wylek

They appear to have reverted the FAQ change after the Dec. 7th announcement of points being extended through February 28, 2023.

worldiswide

Our business also received a similar email last week to that of queen of coach with the request for both business verification and employee/contractor verification and what might be considered a soft suspension. Account remained open and could be credited, but couldnt redeem. We have been part of the program for well over a decade. It was pretty threatening language for long term customers. Yes, AA is asking for more information than they should but they can make the rules and we decide if we want to play. and Yes they are OK with 1099's redacted since the T&C's permit contractors and employees .The due date to reply was December 20 or so. We returned the information within a couple of days and within 2 hours received an email response from the audit team, with further requests, and when answered, by the end of day AA sent an all OK email . Thought that was pretty amazing turnaround (since you could barely talk to a res agent in that time frame), and it seems like all things considered that this activity would be low priority but who knows? They are very much a stickler for the business verification audit items they request so if you do not have them, think about what you want to do. A call to the number on the email was actually answered by a person, and the claim was that all Business Extra accounts are being audited by end of year. AA had somehow added travelers to our Business Extra account that we had never added (since that is done by the FF within their own account), and we told them that in the call (still dont know how that happened) and they "sort of" admitted the mistake telling us what happened. Guessing this a small ausit team. Dont know how big the program is or what criteria is causing the request to audit. Just sharing.

worldiswide

That is not an example of consultant per program rules. Payments of flights or meals is not the same as filing a 1099 information return for the person.

QueenOfCoach

Nothing precipitated it, other than the fact there are two travelers in my BE account: Me and my husband. They sent me a polite note telling me my acct would be suspended. If I submitted the following (list of stuff proving three traveling employees and bona fide business dba sales tax etc), then it would be un-suspended.

I wrote back, politely telling them I am not looking to expand the business and "Thanks for the Memories". Their final note, again very polite and friendly, was to give me until Dec 10 to use my existing points, which I did do. Two friends got AC day passes for their trip over Christmas to see family. Genuine, 25-year friends, no barter/sale/trade. I am totally within their rules.

I agree. Proceed with caution. I certainly do not want to endanger my Aadvantage account by adding bogus employees to BE.

Note: It has to be three TRAVELING employees, not just three employees. If there are four genuine W2 employees in the business, but only one travels, that doesn't cut it.

dc10forlife

Have the rules gotten more strict with the change to the minimum number of employees/amount spent on travel? If so, then why would AA automatically still put in a BE number in a reservation and automatically credit points for all travelers on the same reservation?

Before accepting a BE number on a reservation, shouldn't AA instead require a certification that the reservation is for business travel and only includes w-2 employees or statutory employees? Or require all employees to be registered first, and then limit credit to only those employees? Or require a BE number for each passenger?

Thanks for the warning, but there seems to be a lot better ways to enforce this than auditing accounts and clawing back points that AA automatically credited in the first place. As it stands now, if I take a non-employee on a business trip with me, then I would have to book separate reservations and then re-link them for status benefits (which necessitates a call and a phone agent's time). Are the BE points that costly for them?

ikwia

What do you mean by this? The US tax code does not recognize such an arrangement AFAIK.

perkerkeem

based on your post it sounds like you told them you won’t be providing the information they requested and accept having your BE account frozen - but it also sounds like there wasn’t any blowback to your/your employees AA account?

Edit: just surprised you mentioned endangering the AA account - if you refuse to provide the info and they were cool with that and just closed BE, seems like the AA account should be fine in any case?

dc10forlife

Ooops I mean w-2 employees.

worldiswide

The BE number is in each FF account. The Business is defined in the Business Extra system . You can certainly have one reservation with persons that have a BE number in their FF and persons that do not have one

dc10forlife

While that is true, the Business Extra number is then automatically populated in a multi-person reservation based on the FF who is initiating a booking. So if I book a flight and bring a non-employee along, I can't tell AA just to give me BE credit only for myself and not for my guest. Its all or nothing.

worldiswide

So if passenger one has a BE number in it, and you are booking on aa.com for more than one passenger, the BE number auto populates to all passengers?. Isnt it a separate field for each passenger on the reservation and cant it be blanked out for the non employees in the reservation at time of booking?

dc10forlife

The BE number applies for the entire reservation and all passenger. There is not a separate field for each passenger.

That is my point. Its all or nothing. So if AA doesn't want non-employees to count towards your BE points earning on a single reservation, its not possible to do so. You would have to book separate reservations.

enfuego

Has anyone heard anything about how the elimination of MilesSAAver and AANytime awards impacts BE redemptions? I'm guessing that if the primary program moves to dynamic pricing, then BusinessExtra will follow. Seemingly no discussion around this.

mangoMan

Hmm...I was just checking our BE account and noticed that it still states we will have points expiring Dec 31 2022. I hope this isn't accurate as I planned to wait until late Feb to redeem, given the expiration extension. There is also now a progress indicator showing how far one has come to meeting the $5K spend requirement; apparently we already met it so there should be no issue for us redeeming points in 2023.

LovePrunes

no details available yet on the "simplified awards chart" and "fully dynamic awards" so it's too early to tell. We dont even know if MilesAAver and AAnytime terms are going/staying etc.