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Over the past year, we’ve seen American Airlines reduce its elite status qualification criteria by 20%, we’ve seen it offering promotions to make earning elite status easier, we’ve seen it allowing flyers to requalify for elite status through credit card spending alone, and we’ve seen it extending elite statuses too.
Earning or retaining American Airlines Advantage elite status has never been easier than it has been for most of this year but for business travelers who have somehow missed out on the promotions, deals, and extensions, the airline has just rolled out yet another way to lock in AAdvantage status in double-quick time – a fast-track offer has been launched.
As VFTW has noted, American Airlines is now offering business travelers (US residents only) the chance to earn AAdvantage Gold or AAdvantage Platinum status with flights taken between now and the end of March next year, with that status then being valid through 31 March 2023.
“Between now and March 31, 2022, take 8 eligible flights for AAdvantage Gold® status or keep flying and take 16 eligible flights for AAdvantage Platinum® status.”
No registration is required for this promotion but flyers have to have either a Business Extra or a corporate travel program number associated with their profile before they take any qualifying flights and must take at least one flight by 15 February 2022.
Eligible flights are flights that are marketed by American Airlines or flights operated by American, American Eagle, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, JetBlue, or Qantas so you don’t even have to set foot on an American Airlines aircraft to trigger this fast track offer.
The terms and conditions are as follows:
- AAdvantage® members who do not hold AAdvantage® status will automatically activate this promotion after completing a business flight that is attributed to a company’s account with American
- The activation flight must be flown between November 16, 2021, and February 15, 2022, and must include the designated 6-digit corporate indicator at the time of booking
- Eligible flights include purchased, published fares flown between your activation flight and March 31, 2022
- Flights must be marketed by American Airlines or operated by American, American Eagle®, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, JetBlue, Finnair, Japan Airlines or Qantas
- Flights marketed and / or operated by other codeshare partners aren’t eligible for this promotion
- This offer is only available for residents of the United States
- Flights that do not earn AAdvantage® miles aren’t eligible for this promotion
- After an AAdvantage® member reaches the required flight thresholds, the applicable AAdvantage® status benefits will begin within 24 hours and be active through January 31, 2023
- After previously announced changes to the AAdvantage® program go into effect on March 1, 2022, any status achieved by an AAdvantage® member prior to such date will be extended through March 31, 2023
- Each AAdvantage® member must requalify for AAdvantage® status annually
- American may, at any time and without notice, change, stop or end this promotion in part or in full
Link to the terms and conditions
Quick thoughts
After the changes that American Airlines is introducing to the AAdvantage program take effect next year, earning elite status will be considerably easier for those who already have elite status, so this promotion could be very useful for anyone currently stuck on the bottom tier of the AAdvantage program.
If you don’t have a corporate code to add to your profile, a Business Extra number will work just as well, and although Business Extra now has a couple of new membership criteria that have to be met (3 unique travelers and $5,000 of flights activity credited to the account per year), a lot of people with businesses of any size should be able to make the most of this offer if they need to.
Bottom line
American Airlines has launched a new fast-track promotion that offers business travelers the chance to earn AAdvantage Gold and AAdvantage Platinum status in a considerably quicker time than they may otherwise be able to do. With Platinum AAdvantage elite status offering flyers good oneworld Sapphire benefits and with Gold status now being more useful courtesy of the changes coming to the AAdvantage program, this is a promotion worth considering if you plan to fly with American Airlines next year and you don’t have AAdvantage elite status.
