American AAdvantage in 2023: Higher Status Requirements and Multiple Non-Tiers
Joe Cortez December 16, 2022
The “reimagined” American AAdvantage program was unveiled to the public on Thursday, December 15, 2022.
Earning Stays the Same, While Gold Status Costs More Time and Money
The first major change is coming to the loyalty qualifying calendar. Instead of following the calendar year, American AAdvantage members will earn their status between March and February starting in 2023.
As in previous years, earning qualifying Loyalty Points will be based on a consumer’s activity with American and their partners. Flyers can earn Loyalty points on flights marketed by American Airlines, Oneworld partners, JetBlue, or GOL Airlines. This includes Basic Economy tickets on American. To make earning status easier, the airline will also remove the 75,000-mile cap on a single ticket, encouraging flyers to spend more on their tickets to hit status faster.
With an American AAdvantage co-branded credit card, flyers will earn Loyalty Points based on the base miles they earn through spending, and do not include bonus miles or accelerators. Every base mile equals one Loyalty Point towards future status.
AAdvantage flyers can also earn miles through spending with select partners, such as their dining or shopping program portals, car rental partners, and certain retailers including Shell. Hotel partners include Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, and IHG Hotels & Resorts.
With the change in loyalty points, American is also doing away with their traditional award chart. Instead, the program will move to a dynamic award chart, which promises more ways to use miles for flights and other rewards. It’s unclear how miles will be tied to ticket prices in 2023.
With a “simplified” program, the thresholds to earn loyalty status will increase as well. To earn Gold Status, flyers will need to earn 40,000 Loyalty Points – an increase of 10,000 compared to 2022. All other tiers will remain the same: Platinum will stay at 75,000 points, Platinum Pro will remain at 125,000, and Executive Platinum will still require 200,000 points.
Although getting Gold status will require more miles, American will offer flyers rewards for meeting certain milestones between trips. After earning 15,000 points, flyers will be able to get Group 5 boarding for the remainder of the year, and can choose between one flight with priority privileges and Group 4 boarding or five Preferred Seat coupons. With 60,000 points, flyers will earn Avis Preferred Plus status and a 20% Loyalty Point bonus when spending with select partners. When earning 100,000 points, Avis status gets upgraded to President’s Club, and the partner spending bonus goes up to 30%. Flyers will also get rewards after earning 175,000 points, 250,000 points, 400,000 points, 550,000 points, 750,000 points, 1 million, 3 million, and 5 million points in a year.
“Loyalty should be simple, and we have reimagined our AAdvantage program to a single point system that provides a clear path to earning status for our members,” Alison Taylor, chief customer officer at American, said in a press release. “For our loyal members, the message is simple: Earn AAdvantage miles, earn status — whether that’s by flying on American or by spending on everyday activities.
American AAdvantage Latest Program to Make Changes for 2023
With the shift, American is just the latest program to make major loyalty program shifts for the 2023 loyalty earning year. Delta Air Lines previously announced “upgrades” to the SkyMiles program, while JetBlue expanded the TrueBlue program to four Mosaic elite tiers.
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DL transitioning to a "dynamic award chart" eventually meant that a J award to Europe went from 80k miles to 140-500k+ with 140k being a really exceptional event and ~300k being a much more common outcome.
At the same time, flights become more expensive, but mileage accrual decreased in most instances.
The title is misleading there is only one status requirement which has increased (Gold).
The rest of the stuff is generally good for travelers. The intermediate benefits are nice to get before you get to the next level, motiviates people to keep going even if they can't make the next full status level.I like the removal of the segments requirement. I am going to get EXP, but I will not have enough segments to get any of the loyalty rewards. (unless I go crazy in feb with short flights).
The change to the status earning year (Mar->Feb) and status holding year (Apr->Mar) is old news.
this article is SO POORLY WRITTEN. the announcement of the March-Feb calendar date for earning status is ONE YEAR OLD. as another poster pointed out, the 75k cap is on RDMs, not LPs. I agree it's a negative headline on what I think are largely positive changes and will help more people get something who may never qualify for upper levels of status. Would have been nice to see an article AFTER we know how they change the award chart in 2023. So far this is all mostly about elite status.
This is the exact reason why I have been crediting the British Airways and enjoying one world emerald status without the Absolute nonsense that is the American Airlines advantage program right now.
Another move in the game of 'how to we make things cheaper while not losing so many customers'. It's a race to the bottom when this thinking kicks in so hang on...