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American Airlines and the World of Hyatt are, once again, running promotions that give elites in one loyalty program the opportunity to enjoy and earn elite status in the other.
Yesterday, we published an article about the opportunities being given to AAdvantage members seeking World of Hyatt, so this article will focus on the more targeted and more limited opportunities being offered to select World of Hyatt elites seeking American Airlines AAdvantage elite status.
Unfortunately, American Airlines appears to be treating the nature of its promotion and the specific terms and conditions with the sort of secrecy normally reserved for missile launch codes, so you’ll find that while we can tell you exactly what one promotion looks like, we’ve had to employ a key assumption to allow us to say what other promotions may be out there.
American Airlines Instant Status Pass
If you have your AAdvantage and World of Hyatt accounts linked (you can link them here) and hold Hyatt Explorist or Globalist status, head over to your American Airlines online account and look under the promotions section.
If you have been targeted for a status fast track promotion, you’ll see an offer inviting you to “Register for an Instant Status Pass”.
As you can see, I have been targeted (I hold Hyatt Globalist status), and because I have been targeted, I can tell you (a) just how badly this promotion is explained and (b) what my offer looks like.
Upon clicking ‘registration details’ a screen opened with the following wording:
“With Instant Status Pass™, members will receive status immediately after registering and receive Loyalty Point activity requirements every 4 months in order to keep the benefits of the Instant Status Pass”
To earn status for the next membership year, you must meet all 3 Loyalty Point activity requirements. All Loyalty Points are eligible for Instant Status Pass™ requirements.
Registrants will have the opportunity to upgrade their Instant Status Pass™ based on their Loyalty Points earned during the first 4 months.
To continue with at least AAdvantage Gold® status, you must earn 13,000 Loyalty Points in the first 4 months of Instant Status Pass*’.”
That’s a lot of words to, effectively, tell me nothing.
There’s no mention of Hyatt, there’s no mention of what status I’m registering to receive (I already hold Lifetime AAdvantage Platinum status), there’s no mention of what elite statuses I can earn, and there’s no mention of what my specific target requirements are.
As American Airlines often runs Instant Status Pass promotions for a fee, I still wasn’t sure that what I was looking at had anything to do with the airline’s partnership with Hyatt.
Still, there was a ‘terms and conditions’ link on this page, so I clicked on that to see if it would enlighten me.
It didn’t.
The terms and conditions page was also full of generalisations and contained nothing specific to whatever my offer is supposed to be.
As a last resort, I clicked on ‘register’ in the hopes that I would finally find out what the promotion was all about.
That’s when this pop-up appeared.
I had registered for a promotion whose details were still a complete mystery to me and had I actually cared about what sort of offer was waiting for me, this would have been annoying.
You can only register for one ‘Instant Status Pass’ promotion every 2 years, so by registering, I have effectively ruled myself out of any other fast track offers that may come along in the next 24 months.
Fortunately, I care about fast tracking my AAdvantage status about as much as I care about the plight of the mosquito that I just swatted out of the air, so this doesn’t really affect me.
Following registration, things started to get clearer.
This appeared on my promotions page:
It would seem that I will be promoted to Platinum Pro elite status immediately (I already hold British Airways Gold elite status, so this isn’t going to be a life changer) and I need to earn 42,000 Loyalty Points by 6 December 2024 to complete ‘phase 1’.
The ‘view details’ page offered more information.
It looks like if I earn the required 42,000 loyalty points by 6 December, I get to enjoy Platinum Pro status for a further 4 months (until 6 April 2025) and if I earn 67,000 Loyalty Points in that time, I’ll be promoted to AAdvantage Executive Platinum status.
Ok then. As I have managed to register without having to pay any kind of fee, it looks like I’ve been given this promotion courtesy of my Hyatt Globalist status, so if that’s the status that you hold and you have been targeted, this is the promotion you should see.
- Register by 5 September 2024 and get instant Platinum Pro status for 4 months from registration.
- Earn 42,000 Loyalty points in the 4 months after registration to keep Platinum Pro status for a further 4 months.
- Earn 67,000 Loyalty points in the 4 months after registration to be elevated to Executive Platinum status.
Based on past, similar, promotions, World of Hyatt Discoverists will probably not be targeted, while I’d expect targeted World of Hyatt Explorists to be offered instant AAdvantage Platinum status and the opportunity to retain that status or to climb the ranks based on these earning requirements.
- Earn 25,000 Loyalty points in the 4 months after registration to keep Platinum status for a further 4 months.
- Earn 42,000 Loyalty points in the 4 months after registration to be elevated to Platinum Pro status for a further 4 months.
- Earn 67,000 Loyalty points in the 4 months after registration to be elevated to Executive Platinum status.
In ‘phase 2’ (i.e. the second 4 months after registration), targeted members can keep or elevate their status by meeting the same requirements, and the same applies for ‘phase 3’.
Thoughts
The presentation of this promotion is terrible and the secrecy surrounding its full terms and conditions is ridiculous, but for some flyers this could be useful.
American Airlines Platinum status equates to OneWorld Sapphire status and American Airlines Platinum Pro status equates to OneWorld top-tier Emerald status, and both of those can be very useful when flying internationally.
Clearly, having AAdvantage elite status can also be a great help when flying with American Airlines domestically.
Being given these statuses just for clicking a button seems like a very good deal.
Whether it’s worth engaging with the AAdvantage program enough to maintain those statuses (or to reach a higher status) will depend on each person’s personal circumstances, but it’s important to note that American Airlines isn’t really doing anyone a huge favour here.
As you can see from these status targets that American Airlines sets its flyers …
… all that the Instant Status Pass promotion is doing is splitting the annual requirements into three equal 4-month segments, so the overall requirement to earn/keep that status for a full year hasn’t changed.
This isn’t like an old-school status challenge where you just needed to earn a lot of miles/points in a 3 or 4 month period to then earn elite status for the rest of the year.
Here, you have to keep hitting a significant target every 4 months or its game over.
If you’re someone who flies pretty regularly throughout the year or who has another way of earning a lot of Loyalty Points month after month, this promotion may work well.
But for anyone with a far less structured travel schedule and for those of us with little interest in exploring all of the more exotic ways of loading up with Loyalty Points from non-travel related areas, the requirement to earn a significant number of points every 4 month period will probably pose an issue.
Having said that, even if you think that you’re unlikely to be able to hold on to whatever elite status American Airlines is offering you, it may be worth taking up the offer of free status if you have any American Airlines/OneWorld travel coming up in the next 4 -5 months.
Just make sure you don’t register too early so you maximise the time you hold the status on offer (i.e. register by 5 September, but not too far ahead of your next American Airlines/OneWorld flight), and keep in mind that by registering for this promotion you’ll be disqualifying yourself from any similar promotions for the next two years.
Bottom line
If you have World of Hyatt Explorist or Globalist status and have linked your account to American Airlines AAdvantage, you may have been targeted for a promotion that gives you free AAdvantage elite status for 4 months and an opportunity to keep that status (or to boost it) by hitting certain milestones every 4 months.
Let us know if you’ve been targeted or if you’ve been passed over this time.
