150k spend? I thought it said 5k spend.

It did.

It did. But the people who had 30x that spend and now cannot redeem the points in the manner expected are likely disappointed -- I know I am.

Are you not in that situation because of less travel, or the 3 person requirement?

You can still redeem through the end of 2022 I believe.

I'll probably cash out for BXP1s at the end of 2022.

The program got us lie-flats to Hawaii and a few other victories of the years, so it was a pretty decent run while it lasted.

I consider this change very reasonable.

Agree. They never intended for this to be for random solo businesses as sole proprietors and minimal revenue, Nice enough to show us the door rather than going to war.

Do you have family or friends? Just have them use your BE number and you’ll have three unique travellers. It’s not that hard, folks.

Even if that wasn’t the intent. The criteria is doable for anyone who is PLT or better during a year. Again, this is not an oppressive change.

I don't see what stops those sole props from booking one trip a year under their significant other, friends, or family. And the 5k revenue number seems very reasonable to me. I don't think this is a problem.

While I’m not going to celebrate these changes, I agree they are pretty reasonable. Anyone who wasn’t crediting at least a few thousand dollars a year to the program wasn’t getting the most out of it anyway. Points expire 2-3 years after they are earned. I did appreciate the ability to get a couple Admirals Club passes even in the lean years when travel was down (which I gave away to my employees or colleagues) but no big deal.

I do take exception to the fact that businessextra.com is, right this very minute, advertising “Business Extra is is free to join and there's no minimum spend requirement.” While that is technically true it seems deceptive. They are also still highlighting Three Twins Ice Cream in their customer spotlight. The founder of that company was a well-known flyertalker but if I’m not mistaken the business failed some time ago.

I will gladly help you use them if you need help :cool:
The easiest way to use that amount of points is one domestic plane ticket. The most "value" for that amount of miles is probably 2x Int'l One-Way Upgrade on Discounted Fare awards. If you have any plans to travel somewhere far thats probably the most "value" since a long international flight is so much money in business.

As of now, I wouldn't meet even the $5K spend requirement, and I also no longer meet the 3 person requirement. We'll see how my customers decide to proceed regarding travel. I expect I'll meet the $5K fairly soon but I don't see a return to travel for my support staff.

And yes I can still redeem through 2022, But I've got points that don't expire until 2024 and there are fairly easy ways to roll over the points so I definitely wasn't planning on having them all spent even by then. I understand it would add complexity, but I would have liked to see existing points grandfathered under the old rules.

I've read some of the recent replies, and while I don't disagree that the changes are reasonable overall, I'm still not sure I think it's fair to change the redemption conditions for existing points. I realize it's not the exact same situation, but imagine that they said you can't redeem your existing AAdvantage miles without some minimum spend... I doubt many would find that fair, but I could be wrong. I've got 80K points to burn and not much time to do it.

Back when Biz ExtrAA first started, you just told the AA people how many employees you had, without giving any names, and they sent the administrator for a different company than where I am now, a matching number of day passes for the Admirals Club and matching number of drink/headset coupons. None of these had any expiration dates. It was a gold mine back in the day. No wonder they chose to reign it in.