Tag Archives for lifetime elite status.
One of the unique benefits of lifetime status at United Airlines is that the designated companion of the million miler inherits their status. This benefit is changing.
American AAdvantage is the best program for earning status beyond simply flying. It has the best partner award redemption pricing. But there’s one area where American AAdvantage has lagged behind all of its competitors: rewarding customers with lifetime elite status.
Starting March 1, 2025 they’re revamping the AAdvantage Million Mile program.
American is the best program for earning status beyond simply flying. Its partner award redemptions are among the best. But there’s one area where American AAdvantage lags behind all of its competitors: rewarding customers with lifetime elite status.
Alaska Airlines awards lifetime MVP Gold at 1 million miles, and lifetime MVP Gold 75K at 2 million miles. These members will receive additional benefits.
Back in the fall Marriott launched its lifetime status website. It features a thank you video from Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano and a couple of appearances from Senior Vice President of Loyalty, David Flueck. And it contains a number of statistics from your account.
The website also lets you order a set of lifetime Platinum (or lifetime Titanium) luggage tags.
I just wrote about how great a job United Airlines has been doing recognizing the special moment that a customer reaches a lifetime status milestone – at the airport and inflight. It seemed fitting to share this heartfelt message from a newly-minted Delta Air Lines seven million miler.
United’s MileagePlus program offers the most generous lifetime elite benefits. What United has gotten really good at in the past couple of years is recognizing lifetime achievement in the moment and making it special.
In the fictional book Up in the Air Great West Airlines counted all miles towards lifetime status and Ryan Bingham was on a quest for 1 million miles. He was being tracked by the airline along his quest and they celebrated his achievement when he reached it.
In the film version, George Clooney’s Bingham was an American Airlines flyer and on a quest for 10 million miles. Here he describes that when you hit 10 million “lifetime executive status, you get to meet the chief pilot Maynard Finch, and they put your name on the side of a plane.” Sadly none of that is true, but celebration moments do happen.
Delta has offered up to lifetime Platinum status (’75k tier’), along with an annual gift, for million milers. Now they’ve introduced lifetime Diamond status at the 6 million mile level, including qualifying miles from all sources (including spend on premium credit cards).
American Airlines is running a promotion to earn double miles towards lifetime elite status with flying through end of the year. This isn’t double redeemable miles, or double elite qualifying miles, this is just double credit towards earning 1 million, 2 million, or higher tiers of lifetime status.
Here are some reasons they might choose lifetime elite status as an incentive, why American’s lifetime status has been on the decline (and how to fix it), and why you shouldn’t chase lifetime status from a loyalty program.
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 »
