American AAdvantage Adds Bonuses for 2015

Starting New Year’s Day, AAdvantage members can earn up to 12,000 bonus miles while flying in premium class cabins.

Rather than following the industry trend of tying frequent flyer awards to the price of the ticket purchased, American Airlines has decided to instead offer bonus award miles to members who spend a little more green.

American AAdvantage members will automatically receive bonus award miles for the entire 2015 calendar year. Bonus awards will be accrued beyond the base miles earned depending on AAdvantage status, the premium class ticket purchase and the length of the trip.

Officially, American is launching the promotion to incentivize members to take advantage of the airline’s premium services, starting:

We want to make sure our members are rewarded for what they fly. We are in the process of investing $2 billion in our airports, our clubs and onboard our revitalized fleet. That includes updates to our premium cabins — and we want to reward our customers for purchasing those tickets.

An AAdvantage Executive Platinum member can earn up to 12,000 bonus miles for buying First or Business Class tickets on a long-haul flight. AAdvantage Platinum/Gold members will earn between 250 bonus miles for a Discount Business ticket on a short flight and 6,000 bonus miles for a First/Business ticket on a long haul flight. AAdvantage members without status will not receive bonus miles for Discount Business tickets, but can earn bonuses of up to 3,000 miles on First and Business tickets purchased.

The bonus miles will not count toward elite status. The bonus awards will be applied based on the ticket puchased only and not on upgrades. US Airways Dividend Miles members will be subject to slightly different restrictions until the awards program is absorbed by the AAdvantage program in the second quarter of 2015.

[Photo: American Airlines]