2025 AAdvantage Program Updates
 

Looks like the updates for the 2025 AAdvantage Program have been released. Overall, nothing major. Some new redemption items, mostly around Hyatt, for Loyalty Point Rewards. There's now the ability to redeem miles for in-flight items (food, drinks, wi-fi). And some changes to the Million Miler Program.

Details are at https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ANTAGE_CHANGES

Big changes for the Lifetime program

Happy to see that the requirements for each status tier will remain the same in 2025. Glad to see SWUs will be visible online. Question: does “upgrade with miles” space use the same inventory? I.e. if a flight shows SWU availability but I don’t have SWUs, would mileage upgrades still be an option?

Still worse than UA and DL, but it gives me reason to be loyal past 2MM (not particularly)

Wording around "more time to use SWUs" is confusing, but seems like a good change?

I just want to take this opportunity to again say how good the Loyalty Points program is. Like certainly a lot of things to complain about with AA...but the LP program is the best elite/status program in the US. No question.

SWU and Miles pull from the same space.

The SWU extension is nice given how hard it's been to use them. Now I won't (yet) use them on something stupid, like DCA-RDU.

In Gary's article below he mentions that "starting March 1, their expiration will align with the end of the program year and not calendar year."

Thats equally ambiguous, as they currently expire one year from the date you select them, not the end of the calendar year.

I could see AA setting the expiration for all SWUs to be March 1 the year after the qualifying year you earn them, regardless of when you actually select the reward choice.

I'm sure this will be clarified in short order.

VFTW - AAdvantage Changes for 2025

Yeah that was typically Leff non-sense writing, I'm not sure the guy has ever heard of proofreading...

TBH: The SWU thing is a non-issue for me...I've got way more international long-hauls than SWUs so I've never had any issue with letting SWUs go unused.

I tend to agree. I appreciate how easy it is to build within the LP program, particularly through non-flight activity. I jumped an entire status level thanks to AA Hotels stays, two of which earned 15K Loyalty Points for 3 night stays at properties that would have netted me nothing of value otherwise. I have a couple more stays like that in 2025 as well. :)

I believe that 260k of my current 330k LPs was earned through aa shopping/hotels so far this year. :p

Haven't flown too much this year!

I have flown a lot this year (especially longhaul), but a lot of that was award travel and most of my revenue travel continues to be on AS. Crediting AS flights go AA isn’t earning me as much as crediting them to AS as an MVP75k, but when combined with other sources of LP I reached Plat Exec this year while on AS I would have had trouble getting to mid tier status. And I would have had to spend more $$$ in revenue flights instead of using awards for some of my travel.

I am glad nothing major is changing for next year.

I retired with 5.6 million miles, probably ballpark of 2.5 million actual, 2.5 million matching and .6 million credit card spend, etc. Nobody knows the actual breakout, including AA. Now I'm up to about 6.0 lifetime. Wonder what they'll do with that?

I had to reread the details on AA.com a couple of times. Looks like all the changes are net positives. Maybe not fabulous changes, but at least no downgrades. I'm kind of shocked.

I wish they would allow SWU to be used with miles (like delta).