Can You Buy Airline Status?
 

Folks,

New to the FF game and wondering if it's possible to buy status with an airline FF program without many multiple flights on a single airline? My travels shift between US Airways, AA and Continental. I don't fly enough on any one airline in particular to rack-up an elite level of any kind.

Is it possible to purchase elite status on an airline and if so, is it worth it?

Cheers,
Asicguy

No, it's not possible. No, it wouldn't be worth it even if you could.

Why would you want to buy elite status if you don't fly enough in the first place to qualify?

You could always buy First Class tickets, which is even better, though that's often much more expensive.

Here's an old press release about the benefits of the AMEX Centurion card:

http://home3.americanexpress.com/cor...ion_launch.asp

Apparently, you can buy status:
Complimentary upgrades, dedicated check-in, priority boarding and mileage earning at an accelerated rate via complimentary enrollment in the Continental Airlines OnePass Gold Elite Program, Delta Air Lines Gold Medallion program, TWA Aviators Elite 1 program and US Airways Dividend Milesâ Preferred Plus.

I don't know if the aforementioned airlines are still participating, and if they are with the same level offer. Obviously the TWA offer is no longer valid.

For more info, do a search on flyertalk under the American Express forum and type in the words "Centurion" or "black card."

I don't know how much is the annual fee. I think it's at least $1,000.

You can buy gold status by spending $1,000,000 on a credit card which gets AA miles. You can buy platinum status for $2,000,000

Dave

You don't even have to spend the money. Put $1MM in a BankDirect Mileage Checking Account and get 100,000 miles a month. After ten months, you will be AAdvantage Gold. After twenty, Plat.

Is there a limit to the number of miles you can earn at BankDirect?

Airpass is a cheaper option to get the majority of the benefits. ;)

Spend $24,000 thru the Business Extraa program
https://www.businessextraa.com/apps/...ewAwards.jhtml
Buy gold status for 2,400 points, equiv to $24,000 in eligible tickets.
-or
I have worked for large corps that have had discretionary PLT & EXP awards based on their spending and contract with AA, but even for very large
accounts these are limited to just a handful per year. Convince a large corp that's holding these awards to give you one.
-or
Buy a first class one world global explorer ticket with at least 66,000 base miles, it'll give you 100,000 q-points from one ticket. See one world forum for lots of discussion on one world rtw tickets.

Search on "Platinum challenge" or "Gold challenge" (no quotation marks) and you will come up with some fast ways to get status on our AAirline.

As other posters have explained, pass a lot of expenses through your AAdvantage-related credit card, for example, and with your first total 1M miles earned from all sources (flying, bonus miles, credit card purccases, all the other ways you can get miles,) you are AAdvantage Gold for life, with 2M Platinum for life. For the moment, anyway.

So, no, you can't really buy status on AA, but you can earn it quickly with a challenge, and you can keep it until the airline or you die (unless they change the rules, of course,) if you earn enough miles (buy enough stuff or trade enough money get the status.)

Cheers,

But you'll initially need to be Gold or Platinum in order to be able to earn unlimited miles on a Citibank/AA credit card. Otherwise there is a 60,000 or 100,000 mile annual earnings cap.

But once I win the lottery, I'll park a bunch of my millions in a Guaranty Bank account until I'm lifetime Platinum. Then I'll kick back and enjoy life. :cool:

Does Diners Club impose a limit?

And you get $2 million worth of stuff too! :cool:

You can't just call AMEX and say "I'd like a Centurion card." It's by invitation only to the very tip-top Platinum spenders. I hear it comes via personal courier in a velvet-lined box!

And here is another offer from the Centurion Card that I believe is hard to do:

"Upgrades to the Concorde at no additional cost with the purchase of a full-fare, first-class transatlantic ticket to or from London and any British Airways gateway in the United States. " :mad:

That must be the secret Amex Concorde - so now I know why BA wouldn't sell them to Virgin! :D

Well, at least until it gets repossessed!