American Airlines Loyalty Points: How to Earn Elite Status – NerdWallet

Long gone are the days of “a mile flown is a mile earned” when you fly a U.S. airline. For the past several years, elite status has been earned mostly based on the amount you pay for your ticket (thus earning you more elite points) rather than the miles you fly. But now, American Airlines is taking its elite status in an entirely different direction that boils down to: “A mile earned is a Loyalty Point earned.” Let us explain.

In 2022, American abandoned its multifaceted elite status requirements for a somewhat simple — but revolutionary — way of earning elite status: Loyalty Points.

On March 1, 2023, American Airlines renamed their Loyalty Choice Rewards to Loyalty Point Rewards and added milestone rewards for flyers who haven’t earned elite status yet, or are between tiers.

In 2022, American Airlines eliminated elite qualifying miles, elite qualifying dollars and elite qualifying segments. Instead, earning elite status now comes down to just one aspect: Loyalty Points.

Unlike EQMs, EQDs and EQSs, you won’t need to reference earning charts and a map to calculate Loyalty Points. Instead, you simply earn 1 Loyalty Point for almost any AAdvantage mile you earn. Note there are some key exceptions to that general rule that we cover below.

To earn AAdvantage elite status this year, you’ll need to earn:

• 40,000 Loyalty Points for AAdvantage Gold.

• 75,000 Loyalty Points for AAdvantage Platinum.

• 125,000 Loyalty Points for AAdvantage Platinum Pro.

• 200,000 Loyalty Points for AAdvantage Executive Platinum.

On March 1, 2023, American also introduced new rewards tiers starting at 15,000 Loyalty Points as part of its revamped Loyalty Point Rewards.

Rather than being based on a calendar year, your AAdvantage elite status is now based on your elite earnings from March 1 to Feb. 28 of the following year.

AAdvantage elite status is valid through March 31 of the following year.

American renamed Loyalty Choice Rewards to Loyalty Point Rewards and eliminated the flight segment minimum required in order to unlock rewards in the spring of 2023.

Now, based on the number of Loyalty Points you earn, you’ll unlock benefits after reaching several levels, from 15,000 up to 5,000,000.

Perks include priority privileges, bonus AAdvantage miles, systemwide upgrades, Admirals Club memberships, and options to gift status to another flyer.

As with any good frequent flyer program, you earn elite status credits when flying. However, how you earn Loyalty Points depends on whether you book your flights through American Airlines or one of its partners.

AAdvantage members earn 5 Loyalty Points for every dollar spent on American Airlines airfare (excluding taxes and government fees), except when booking a basic economy ticket. Members earn 2 miles per dollar on basic economy fares.

Elite members earn Loyalty Points even faster because the bonus miles that AAdvantage elites earn count as Loyalty Points. After factoring in this elite bonus, you earn the following rates when booking American Airlines airfare:

• General member: 5 Loyalty Points per $1.

• Gold elite: 7 Loyalty Points per $1.

• Platinum elite: 8 Loyalty Points per $1.

• Platinum Pro elite: 9 Loyalty Points per $1.

• Executive Platinum elite: 11 Loyalty Points per $1.

Elite members still receive a bonus when booking basic economy fares, but the bonus percentages applies to the base mileage rate of 2 miles per $1. This means instead of earning 7 Loyalty Points per $1 spent as a Gold elite member, you earn 3 Loyalty Points.

AAdvantage members also earn Loyalty Points when flying on partner airlines. As with flying on American Airlines, your Loyalty Point earnings are based on your AAdvantage earnings.

For flights on Oneworld partners, you earn Loyalty Points based on your AAdvantage mileage earnings. These earnings typically depend on the fare class you book and the distance of the flight. As with flights on American, elite status bonus miles also count toward Loyalty Points.

Note that American Airlines specifically references that Loyalty Point-qualifying airlines include “flights marketed by American Airlines and Oneworld airlines.” So it seems that AAdvantage mileage earnings on American’s other non-alliance partners (e.g., Hawaiian or Etihad) won’t qualify as Loyalty Points.

With a few exceptions, you previously couldn’t earn AAdvantage elite status through anything other than flying. Now, you earn Loyalty Points when you earn AAdvantage miles through credit cards and through AAdvantage partners.

Generally, you earn 1 Loyalty Point for every dollar spent on an American Airlines co-branded credit card. This includes spending on all Citi/AAdvantage cards, all Barclays Aviator cards and all AAdvantage credit cards.

Here’s a sampling of American Airlines credit cards along with their earn rates, annual fees and welcome offers.

Note that some AAdvantage co-branded credit cards offer bonus miles in certain categories. For example, the American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® earns 2 miles per dollar spent at grocery stores. However, Loyalty Point earnings are based on the base mileage earning rate, so you won’t get Loyalty Points for that extra grocery bonus dollar. Likewise, credit card sign-up bonuses or spending bonuses also don’t qualify as Loyalty Points.

However, certain cardholders are eligible to earn a Loyalty Point bonus:

• Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®: Earn 10,000 additional Loyalty Points after reaching 50,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year. Earn another 10,000 Loyalty Points after reaching 90,000 Loyalty Points in the same status qualification year.

• AAdvantage® Aviator® World Elite Silver Mastercard®: Earn up to 15,000 additional Loyalty Points by spending a total of $50,000 in eligible purchases.

You also earn Loyalty Points through other types of AAdvantage-earning partners. This includes shopping through the eShopping portal or SimplyMiles, or dining through AAdvantage Dining.

However, American Airlines is “still working through the details” with some of its partners.

So it’s currently unclear if AAdvantage mileage earning opportunities like Bask Bank, AA Vacations, rental car partners, AA’s Hyatt partnership or charitable donations will qualify as Loyalty Points.

Generally, you earn a Loyalty Point for every AAdvantage mile earned. However, there are some key exceptions. Here are the types of activities that do not earn Loyalty Points:

• Bonus miles earned from special promotions.

• Buying, gifting or transferring miles.

• Government taxes, fees and other charges associated with buying a ticket that don’t count toward earning AAdvantage miles.

• Transferring points from another loyalty program (e.g., Marriott or Citi).

• Bonus miles on purchases made on AAdvantage credit cards.

• New account bonuses, welcome bonuses or spending bonuses on AAdvantage credit cards.

In recent years, earning AAdvantage elite status changed from what frequent flyers were used to. Rather than worrying about flying enough miles and spending enough dollars, the focus shifted to how many qualifying AAdvantage miles you can earn through flying, credit card spending and American’s other partners.

The shift to from Loyalty Choice Rewards to Loyalty Point Rewards now offers new opportunities to unlock benefits between tiers, but most of the recent changes are better for people who already spend a lot with the airline and earn Platinum status or above.