You’re right, I think I based my date on when they went to the spend based model in 2016.

I started with AA in 2002 at 20 years old. I’m 43 now, starting solid business travel in late 2003. I’ve never really used their credit card (for spend, I do have it now for Admirals). I wish I banked more in the good ole days. I’m almost at 2.4mm, and despite averaging 300k LP almost all in air (~130k annual miles), it’ll be another 12-15 years to get to 4MM on BIS, and I intend to retire or cut back on business travel within ~10 years.

I’m old school, EXP since 2006 entirely based on flying (my cc spend and hotel is all direct to Marriott and Hilton), but it’s still a large hill to climb. If they dangled PPro at 3M, I’d strive to fly more on AA, but I’m getting closer and closer to going free agent these days.