American AAdvantage has taken center stage at the airline. It is the driver of their profits, even as they lose money moving passengers on planes. The program makes their CEO’s presentations, and it’s top of mind and top of tongue for Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja who emphasizes that life is better as an AAdvantage member.
After the airline’s 2024 earnings call, CEO Robert Isom presented the company’s 2024 priorities to employees. His second priority for the year, as presented in his slide deck? “Create the leading travel rewards 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.
One of the key drivers of loyalty over years – once you’ve locked in a customer, what keeps them going and stretching even when they may be less enthused – is that they’ve gotten close to and need to cross the finish line for lifetime status.
- Delta lets you earn up to lifetime Diamond, now after 3 million miles, and lifetime 360 (equivalent to United Global Services and American Concierge Key) after 5 million.
- United lets you earn lifetime Global Services (after 4 million miles). United gives your partner the same status as you when you’re a lifetime elite. And they’ve gotten really good at celebrating lifetime milestones inflight.
- Alaska Airlines made huge improvements to their lifetime status program last year, offer lifetime elites upgrade priority over those with similar status; extended a lifetime elite member’s status to their partner; and giving lifetime members a head start towards earning higher status each year in the program.
American AAdvantage, on the other hand, hasn’t updated its lifetime status program in 13 years. The status you can earn tops out at lifetime Platinum, their second from the bottom tier. And while status-earning is based on Loyalty Points (miles from most source) lifetime is still based on miles flown.
It’s hard in a way for American because up until 13 years ago, all miles earned counted towards lifetime – all card spend, all initial bonuses even – counted so they have people not just with 3, 4 million miles but with 70 million lifetime miles and more. So what do you do? This is actually easy to solve!
- Take current lifetime miles earning and double the total. Then the counter going forward increments with loyalty points.
- Currently lifetime Gold is 1 million miles and lifetime Platinum 2 million. Those numbers double, but everyone’s accumulated totals double also.
- Then you add Platinum Pro at 6 million; Executive Platinum at 8 million; and Concierge Key at 10 million.
And if the model shows too big of an elite pool, impose a second criteria that you need to have earned a level 10 times before getting that level for life. E.g. 2 million points and 10 years of Gold or higher for lifetime Gold; 4 million points and 10 years of Platinum or higher for lifetime Platinum; 6 million points and 10 years of Platinum Pro or higher for lifetime Platinum Pro; 8 million points and 10 years of Executive Platinum or ConciergeKey for lifetime Executive Platinum.
The addition of lifetime ConciergeKey at 10 million points would drive a lot of loyalty over a long time as well (and shouldn’t be limited to those who were “CKs” for 10 years).
American AAdvantage looked at how to modernize the lifetime status program before the pandemic, but did not act. It’s now a corporate priority. American AAdvantage needs to be the leader, not just competitive, let alone in last place.
I’ve got 5,350,000 miles on American and until they changed the program a couple years ago, every mile was a flight mile. I’ve been an EP more years than I can remember. I never used their credit cards or other incentives. I’ve spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars flying with American. Now, they couldn’t care less about me unless I spend like hell using their credit card. Kinda sucks…
Reward people like Jim but lifetime concierge should not be in reach to people who churned millions of bonus miles pre 2011 and haven’t flown millions of in seat miles since.
As a lifetime Platinum I would say that AA destroyed the program when they invented Platinum Pro and watered down the program.
I earned my status the old-fashioned way, by flying. And AA betrayed me.
Now that AA stabbed me in the back, I do not go out of my way to buy AA tickets. I only fly what’s convenient for me.
Furthermore, I dumped my Citi cards and play the points game with all of the other cards, except Citi.
AA is one big disappointment.
Gary, I like your proposal. I hope you will be sending a copy to Mr. Isom for due consideration.
Over 5 million miles all from flying since 1986, I continue to be EXP all from flying.
I did 5-6 years focused on AA including 3 as EXP, all in the 2000s. That easily qualified me for MM without actively trying to churn bonus miles.
A lot more flying went into my delta million. (Thankfully my northwest flying counts!)
I was happy to see delta essentially match united — they had similar lift to get there.
I don’t know the right answer for AA — probably a complete remapping of history, with everyone getting the better of their new program status or old grandfathered lifetime status. If they make new 1MM platinum but don’t bring me along for that ride I will understand.
I get it – AA is uncomfortable granting LT platinum pro or higher for people who have not earned most of their miles by flying. And, when counting lifetime miles, they cannot distinguish pre 2011 flight miles from pre 2011 miles from other sources, which could allow people who had 2MM++ miles prior to 2011 ‘artificially” some higher lifetime status.
I am one of them.
But, seriously, of the pre 2011 lifetime status folks who earned from non-flight miles, just what are their CURRENT flight patterns? If 2MM pre-2011 miles from other sources was enough for LT plat pro, what real difference might it make? Those people are, by definition, 13 years older now (unless they died in the interim). They could be “undeservedly” elevated to LT Molybdinum, but who cares if they are dead, old enough that they are not flying a whole bunch, or their flying patterns have decreased in the past 13 years?
At bottom, just how many “undeserved” LT’s actually flying enough that they lack of merit give rise to them actually eating someone else’s lunch?
A few observations about that slide you posted.
“To care for people on life’s journey”…sounds like a advertising slogan for an assisted living facility. Lazy and unimaginative.
“Make culture a competitive advantage”…in order to do that you have to foster a culture that employees (oh sorry, team members) buy into. From what I see, they don’t.
“Operate with excellence”…what? as opposed to mediocrity. Just a silly, nonsensical throw away line that means nothing.
“Reengineer the business”…huh? more word salad that means nothing.
Of course, if you’ve heard Mr. Isom speak you will come to realize that public speaking and conveying a concise message are not his strong suits.
The Plat Pro really failed the existing lifetime Plt’s. I earned my lifetime Plt the old way, actual miles. To move my status down a notch is not fair. AA should have moved the existing lifetime PLT’s up to PLT pro in order not to mone their status back. Poor decision, to downgrade their old loyal customers.
Lifetime PLT’s got screwed by AA when PLT was placed over them.
EXP from flying (and a few hotels). No credit card. I will hit 1 million miles next month.
Could not care less about the lifetime program. Once I stop flying for work, I will have no need or interest in status.
My favorite topic . What makes you think this is a corporate priority ? They saw the improvements at DL and did/said nothing . I really believe it’s a dead issue. I would not be surprised if they dig in and do nothing . They already announced the program changes and the new status year starts in less than 30 days .
Here’s the big issue , even taking into account your idea , do you get anything at PLTPRO or EXPLAT each year ? UA and DL , I think ,give the full benefit range such as upgrade points and benefit choices each year to upper level million milers . It seems , without the yearly benefits, you will get Oneworld Diamond and that’s it .
Whoops – meant OW Emerald.
That last stipulation just wreaks of Gary creating an exception that gets him lifetime Concierge Key despite not deserving it. Why would they hold folks to 10 years for all other levels and then make an exception for the top, invite-only tier?
Some people have actually had CK for multiple years. Giving lifetime CK out like candy in your scenario devalues the whole thing, kinda like how you and some others got CK that one time only because of the Simply Miles charity ordeal
I reached my million miles a couple years ago. I thought it would be an important milestone but I learned that I am no more important as someone who has a credit card.
Completely underwhelming.
Then I have to earn up through that status again every year. If I’m lifetime gold at least let me start and gold and earn up from there.
@ Gary — I’ve been sitting at 2.95 million LT AA miles for about 5 years. I either fly AA using miles or credit paid flights to AS. I see no reason to trigger my SWUs at 3 million because I would feel the need to use them and they are difficult to confirm in advance. I cannot remember the last time I called AA and didn’t have to wait 30 minutes to 5 hours for a call back. I see no benefit of being a LT Plat and earn basically no LP. They desperately need to provide an incentive to people like me if they want my money.
This should be about the people who actually fly on AA metal or code share and earn status by actually flying and being loyal. Why would credit card spenders who have status who fly AA once a year be rewarded with lifetime status. It is already ridiculous AA doesn’t value us as the actual loyal customers. The cap at Platinum is well outdated given this platinum pro level that has completely watered down EP. I still can’t figure out why Platinum Pro have emerald one world status. AA needs to follow Alaska’s lead by starting lifetime members at their respective status qualifications at the beginning of the year. Isom and others start valuing us who actually are loyal and sit in your planes. Last we check it is an airline, stop giving away membership to people who don’t help fill your planes so flying can actually be profitable.
AA is no longer a business airline, they are only a minimal step up from Spirit of Frontier. Who thinks otherwise?
Many years ago I was close to lifetime Plat using credit card spend alot. Back in those days there were not any 2% cards and I had so many good AA redemptions, it was a goto for me. I have a business. So I worked hard and got to 2 million right under the wire. Yes they watered it down by making Plat Pro. I like Garys ideas but not sure they will do it of not. These programs change all the time so there are no guarantees.
AA does not care about passengers, they just like to preach that they do. AAdvantage may be called a loyalty program but AA is not loyal to customers and don’t deserve any loyalty either. AAdvantage is simply a way for AA to earn more money without flying people. The more of that they can get the less they will care about the flying public, and it’s hard to imagine them caring any less than they do now.
I just want lifetime emerald.
IMO Lifetime Gold, Plat, etc, once earned, should become the base for earning in the years following. So being a million miler, every year, mile/dollar 1 should be the first mile beyond gold toward platinum. That’s how loyalty is rewarded.
When Lifetime Plat was earned by many (including myself) way back when, Plat was #2 just behind Exec Plat. By inserting two levels (Concierge Key & Plat Pro) above their Lifetime Plat’s, they’ve effectively depreciated that hard earned LT award. Not to mention the hundreds of 500-mile upgrade awards that ended up worthless via the one-time conversion into loyalty points – that were of dubious use. Oh well, live and learn.
I stopped caring about status when airlines start allowing free cancellations and changes. That was the only true perk to me. Now I just fly what’s convenient, life is much easier this way. My home airport is a hub to no one and all of the majors and most of the LCCs fly out of here so I have plenty of choices.
What’s wrong is AA Elite status is just not very valuable. As a lifetime Platinum I rarely get upgraded and the amount of extra points I earn is far less then the points I earn on my car rental. I choose the best first/business fare and the best aircraft or connections to get me where I want to go.
I agree with AA’s strategy of not awarding lifetime status beyond low tiers. You get LPs /status levels when you generate revenue for AA. You dont get rewarded when you are not running revenue through the AA cash register. No reason to reward customers who are not producing income for the company.
“ Create the leading travel rewards program.”
That’s actually quite easy: REvalue the program.
Bring back award charts.
Charge the award price based on when miles were earned rather than spent.
Return the award prices to where they stood a decade ago.
Release a minimum of four award seats in every cabin on every flight.
Bring back the Oneworld Explorer at prior pricing.
Do NOT charge YQ on partner awards.
And of course improve lifetime status.
Do all of these and American would have SPG levels of fanaticism.
Okay, Iʻam only at 1.5m so Gold for life but I also did it flying many trip from Honolulu to S. America, double overnighters in 24HJ, poor-manʻs first class. No credit card “miles”. Whereʻs my appreciation for sticking with AA. Aloha
I got to AA 2 million mile status from just flying activity. Bank card miles barely registered for my AA account. But as someone who almost never used the 500-miler upgrades, back then AA would convert the “sticker” upgrades for me into miles, and so as an EXP I was basically getting 3 miles toward lifetime status per 1 flight mile credited to my account. Plats back then could do the same thing to get 3 miles toward lifetime status per flight mile credited to the account.
I did see a lot of acquaintances get to 1MM and even 2MM status with Citi AA card churning, but they barely seem to get much use out of those benefits nowadays as many of them just buy premium cabin tickets anyway or are still on the AA mileage generating hamster wheel when otherwise they wouldn’t be with AA as much.
AA should provide upgrades on its planes anywhere it flies based on availability
I am executive platinum and had to fly to Europe on 1 days notice on business and seats were $13,000 in business class and $9000 in premium economy. Both classes of service were slightly over half full but AA doesn’t upgrade.
@Mets Fan – That’s huge bs that they didn’t upgrade you. You were forking out vast sums of money. What would the marginal additional cost have been for AA?
Janet Jackson summarizes the AA philosophy- what have you done for me lately?? AA doesn’t really care about loyalty. It’s all about what you’re NOW spending on their cobranded credit cards.
As Alan and Bruce mentioned AA screwed lifetime platinum members when they introduced Platinum Pro. I used to go out of my way to fly AA but now I seldom fly them. I felt betrayed by the downgrade imposed on lifetime Platform. I fly AA only when it’s the best option whereas previously I flew then even when it wasn’t the most convenient or cheapest flight. No longer loyal as they weren’t loyal.
Like others here, I earned lifetime Plat by flying my fat butt off for 35 years, always opting for AA metal or some Oneworld partner. 3 Million lifetime miler, almost all flown… had the credit cards on and off, never was a focus of mine, and don’t have them anymore. Joined AAdvantage in 1984 right out of college. I followed what new AA routes opened globally, and always made sure to use them if I need to get to say Shanghai or Mumbai etc.
It wasn’t really about the miles, but it helped. I felt at home on AA, as I was EXP for probably 20 years, and it just made the grind of daily business travel around the earth much more tolerable. I could count on them…
When Platinum Pro came, and Platinum went to zero, heck, my focus on AA went to zero. EWR is my general home airport, and eventually, AA pulled almost entirely from EWR. I can use LGA/JFK, but it takes longer to get there than to my flight destination much of the time, and lately, cost more than the flights themselves. Now close to lifetime Gold on UA, which actually does have some basic value (Star Gold)
At this point, I can’t be bothered to even shop AA for trips. If I’m going to deal with the 2 hour horror ordeal to get to JFK, I’d rather use Norse in premium to LGW say for a reasonable price, than use AA to LHR for 4 times the price for lousy premium economy,
Just not anything in it for us anymore…..
Resentments about poorly run programs run deep.
When NWA was a thing, I was at the top top, flying and earning the miles. They only counted flown miles in their program.
When DL and NWA merged , DL’s program counted EVERYTHING as MQM (miles)… so my 2 million became dwarfed (in status) by folks at DL that rarely flew.
After several calls, I gave up, and switched loyalty to AA.
I still have my NWA carbon fiber pen. I never fly DL.
Sadly now, I look to my AA miles on what they can get me on foreign carriers. Domestic AA has become as endearing as a movie theater’s sticky floor.
There’s no need for the complexity of Gary’s approach. Just add the “must have earned the status ten times” requirement. That’s AA needs to do. Sure, there are some people who earned massive miles hauls from credit card spent 15 years ago, but probably not that many of them, because back then credit card spend didn’t get you anything other than redeemable miles and a lifetime status capped at Platinum, and also because it switched to flown miles 13 years ago.
@Brian W, as Gary explains, the point of lifetime EP and CK isn’t so much to reward people in the future for what they did in the past, it’s to give people an incentive to keep throwing revenue at AA after reaching a status level each year. I know a good number of people who fly enough that once they reach a status level with one airline, they switch to another so as to have status at two airlines. That provides them with more options when choosing flights and in unplanned situations. Other than a higher upgrade priority and some rewards, there’s not much reason to keep flying or spending on AA after hitting PP or EP.
I agree with @Steve about the slide, and had the same thoughts while reading it, as I’m sure most employees did as well. Reminded me of sitting in so many B.S. meetings where our CEO told us to “work smarter not harder” and “always put the customer first” (with laughable anecdotes, such as one about a menswear salesperson who overnighted a delayed shirt to a customer who needed it–anyone who did that would have been chewed out for wasting money).
How many articles about AA should do this or that? Born and raised in the ATL area and of course flew Delta until a move in the early 80s to the DFW area. First AA flight, it sure wasn’t like DL because of the FAs. There was then and now more than ever a major difference. Until AA gets loyalty from their FAs, who obviously have the most contact with the passenger, then all the rest is a moot point. AA employee culture is where work has to be done and sadly probably never will be.
@Christian
AA doesn’t upgrade at all on international flights to South America, Europe and Asia by rule because they want to make flyers chase system wide upgrades or use points to upgrade. The thing is I travel for business and my company pays. I’m not using my points or SWU for a business trip. I use those for family trips.
My point is on day of transport IF seats are available, they should provide the same free upgrades are domestic and caribbean
Competitive would be a start, I hit the 1 mm lifetime gold 4 years ago after 6 or 7 year run at EXP and didn’t even get a congrats email.
I am stuck at lifetime Platinum with AA for what feels like close to 20 years. Between the devaluations of the AA miles, devaluation of AA elite status, the cap on lifetime status with AA, and my booking patterns, I have not even cared much to credit my AA flights to my AA account. Instead I diversified my airline program participation and changed my travel preferences to become more mercenary.
I still get great use out of AA lifetime elite status when flying Oneworld airlines, but I think the 10-15 years of X elite status level to get that status level for life is something more to my liking.
It is great that US air carriers have these lifetime status levels too. We do not in Canada. The Aeroplan program is good however it is a yearly earned status. Those of us that flew aggressively on it and United back in the 90’s, especially transborder where we got 100% credit for miles and bonuses often exceeded 1, 2 and 5 million miles (I am just over 5 million flown) yet we have nothing to show for it nor any advantages today when we no longer fly for business.
IIRC AA added the Platinum Pro level at the time to match other One World “4-tiered” carriers – particularly British Airways.
I’m only about 1.5 MM and literally 100% of my flights are either QR and/or AA. Being Platinum helps with exit row/MCE seats on AA as well as priority boarding and lounges with QR/DOH.
One upcoming change I do like (if O read it correctly in another article) is that paid upgrades will increase Loyalty Points as I’ve upgraded a few times on AA to J in 2023.
Its all change and certainly not for the better however it is what it is.
I have 2.6MM on UA – I have Lifetime Plat with them and it’s HIGHLY valuable. This has made UA and their partners my backup to AA – and I use more often than not. e.g. I’ll fly LH in Europe without hesitation, same for AC in North America, as I know I get recognized, lounge access, etc.
I’m 1.89MM on AA – I’m lifetime Gold (this was all from BIS miles), will make the 2MM on AA sometime in the next 2-3 years (I say that as travel patterns always change). This gets me all I care about – Biz lounge access. I’m likely done with extensive travel in the next 6-8 years. So these will be nice to have but I expect AA will do something stupid and make it worse.
Jacobin777,
BA had Bronze, Silver and Gold as its elite levels, and those have long corresponded with AA Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum. Platinum Pro was an AA invention that corresponded to no BA Elite status level and seemed to be an attempt to provide a 75k mile status level that would match DL and UA’s 75k status levels and devalue Platinum while providing something more for those doing less than 100k miles per year but hitting c. 75k-98/99k miles.
I’ve done over 6 Million miles on AA. Guess what my lifetime status is? 3rd tier. Platinum. Thank you for your &@#%$ service. Think about it, 6 million miles and I’m now dirt to them.
@jfhscott – You nailed it. I too am in the boat with people who have “artifically” high lifetime status from massive credit card spending over a decade ago. As you noted, my current flying frequency isn’t nearly that of someone who earned it with BIS miles, so I cost the program much less.
@Gary – Your points and proposal are perfect. I hope American is listening! If I had Lifetime Platinum Pro to shoot for (at your adjusted 6MIL miles) I’d be spending and flying AA more.
Mooper,
Are you the same mooper as on FT? Hadn’t seen any of your posts on the site in the last four years or so and was curious what happened to your posts there. Remember that mooper as a real Delta fan.
Quote from American
“We are gong for great folks”
sigh a lowly LT 5 mil Platinum Peon dumped on by Plat Pro
At least with LT Plat SPG we got grandfathered into LT Titanium status
@ AA we got thrown to the wolves
Alaska has it right at least give some extra priority to LT Plat upgrades etc
@Mets Fan – Except knowing who was forking out the cash for your flight since you might be self-employed, I was making the exact same points. On the day of travel would the marginal cost to AA really have been that much to thank a high level elite member paying an exorbitant amount of money anyway by bumping them up a cabin? I think not.