Sorry to ask but read 9 pages and ran out of steam. I have 920K miles. I have enough to move spg but would rather not.
If I wait till after 12/1 to make mm will all the points from cc's still count toward it or do I lose the miles from cc that I already have?

All of your Program To Date miles on 11/30, from whatever source, vest into Million Miler Miles on 12/1. From that point forward, only base miles from AA-coded flights and AAdvantage partner flights, and miles earned from the Citi AAdvantage Executive card (until 12/12) will increment the Million Miler Miles balance.

Read the thread? Either way, here's the exchange again about the claim of lifetime Platinum status at 1MM:

And the response to that post was this:

Then the following was the response which was given to my post:

Then this exchange occurred:

And then I responded with this:

Get it now?

Re: the new Mastercard. I've had an AC membership for several years. Am considering the new card since it includes AC access, but am I correct that this would not include the internet access since it's not an AC membership outright, just access via a credit card? And further if I canceled the card at some point and rejoined AC, I'd have the higher fee as a new member?

My Husband
 

has LT Gold and never had a credit card that collected miles...he achieved it last year. He is consistently platinum with an EXP thrown in here or there. Recently got the credit card for mileage purposes will consider whether to keep it or not.

Okay so I assume I can put in 78K miles...then after 11/1/11 if I book an AA coded flight that brings me to a 1MM. I will get a 35K MILE bonus ONCE? and gold status for life?
One confusion, if miles obtained before the date come from CC why will they be separated on line? Or is it only miles obtained from cc AFTER the date will be separated? thanks for the help

It's a shame he wasn't getting miles for cc purchases all those years. He might be LT Plat by now, or close to it.

This was covered in the thread for this card, but the new Mastercard does include AC membership outright and does include the internet access. It's not like the Amex card that just provides "access".

Consider the fact that in the past most people did not know about the unpublished program until getting an email saying "Congratulations!".

Consider, also, that the previously unpublished "secret" benefit is an open secret in the FT AA forum.

Also, consider the many FT messages to the effect of "Now that I know that I can get Lifetime Goal when I reach 1MM, I'm going to try harder to max out my AA flying, mileage runs, credit card use, etc."

My conclusion is that the FT community formed, essentially, a marketing experiment addressing the question: "If people hear about the Million Miler program, will they change their behavior in ways that increase our revenue?".

The answer is "Yes, they will", thus, the Million Miler program has been made public, thus incentivizing AA frequent flyers to change their behavior, the vast majority of whom have never heard of Flyer Talk.

Finally, if the MM program is publicized and the conditions were to remain as they were (all miles, all sources), there would be HOARDS of new million milers minted every day, diluting the value of the elite levels. Thus, they had to limit the numbers of new million milers by counting only BIS miles. The Citi Executive card mileage was added as a way of publicizing this very expensive credit card and only for the cards first year in business.

Do I agree with the new conditions? Yes and no. Yes, I agree it makes business sense to publicize the previously successful but unpublished program and it makes business sense to limit the miles to those actually flown on AA or partners. It also makes business sense to drive people to a new $450/year credit card.

No, if I were not already past the LT Gold Million Mile mark I would be unhappy that the goalposts had been changed and that my annual credit card spend would be of no use to me in achieving LT Gold, since I am unwilling to pay $450 for a credit card.

I stopped reading this thread after page 24. Whilst I understand the changes made sense from a business standpoint, I still want to register my disappointment. I just crossed 1MM in June. I will clear 1,1MM before 1 Dec, and can up that to 1,25MM if I swap Hilton, *wood, and AMEX points. I don't think I am going to bother though. The wording "for the life of the AAdvantage programme" in my letter suggests another change is in the works that may cause this programme to end. Looking at AA's severely depressed stock price, I may not be far off. In short, I will continue to qualify for PLT until AA is bought out by DL or someone else.

If you now have 78K miles, 78,000, you would need an additional 922,000 miles to reach 1 million.

Good luck with that.

Once you reach 1 million miles, yes, you will get a 35K bonus once and Gold status for the rest of your life or the life of the Aadvantage program.

All miles from all sources will count before 12/1/2011. After 12/1/2011, your existing miles from all sources will count towards the 1MM goal, plus miles flown on AA or partner airlines, but not credit card miles. They will separate the miles on your AA.com and paper statement.

Your credit card miles will count towards mileage award, such as upgrades, free tickets and other things like that. They will not count towards the million mile goal.

AA had to make the change. If the surge in inflation that some people are predicting ever kicks in, a person would be able to get lifetime gold with just one trip to the grocery store.

FWIW, It's actully going to be deflationary in the US. At least, that is the consensus amongst my friends and colleagues.

Although you are quoting that "AA would have to pay less than $1,350 to CX for every F tix and $1,250 for every F tix to BA"

When an F seat flies empty, CX or any other airline would earn nothing. I would think a pax could eat/drink no more than $150 wholesale cost per trip.
An airline like CX might want to fly these frequent flyers in F at a significantly reduced wholesale price to entice these customers to come over to that airline as a revenue client.

On many international trips the F cabin is only 50-70% full.

Thanks AA
 

I'm glad to see that current "lifers" are grandfathered in the new "official" program. In my current job, I have very few travel opportunities. I had even stopped following FT so I was curious to see the reaction after I received the email from AA. I wasn't disappointed at the discussion.

There are only a few benefits from lifetime plat status. Since, most of my travel is on my own nickel these days, I do appreciate the ability to board early to stash my carry-on, to select "premium" seats and to not pay for checked baggage.

My recommendation is the same as several others. Focus on achieving EXP each year. That's where you get the real benefits of free upgrades and priority customer service. Ah, those were the days.....