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Like most other airlines, in the past the qualification year for earning elite status in the American Airlines AAdvantage program ended on December 31.
With the revamping of the program in 2022 and the introduction of Loyalty Points as the concept for earning status, the qualification year changed. Rather than being based on a calendar year, the qualification year now runs from March 1 to February 28.
2022 was an initial exception. Loyalty Points earning was launched on January 1, 2022, with the qualification year being extended to February 28, 2023, thereby giving you 14 months to earn status in the first year of Loyalty Points’ launch.
That therefore means there’s only three weeks remaining to reach the next tier of AAdvantage status if you were shooting for a higher status level than the one you’re currently at.
I reached Platinum status a couple of months ago and had originally thought I might have an opportunity to hit Platinum Pro. However, unfortunately Cartera – the company that runs airline shopping portals – stopped offering rewards for purchases from Giftcards.com a couple of months ago. That was an easy way to rack up both AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points as the American Airlines shopping portal seemed to perpetually be offering an increased rate of 3x for Giftcards.com. With its removal, I don’t think I’ll be making the effort to earn an average of ~10,000 Loyalty Points per week for the next three weeks in order to hit Platinum Pro.
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I stayed in a hotel on February 25 to 26 thru AA hotels which gave me 11,000 base miles and would get me to next status. Problem is it takes a couple of weeks to post, but when it posts it is back dated to actual date of stay (happened with a Feb 7 stay that posted on Feb 22 but back dated to Feb 7). Would this count for qualifying?
If you make credit card charges in Feb and they don’t post until March then you will have to start all over again for the loyalty status…correct?
I’m in a minor fix: I am 1200 short of platinum but don’t know why. My last credit card payment was nearly 5K but I only got 1800 loyalty points. Needless to say, finding out why from AA is like high school physics with a disinterested teacher.
Meanwhile, I can’t travel because I have shingles. Does anybody have a suggestion for 1. why I might have got so few points and more importantly 2. how to get 1200 that will credit to my account by the end of Feb?
Thanks!
Points accrued on the credit card every month are from purchases, not payments. If you check your statement you’ll see the $$ for your purchases (fees do not count) should be the same as the number of points.
Thanks for your response.
I keep a zero balance so there is no difference. Hopefully it’s just a mistake I’ll be able to sort out with them.
Any recommendations on best way to earn 5k points by Feb 28th? I don’t think another flight works as I just don’t have the time to make a quick day trip . I don’t have an AA card so can’t do that.
Also, if you fly out on the 27th and back on the 1st, I assume just the outbound flight on the 27th counts?
The motley fool subscription on the AA shopping portal is $79 for 6500 loyalty points.
citi is offering 20% back for montley fool sub subscription
Check AA simply miles for some offers that might work for you.
AA Shopping Portal Green Chef/Hello Fresh/Ever plate credit quickly and are near break even(points wise) if you go for the cheapest option. (Plus you get some food) Doing all 3 should get you there.
I read the following on another website: “Our data points indicate that American posts Loyalty Points and miles upon the closing of each statement period. So, credit card purchases at the end of February will likely post as Loyalty Points and miles when your statement closes in March — which is after the 2022 elite year has ended. As a result, we recommend getting your credit card spending done sooner rather than later if this is how you’re planning to earn enough Loyalty Points.”
Is this accurate, in your experience?
This is true, at least for my Barclay’s Aviator card. The spend posts to AAdvantage on the date the credit card statement “closes” and has that same date in your AAdvantage activity.
For flights and hotel bookings, and other things with “activity dates”, even if the spend takes a while to post, it appears in your AAdvantage account on the activity date, not the date on which it “arrives” in AAdvantage. For hotel bookings, this is the checkout date of the stay. Not sure of the method of dating LPs that come from the shopping portal.
If you need more points before 2/28 and your February statement has closed or is near closing, the safest method is completing some flights before then, followed by booking Rocketmiles or BookAAHotels with a checkout date on or before the 28th.
Am 3k short of lowly Gold. For the food prep delivery services, do I need to keep the membership going for a minimum period, or is one order enough to trigger the LPs? Was hoping some better Simply Miles offers would pop up but it’s been a desert for the last few months. Thanks
It’d be worth checking the terms of each food prep service in case they have any kind of specific requirements. I feel like most of them only require one delivery though; with the discounts and stacking with Amex Offers or Chase Offers, that can often make them close to free.
I am currently platinum pro(via Hyatt promo) was platinum prior to the promotion). I am going to reach 30 flights next week. Do I get a choice award even though platinum pro via promo? Or do I need to reach platinum pro by February 28?
No, the choice award is earned at 125k loyalty points. This is, coincidentally, the same point at which you receive Platinum Pro, but it’s just coincidence (this year — next year the levels are different).
AA needs to allow upgrades on award redemptions starting at the Gold level (not Exec PL) to entice me to play the game.
And a pony!
Why? As a gold you have a zero percent chance at upgrades anyway.
I wonder how many people (like me) divert their “loyalty” to other cards/portals etc. once they’ve earned their target status and realize that it’s not worth going for the next level? I would imagine the drop off towards the end of a status-earning year is very noticeable.
I think that’s probably offset by the folks who do bizarre stuff to make it to the next level. But if it’s an issue starting this coming year you’re always 25k or so away from that next LP award to incentive you.
When I got to EXP I stopped accumulating any more points. I think that’s part of the reason they added the continual milestone rewards for next year’s iteration of the program.
I just got platinum pro – but I think I’d be happy enough with just platinum. Not many additional benefits.
Heaps more upgrades, in my experience. But if you’re flying routes where only EPs and above are likely to get upgrades then yes, plain old Platinum has the magic benefit of MCE seats at time of purchase.