3737cl

In my line of work, I am assigned to different projects every 6 – 18 months. Some projects require travel, some do not.

In 2014, from January through September I was assigned to a project where I did very little travel. While I had US CP status, I knew I was not going to qualify for CP status in 2015.

The end of September, I was assigned to a new project that required travel. From the end of September to the end of the year I earned enough qualifying miles to attain US Gold / AA Platinum status.

From the end of September to the beginning of April 2015, I earned over 100,000 qualifying miles so while I did not meet the calendar year requirement for platinum elite status, I figured there was no harm in contacting customer service and asking if an exception was possible.

Of course, every one of you know the answer to this request. I’ll paraphrase but in essence they said allowing exceptions is not fair to those that qualified.

Now I know it was foolish on my part to assume that 100,000 qualifying miles in less than 7 months might be considered as qualifying but I didn’t meet the calendar year requirement so end of story.

What is the purpose of this post? I’m an old guy. I learned early on that there are times when an outcome is not what you were hoping for. You can dwell on it or you can put it behind you. I’ve developed a mechanism to put them behind me, I call it my release. When an event happens, I dream up a task. When I complete the task, the event is no longer an issue. In most cases the task has nothing to do with the event. One time I had to throw a ball in the air and catch it 10 times in a row. If I dropped one, I had to start again. I was laughing at the end of it so event was closed and I moved on.

In this case, the task is slightly related to the event. My task was to describe my situation in a place where someone might see it. I know on other forums there are company resources that read the posts. In this case, I have no control if they exist, if they will read it, if they will use the info in the company during a review of their programs, etc. I can only control submitting the post so whether they are here or no has no impact on my task. I can only control that I posted it. I’m done.

I assume others have been affected by the calendar year rule so while my one voice will not make any difference, if others note that they have been affected, who knows.

Sure, you are all laughing right now thinking Doug Parker would actually consider doing something nice for his customers but Macy’s and Gimbels shook hands in the movies. Now that you are really laughing my work is done for the day, I just hope you don’t bust out laughing in a meeting and get in trouble

CPRich

They were correct.

Then perhaps we just close this thread.

bdemaria

Given your travel habits you should probably fly those carriers that have a rolling qualification period, rather than an annual qualification period.

imapilotaz

Crap there went 3 minutes I'll never get back. Next time you'd be better off trying to convince them to let you do a PLT or EXP challenge... there was zero chance of them completely changing the rules for you.

Often1

This is a good example of someone who has a personal business plan which does not mesh with that of his chosen carrier. Either he lumps it or he swtiches, if he can, to a carrier with a rolling qualification.

Rigid qualification rules have the benefit of being hard targets for travelers. They have the disadvantage of not working for a very few people such as OP.

AtlanticX

No such thing. Right?

Since the OP mentions hitting 100k EQM, it makes me curious what his flying pattern is. The benefit of EXP over PLT really depends on that.

For example, if you're booked into Y domestically on flights over 500 mile, it's much more of an advantage than if you're usually on <500 mile, where any status holder gets the complimentary upgrade.

If it's mostly international Y, then the SWU's come into play.

If he's booked into international J, then the EXP over PLT just means a slightly nicer lounge. If it's domestic first, then all he misses out on is a bunch of waived fees, and those he likely can expense anyway.

Basically, there's a few bummer scenario's, where status can make a big difference, and a few meh ones.

In the end though, even in the worst-case scenario, as a PLT, he's basically guaranteed of MCE on every flight, which makes travelling life a lot better.

dmsdfw

Officially no there isn't. Unofficially there is, but, from all the reports here, it's not something that is granted very freely.

Phoenixtinct

I can't agree with that statement. They are certainly NOT correct and I will tell you why. American does offer status matches. There have been threads where people have reported being matched from UA 1K or even UA GS to AA EXP. Not sure what requirements they have to satisfy during the initial period as I've never been a part of a challenge like this but many people on the AA forum have voiced displeasure why they have to qualify the hard way, i. e. 100,000 BIS miles while others can just jump ship and for significantly less effort be granted the same benefits.

Moreover, AA frequently runs promotions - at least once a year where the requirements for elite statuses are relaxed - more often they are "targeted" but where is "fairness" coming into play then if AA is so concerned about that?

In OP's case, the 100,000 miles were flown, so it's been proven that requirement can be met - just not from 1/1 to 12/31. This raises the question of a fixed vs. rolling qualification period. I don't see the point in setting the qualification period from 1/1 to 12/31 - peoples' plans are different and don't necessarily have anything to do with the calendar year. Businesses have fiscal years and they vary significantly - it could be July through June, October through September, etc. If a rolling 12-month period is adopted, everyone who manages to fly 100,000 miles during a calendar year will still qualify for EXP. But under that system, anyone else who can achieve 100,000 in a 12-month period will also get to enjoy the same benefits. Moreover, under that scenario, AA will only grant status for 12 months after it's accumulated, whereas under the current setup, one can enjoy status for as much as 24-25 months if they qualify in a month, i. e. January and have until the end of the next year, i. e. February 2 years from then but never less than 12 months, actually 14 if one qualifies on 12/31 until 2/28 the following year.

With all that stated, I would have gladly granted OP EXP status much easier than granting a status match to someone who has never set foot on AA before. There are so many posts I've read where people matched from UA, used the SWUs and went back to UA. If that's the kind of people AA wants to reward vs. the ones flying over 100,000 in 7 months, something is off.

Rules are rules but exceptions are made all the time and to use "fairness" as an excuse is poor justification.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

As I understand it EXP challenges are offered to select customers that have dropped from EXP to PLT but will do enough future flying to warrant a challenge (25K EQPs within 90 days). AFAIK EXP challenges are not offered to someone with no status and/or not previously EXP. There could be marketing campaigns time to time that status match or offer such a challenge.

I'm not sure why the OP was not offered a PLT challenge, which would have given him considerable more benefits over GLD.

Guitarthur

You, sir, were a perfect candidate for the legacy US trial preferred program.

JonNYC

That's definitely not correct.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I would assume that yes AA occasionally will grant an EXP challenge status to a top elite from DL or UA. I would assume AA would want proof of status on DL or UA. But I doubt that Joe Moe can call AA and just ask to do an EXP challenge. In fact, AFAIK most individual EXP challenges are handled out of the Executive Offices.

3737cl

Thanks for the comments.

All flights have been domestic with the majority being coast to coast.

I'm just beginning to learn AA so was not aware of a possible challenge ... it would have made a difference in September.

If I requested one now I'm not sure it would make a difference. With projected flights and the new promotion of extra EQMs for class of service, I'm estimating some time in June I'll hit the 100,000 EQM mark .... and all in this calendar year too. So unless there is some loophole where I had to be wearing a red hat when I did the flights, I will be good to go.

Right now, because of the quantity of travel and because my home base is a hub, while I have airline choices, only one airline allows me to fly with a limited number of connections and for me that is an important factor. I would love to go with an airline that had a rolling qualification but unless I move that probably won't happen.

In my situation, the other benefit that would be great to have is rollover of EQMs. If I could carry over "excess" EQMs from one year to the next, qualification in the subsequent year would be much easier. But this is AA so that is not an option.

Last, one of life's little mysteries for me will be why other fliers would think my 100,000 EQMs in a 7 month period is not enough for status. I figured it is the same number of BIS miles. I figured it is the same amount of income for AA. I figured they would know what it takes to earn that many EQMs. I guess it is just not the way I'm wired so it goes into the mystery bucket.

krlcomm

I was given one at the beginning of 2013... not sure if the rules around challenges were more relaxed then or not. I showed AA 200k+ DL miles, 200+ segments, and $40k-$50k+ in spend over several years and they said "come on down"... the challenge was 30k points in 90 days. $126k+ in airfare spend later I would think that AA got a nice return on their investment... wouldn't be very smart to not offer the same to others in my situation.

MilesTalk

And therein lies the rub (or your lack of understanding of loyalty programs, to be blunt - although I don't mean it in the harsh tone that it sounds). Loyalty programs exist to CHANGE your behavior to earn an airline more or your business than they would otherwise get. They DO NOT exist to reward you for doing what you would have done anyway. If they stopped offering the direct routes you need, you would become disloyal. There's really no reason for them to reward you in a special way because your flying pattern happened to coincide with a status level in a different timing cycle.


See, Delta does this. And they do it to get people like you that don't confirm to calendar year cycles (among other reasons). But that isn't enough to you to switch to them. If AA did this, it would be nice because it would coincide with your behavior. But it wouldn't incentivize you to give them ADDITIONAL revenue. So again you are only thinking about how an airline could best reward you - which, again, is not their intent whatsoever.

Because they expect to only gain status if they follow the set program rules, which follow a calendar year. Exceptions are exceptions and not the norm for a reason.... it would be mayhem if a loyalty programs had set parameters and everyone called in trying to reason why their behavior deserved something reserved for people that actually meet the set qualification.