here’s an interesting wrinkle with checked baggage, too.
There are a lot more first-tier elites than top elites, and more people still who fly a lot but not quite enough to earn status. Here’s an opportunity for those people to have elite status for a small fee. It isn’t a status match offer, no current status is required.
Instead, anyone with a travel credit card can have elite status with Frontier Airlines.
I love the choice benefits. I love that more activity than just flying counts towards status. And they’ve simplified elites receiving confirmed extra legroom seats. They’re finally introducing meaningful elite upgrades as well. Since benefits aren’t really based on waitlist or status priority, though, higher tiers seem a bit thin to me. 15,000 bonus points as a choice benefit at each level helps a little bit, but I’d like to see higher bonus point amounts at higher tiers.
Still, the path to Mosaic 1 is rich enough that I’m not bothered by requiring $50,000 in credit card spend to get there (and it’s about right at $5000 in travel spend). At the same time I don’t love the revenue-based rather than trip-based nature of the new program for those who do earn status by flying. I think they get plaudits for trying something interesting, even if they’re not first down this path. And they’re offering richer benefits than they ever have before.
American Airlines shares a new program they’re introducing called Enhance with Miles.
Once a member earns 40,000 Loyalty Points (status qualifying points) in a year, they’ll be eligible for new experiential redemptions which grow in value at higher levels of points earned. That includes gifting status for a day and gifting yourself higher status for the day – including Executive Platinum.
A frequent flyer went online to seek advice about a problem with his boss: when traveling together, the boss expects his upgrade seat. He vehemently disagrees. Is that smart?
Southwest Airlines is out with a double elite qualifying offer on paid tickets, allowing award travel to count towards status as well, and pairing it with increased status-earning from spend on a Southwest Airlines credit card all between March 1 and May 31, 2023.
American AAdvantage and World of Hyatt have a useful partnership that allows American status members to earn 1 AAdvantage mile per dollar spent with Hyatt, and Hyatt elites to earn 1 Hyatt point per dollar spent on American flights. In addition they offer regular status challenges to each others’ members.
The latest status opportunity for American Airlines elites with Hyatt ends Wednesday. There’s a new opportunity for Hyatt elites with American.
The Ambassador program was a paid program, and you had to be a member to qualify for its invitation-only level Royal Ambassador. But when you made Royal Ambassador you used to get a referral certificate to gift the status to someone else. And they got a referral certificate to give to someone else, and so on.
While United Airlines made elite status easier to earn in 2022 they’re returning to their harder revenue-based spend requirements for 2023, while giving existing elite frequent flyers a small head start towards status, allowing award travel on United to count towards status, and increasing the credit members can earn by spending on United co-brand credit cards.
Alaska Airlines Flight Pass subscriptions now have a limited-time promotion for elite status with certain plans purchased through November 30.
With the subscription service you’re prepaying for flights, there are restrictions, and fares especially at the standard pass offering can be a great deal.
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 »
