If you wish, you can earlier boarding with some airlines by holding their credit card, and even earlier boarding by buying their extra legroom seats.

Meanwhile, what's the last time you flew on AA? They've recently added many numbers to the boarding groups, so it's no longer case that all elites are in group 1. AA Gold is now in group 4, unless you happen to be in First.

But you still are in an early enough group that board ahead of most people. But, like I said above, if you get the credit card and/or buy extra legroom seats (called Main Cabin Extra at AA), you also board ahead of most people, because at AA that's now group 5, and so right after AA Gold. And, in fact, one expensive AA credit card gets you the same Group 4 boarding as AA Gold! See here for all the details on the new AA boarding groups:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/...ng-process.jsp

Just make sure you never buy "Basic Economy" fares, as with those you board dead last, don't earn miles, etc, etc.