Originally Posted by
drewguy
Raises an interesting question for anyone with PP who didn't (re)qualify.
But I don't see the obstacle to using PPs as a gold or silver, other than your status. It's like a mileage upgrade - you'd apply the PP and it would put you on the WL as instrument supported. But you'd just be that much further down the list (below 1K/Plat).
Slightly OT - I've always thought GPUs/PPs shouldn't expire, even if you don't requalify. Let people use them like mileage upgrades as described. Obviously you don't earn more - but so what if you (try to) spend them a year later.
Does one keep the ability to redeem PP if status is below Plat? I remember back in 2012 when I was also AA Gold and purchased a couple "stickers" to upgrade a flight, and they warned me not to have leftovers if I wasn't going to retain status because only elites could redeem them--even if they were in my account as a general member, they'd be stuck there unusable. (It would have been interesting to see if I had left any there, would they still have been valid when I was Platinum Pro in 2019?)
The expiration of the PlusPoints (vs. AA stickers at the time apparently not expiring but being tied to status in order to redeem) makes it different.
It seems that top tier elites have enough of a hard time redeeming the points; I can only imagine how impossible it would be for a Gold.
If that's where I end up, I'll have to let people know how it works out. I still have no idea what they think my status will be.