American AAdvantage Loyalty Points Program Guide 2023
In the interest of full disclosure, OMAAT earns a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the below links. Citi is an advertising partner of OMAAT. These are the best publicly available offers (terms apply) that we have found for each product or service. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the bank, credit card issuer, airline, hotel chain, or product manufacturer/service provider, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Please check out our advertiser policy for further details about our partners, and thanks for your support!
It’s a new elite year at American AAdvantage, so in this post I wanted to provide an updated guide to American Airlines’ Loyalty Points program, especially given the program changes being made as of 2023. For context, American made radical changes to its loyalty program in 2022, as the airline completely reimagined how elite status is earned, and eliminated the concept of elite qualifying miles and elite qualifying dollars.
Earning AAdvantage elite status has been significantly simplified, and doesn’t just account for how much you fly with American, but also factors in how much you engage with American’s partners. You can earn top tier status exclusively through credit card spending, if you wanted to.
In this post I wanted to cover everything you need to know about the Loyalty Points program for 2023.
Earn American AAdvantage elite status with Loyalty Points
American AAdvantage elite status is earned exclusively based on how many Loyalty Points you rack up. Every qualifying AAdvantage mile accrued earns you one Loyalty Point. For the 2023 program year, AAdvantage elite status requirements are as follows:
Requirements to earn AAdvantage elite status in 2023
American’s invitation-only Concierge Key status continues to have unpublished qualification requirements. However, we have reason to believe that some non-flying activity may also be considered toward earning Concierge Key.
Note that with the Loyalty Points program, status is earned between the beginning of March of a particular year and the end of February of the following year, and is then valid through March 31 of the year after that. That means for the 2023 program year:
- You can earn elite status between March 1, 2023, and February 29, 2024
- The status that you earn during the 2023 year would be valid through March 31, 2025
You may be wondering what’s considered “qualifying” for the purposes of Loyalty Points. Yes, spending $200,000 on a credit card would earn you Executive Platinum status, but buying 200,000 AAdvantage miles wouldn’t earn you Executive Platinum status. So let’s go over those details.
Flying is one of the many ways to earn Loyalty Points
How to earn Loyalty Points for flying American Airlines
The most popular way to earn Loyalty Points is by flying with American Airlines. When flying American Airlines:
- You earn 5x base miles per dollar spent, all of which qualify as Loyalty Points; the exception is that basic economy fares only earn 2x AAdvantage miles
- Elite status bonuses also count as Loyalty Points, ranging from 40% to 120%; Gold members get a 40% bonus, Platinum members get a 60% bonus, Platinum Pro members get an 80% bonus, and Executive Platinum members get a 120% bonus
- In other words, aside from basic economy fares, an AAdvantage Gold member earns 7x Loyalty Points per dollar spent, while an Executive Platinum member earns 11x Loyalty Points per dollar spent
- There’s no cap on how many Loyalty Points you can earn with each ticket
Earn Loyalty Points with every American Airlines flight
How to earn Loyalty Points for flying partner airlines
In addition to being able to earn Loyalty Points for flying with American Airlines, you can also earn Loyalty Points for flying with partner airlines:
- You can earn Loyalty Points for flights on all oneworld airlines, plus JetBlue and GOL
- All the redeemable miles you earn from flying on partner airlines also qualify as Loyalty Points; this includes elite bonuses, which range from 40-120%, as well as cabin bonuses (where you earn miles for flying premium economy, business class, or first class)
Let me give a couple of examples. Say you’re an AAdvantage Executive Platinum member booking an Alaska Airlines first class ticket from Los Angeles to Seattle in the “I” fare class. That flight covers a distance of 954 miles, so how many Loyalty Points do you earn? Based on the mileage earning chart:
- You earn 100% base miles, so that’s 954 miles
- You then receive a 50% class of service bonus, so that’s 477 miles
- You then earn a 120% elite bonus, so that’s 1,145 miles
- Altogether you earn 2,576 AAdvantage miles, all of which would qualify as Loyalty Points
Say you’re an AAdvantage Gold member booking a British Airways first class ticket from San Francisco to London in the “A” fare class. That flight covers a distance of 5,367 miles, so how many Loyalty Points do you earn? Based on the mileage earning chart:
- You earn 100% base miles, so that’s 5,367 miles
- You then receive a 150% class of service bonus, so that’s 8,051 miles
- You then earn a 40% elite bonus, so that’s 2,147 miles
- Altogether you earn 15,565 AAdvantage miles, all of which would qualify as Loyalty Points
You can earn Loyalty Points for travel on partner airlines
How to earn Loyalty Points for credit card spending
Most American AAdvantage credit cards issued by Barclays and Citi earn Loyalty Points:
- You earn one Loyalty Point for every base mile earned on the card, which would generally be the rate of one Loyalty Point per dollar spent
- Welcome bonuses don’t count as Loyalty Points
- If you’re spending in a category that’s bonused, you only earn Loyalty Points for the “base” spending, meaning one Loyalty Point for every dollar spent; in other words, if a card offers two AAdvantage miles per dollar spent on American Airlines flight purchases, you still only earn one Loyalty Point
But long story short, spending $200,000 on a co-branded American Airlines card, whether it’s the no annual fee American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® (review) or the $450 annual fee Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (review), would earn you Executive Platinum status.
See this post for all the details on earning Loyalty Points with credit cards.
You can earn American status through credit card spending
How to earn Loyalty Points for other partner activity
As far as non-flying activities go, there are some other partners beyond credit cards that allow you to earn qualifying Loyalty Points. Specifically, base miles earned with the following partners can earn you Loyalty Points:
- Platforms: AAdvantage Dining, AAdvantage eShopping, SimplyMiles
- Hotels: bookaahotels.com, Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, Marriott Vacations, RocketMiles (this includes miles earned with the American & Hyatt partnership)
- Cars: aa.com/car, Avis, Budget, Payless, Hertz, Dollars, Thrifty, Alamo, National, Sixt
- Cruises & vacation packages: bookaacruises.com, aavacations.com
- Retailers: Shell, WeWork, Vinesse, FTD, Vivid Seats, NRG Energy, Reliant Energy, Xoom, Miles for Opinions
Even if you hadn’t considered these programs in the past, these could be worth another look, as you can rack up Loyalty Points based on your everyday purchases.
You can earn Loyalty Points for dining out
What activity doesn’t earn Loyalty Points?
There are several types of activity that don’t earn Loyalty Points, including:
- Buying, gifting, or transferring miles
- Government taxes, fees, and other charges associated with buying airline tickets
- Conversion of another program currency to AAdvantage miles (for example, converting Marriott Bonvoy points, rather than selecting Bonvoy points as your earnings preference for stays)
- For AAdvantage credit cards, welcome bonuses don’t qualify, and neither do “accelerators” or “multipliers” (like extra miles for each dollar spent in certain categories)
- Miles earned with Bask Bank, which offers AAdvantage miles based on how much money you have deposited
I find these exclusions to be interesting. I’m not surprised that buying miles doesn’t count toward Loyalty Points, though at the same time, I don’t follow the logic of that:
- Presumably American selling AAdvantage miles directly to consumers is higher margin than when American sells miles to partner programs (whether it’s Citi or SimplyMiles)
- I suppose the logic is that American thinks it would be too easy to earn status that way, and doesn’t want to do that; but what does and doesn’t qualify really doesn’t fully make sense
Buying miles doesn’t count toward Loyalty Points
American AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards
American AAdvantage offers Loyalty Point Rewards, whereby AAdvantage members can select the perks that matter the most to them at 11 different Loyalty Points thresholds. These rewards include perks like systemwide upgrades, bonus miles, and much more.
Some major changes were made to this program in 2023, compared to the 2022 program year:
- The good news is that there’s no longer a requirement to fly 30 segments in order to unlock these rewards; the other good news is that there are more thresholds at which you can earn these rewards
- The bad news is that you no longer earn these rewards when qualifying for Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum, as the most valuable thresholds are 50,000 Loyalty Points higher than what’s required for those status tiers
The 11 tiers for the Loyalty Point Rewards program are as follows (and below I’ll talk a bit more about what they are):
- 15,000 Loyalty Points
- 60,000 Loyalty Points
- 100,000 Loyalty Points
- 175,000 Loyalty Points
- 250,000 Loyalty Points
- 400,000 Loyalty Points
- 550,000 Loyalty Points
- 750,000 Loyalty Points
- 1,000,000 Loyalty Points
- 3,000,000 Loyalty Points
- 5,000,000 Loyalty Points
Loyalty Point Rewards at 15,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 15,000 Loyalty Points, you receive Group 5 boarding for the membership year, and can select one of the following:
- Priority check-in, security, and Group 4 boarding for one trip
- Five preferred seat coupons
Loyalty Point Rewards at 60,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 60,000 Loyalty Points, you receive:
- Avis Preferred status
- A 20% Loyalty Points bonus on spending with AAVacations, AAHotels, AAdvantage eShopping, AAdvantage Dining, and SimplyMiles
Loyalty Point Rewards at 100,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 100,000 Loyalty Points, you receive:
- Avis President’s Club status
- A 30% Loyalty Points bonus on spending with AAVacations, AAHotels, AAdvantage eShopping, AAdvantage Dining, and SimplyMiles
Loyalty Point Rewards at 175,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 175,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose one of the following:
- Two systemwide upgrades
- 20,000 bonus miles, or 25,000 bonus miles for AAdvantage credit card members
- Six Admirals Club day passes
- A $200 trip credit, or $250 for AAdvantage credit card members
- A $250 donation to a partner charity
- A 15% AAdvantage award rebate
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Gold status to two people
Select systemwide upgrades with Loyalty Point Rewards
Loyalty Point Rewards at 250,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 250,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose two of the following:
- Two systemwide upgrades
- 20,000 bonus miles, or 30,000 bonus miles for AAdvantage credit card members
- Six Admirals Club day passes
- An Admirals Club membership (this requires both choices)
- A $200 trip credit, or $250 for AAdvantage credit card members
- A $250 donation to a partner charity
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Gold status to two people
- A selection of Bang & Olufsen products (this requires both choices)
- A Flagship Lounge single visit pass, or two passes for AAdvantage credit card members
Loyalty Point Rewards at 400,000, 550,000, and 750,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 400,000, 550,000, or 750,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose two of the following at each threshold:
- One systemwide upgrades
- 25,000 bonus miles
- An Admirals Club membership (this requires both choices)
- A $200 trip credit, or $250 for AAdvantage credit card members
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Platinum status
- A selection of Bang & Olufsen products (this requires both choices)
- Two Flagship Lounge single visit passes
- One Flagship First Dining visit pass
Loyalty Point Rewards at 1,000,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 1,000,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose one of the following:
- Four systemwide upgrades
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Platinum Pro status
- A mileage rebate of 100,000 AAdvantage miles
Loyalty Point Rewards at 3,000,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 3,000,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose one of the following:
- Six systemwide upgrades
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Executive Platinum status
- A mileage rebate of 300,000 AAdvantage miles
Loyalty Point Rewards at 5,000,000 Loyalty Points
When earning 5,000,000 Loyalty Points, you can choose one of the following:
- 10 systemwide upgrades
- The ability to gift AAdvantage Executive Platinum status
- A mileage rebate of 500,000 AAdvantage miles
Select mileage rebates with Loyalty Point Rewards
How to see your AAdvantage Loyalty Points total
You can always easily see your AAdvantage Loyalty Points total by logging into your AAdvantage account, either through aa.com or the American Airlines app. There’s a simple graphic that shows your status toward qualifying for the various Loyalty Points thresholds.
You can click on the “Activity” tab to see a breakdown of the Loyalty Points you’ve earned for all your AAdvantage accruing activity.
American AAdvantage account showing Loyalty Points activity
Loyalty Points determine upgrade priority
Complimentary upgrades are one of the best perks of airline elite status. Loyalty Points can play into your odds of getting upgrades. American Airlines upgrades are prioritized first by elite status, and then by your rolling 12-month total of Loyalty Points.
In other words, the more Loyalty Points you rack up on an ongoing basis, the higher your upgrade priority will be within your elite tier. Nowadays all AAdvantage elites are eligible for complimentary upgrades within North America, and upgrades even extend to companions.
However, there are lots of people eligible for upgrades and limited seats to upgrade to, so higher elite status and a higher Loyalty Points total really makes a difference for clearing into an available seat.
Upgrades are prioritized based on Loyalty Points
How to earn American AAdvantage Million Miler lifetime status
American AAdvantage has lifetime elite status, whereby you can earn AAdvantage Gold or Platinum status for life, for passing one million or two million lifetime miles (respectively). The requirements to earn that are unrelated to Loyalty Points.
Miles toward Million Miler are calculated based on the distance flown for American marketed flights, or base miles earned for travel on eligible partner marketed flights. That means you can’t earn lifetime status through credit card spending (as an example).
Unfortunately American’s lifetime elite status program continues to be woefully uncompetitive, especially in comparison to Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus.
Million Miler status is unrelated to earning Loyalty Points
Crunching the numbers on AAdvantage Loyalty Points
How hard is it to earn AAdvantage elite status with the Loyalty Points program, compared to the previous one? For context, prior to the pandemic, AAdvantage Executive Platinum status used to require earning 100,000 elite qualifying miles and 15,000 elite qualifying dollars in a year. Now the status requires 200,000 Loyalty Points.
With that in mind, a few thoughts on the math here:
- If you’re earning 11x Loyalty Points per dollar spent on American flights, you’d have to spend ~$18,200 per year on flights to earn Executive Platinum status, which is a significant increase compared to the previous requirement
- Interestingly Executive Platinum status is even harder to earn than before if you’re starting from scratch, since you don’t earn the same 120% mileage bonus from the start; you’d have to spend over $27,000 on flights to get to Executive Platinum status from scratch
- On the other end of the spectrum, spending $200,000 per year on a co-branded credit card would also earn you Executive Platinum status
- To take a hybrid approach, if you’re an Executive Platinum member you could spend $100,000 per year on a co-branded credit card and spend ~$9,100 per year on flights to maintain Executive Platinum status
- The catch is that if you want benefits like systemwide upgrades, you now need to aim for an extra 50,000 Loyalty Points above Platinum Pro or Executive Platinum (you’ll need 175,000 Loyalty Points and 250,000 Loyalty Points, respectively)
You can take a hybrid approach to earning AAdvantage status
Why American shifted to the Loyalty Points system
Some road warriors are confused and frustrated about why American has made these changes, which increasingly incentivize qualifying for status through non-flying means.
The reality is that this reflects how American makes money. Flying is incredibly low margin for airlines. American makes much of its profits through non-flying means, including the AAdvantage program.
So it’s entirely rational that American would want to give people an incentive to engage in the activity that’s profitable and high margin. After all, it’s more or less pure profit when you book a hotel through American’s portal, or use a co-branded credit card.
See this post for more on why this program makes sense.
American is incentivizing what’s most profitable
Bottom line
We’re now into the 2023 American AAdvantage elite year. Status is awarded based on how many Loyalty Points you accrue, rather than based on how many miles you fly, or how much you spend on flights. Loyalty Points can be earned through flying, credit card spending, and activity with AAdvantage partners.
The biggest change from 2022 to 2023 is that the new Loyalty Point Rewards system offers more tiers at which you can be rewarded, though the requirements for the most valuable Loyalty Points tiers have increased. Fortunately there’s no longer a requirement to fly 30 segments to unlock those perks.
Do you have any questions about American’s Loyalty Points system that I haven’t answered? What’s your take on the program?
