A work trip to Egypt in January helped me earn American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum status thanks to a stopover in Dubai and flying oneworld alliance airlines. This shot of a camel in front of the pyramids near Cairo was one of my favorite images from the trip.
I recently achieved American Airlines Platinum status, my first elite status on any airline. How did I do it? Is it worth the effort? Let’s dig into how I earned American Airlines Elite Status.
American Airlines Status Levels
There are four American Airlines status levels: Gold (40,000 loyalty points), Platinum (75,000 loyalty points), Platinum Pro (125,000 loyalty points) and Executive Platinum (200,000). Status levels are calculated annually from March 1 to February 28. (I hit Platinum in January 2024 and my status is valid until March 31, 2025.)
How are American Airlines Loyalty Points Calculated
My loyalty has always been with American Airlines because I’ve always lived near one of their hub cities. In 2022, the airline revamped its loyalty program to focus solely on a loyalty point system for achieving elite status. For each qualifying mile you earn, you also earn one loyalty point from flying on American, oneworld airline partners and Jet Blue. In addition, you can earn loyalty points for using their branded credit cards, shopping on their portal sites (SimplyMiles, AAdvantage eShopping, AAdvantage Dining, American Airlines Vacations) or through other partners. The more money you spend, the easier it is to earn elite status. It’s no longer about how much or far you fly—it’s all about money.
Loyalty points for flights are calculated using the base fare before taxes. You’ll earn a loyalty point for every dollar spent. You earn a significant mileage bonus for every dollar spent based on your status:
AAdvantage member: 5 miles per dollar
AAdvantage Gold: 7 miles per dollar
AAdvantage Platinum: 8 miles per dollar
AAdvantage Platinum Pro: 9 miles per dollar
AAdvantage Executive Platinum: 11 miles per dollar
Example: I’m flying to Spain for work in April. The base fare is $536 so I’ll earn 4,288 loyalty points for that flight with the 8-mile multiplier for platinum status.
How I Earned American Airlines Platinum Status
This handy pie chart breaks down the percentage of how I earned American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum status. I earned 79,369 loyalty points through flights (44%; 34,357 loyalty points), credit card spending (24%; 18,687 loyalty points), hotels booked through American Airlines (26%; 20,520 loyalty points) and shopping through their eShopping portal (5%; 4,096 loyalty points).
It took a calculated combination of efforts to earn platinum status because I’m a pretty frugal person who doesn’t spend a lot of money and saves half of my income. This makes it extremely difficult to earn elite airline status since it’s all about how much money you spend.
Full Disclosure: One of my freelance jobs is teaching photography for a luxury travel company so most of my flights are paid for by my job. This alone is the only reason I’m currently able to earn status becuase I wouldn’t be flying as much without this job. I try to strategize the best I can to stay loyal to American Airlines or oneworld airlines when convenient. Since traveling is exhausting, I’ll always fly a non-oneworld airline if they have a direct flight versus having to connect or even worse, overnight somewhere just to stay loyal. (The oneworld alliance is TERRIBLE in Asia. Star Alliance is top-notch in this region with Singapore Airlines and others. This along with upcoming changes to the American Airlines program has me considering switching to Star Alliance and United. More on that later in the post.)
For few notes for transparency and clarification:
- I flew 13 flights on American Airlines and their oneworld partners for a total of 34,357 loyalty points.
- When you book hotels through American Airlines, they have loyalty point bonuses. I got 10,000 loyalty points for one three-night hotel stay in Dubai. After I hit 60,000 loyalty points, I got a 20% bonus on loyalty points earned for hotels and shopping. These hotel bookings were critical for me to get status. I did find the prices for hotels were roughly 10% more on the American Airlines site than booking directly through the hotel. You will always pay more in these situations just as prices are always higher when booking award travel with miles. This is a business after all, and the airlines just want to make money.
- Loyalty point levels for booking hotels through American Airlines change frequently so check back after booking to see if there is a better deal. This Dubai hotel I mentioned above was only 6,800 loyalty points but when I checked a few weeks later, it was 10,000 loyalty points and $200 cheaper. Since it was free to cancel, I just canceled and booked it again!
- Roughly, 39% of my credit card spending was for work expenses that I was reimbursed for afterward. I never maintain a balance on my credit card and use it to pay for everything I can.
- On the eShoppping portal, I only bought things I was going to buy anyway. I did return a few things I didn’t like and haven’t seen any of those loyal points removed. I also bought cat food for my parents and had them pay me back just to get the points. Normally, I would use Rakuten, the cash back program, when buying online so I did lose out on a little cashback by going through the American Airlines portal. I traded the cash back for loyalty points.
- Please note that American Airlines “bonus miles” are not loyalty points. This term only means frequent flyer miles.
Benefits of American Airlines’ Platinum Status
Flying Royal Jordanian, a oneworld airline, to Jordan for work also helped me earn status on American Airlines, and my status got me access to their lounge in the Amman Airport, which is also a Priority Pass lounge. While in Jordan, I hiked to the monastery in Petra, which is best photographed in the afternoon.
Premium Cabin Upgrades: For me, the main benefit is a higher chance of upgrading to Business Class (25,000 miles + $350 fee) for long-haul flights. (I was able to upgrade on a 15-hour flight to Sydney in October when I had gold status but wasn’t able to upgrade on my last flight from Tokyo to LAX a few weeks ago with platinum.) In my experience, it’s nearly impossible to get a complimentary first-class upgrade (another benefit) on domestic flights with either gold or platinum status.
Main Cabin Extra: After booking, you have access to extra-leg room seats (these are up to a $100 value). I would never pay for these, but this is a huge help for long-haul flights where I can’t get the upgrade.
60% Status Mileage Bonus: For every dollar spent on flights, you earn a 60% bonus on flights that helps you earn status faster.
Two Free Checked Bags + Priority Handling: This is nice, but I never check two bags. The priority handling is great when I have Global Entry and don’t want to wait ages for all the bags to come.
Priority Lanes for Check-in Security and Boarding: My biggest pet peeve with flying now is having to fight to carry on my camera gear, which I don’t want to check for fear of theft or damage. Priority boarding resolves this easily. You get group 3 with platinum, group 4 with gold and group 5 if you have an American Airlines credit card. Group 5 has been fine for me with my luggage, so this isn’t as much of a game changer as other things. Priority boarding has been a lifesaver with oneworld airline flights—that’s huge for me because British Airways was recently trying to make me check my carry-on bag with my camera gear. Priority boarding saved me last summer. The priority boarding with gold status was enough to make a difference.
Oneworld Sapphire Status: Lounge access is one of the top three benefits for me because I literally hate being in airports and love anything that makes it more tolerable. You only get access to lounges when flying oneworld airlines. If you’re flying internationally, you can get into business class lounges. For American Airlines, this means I get Admirals Club access, which is a game-changer—free champagne, delicious food and showers. It’s a nice space to work as well.
Other benefits include same-day priority standby and a designated travel planning desk.
Alfred the Gnome at the Sphnix in Egypt. We had a private tour of the Sphnix and were able to get closer than you can with general admission tickets.
How does American Airlines Gold status compare to Platinum?
Gold status offers priority upgrades but no free main cabin extra and only one free checked bag. The mileage bonus is slightly less, and you only get oneworld Sapphire status, which gives you priority boarding but no lounge access.
Is American Airlines Platinum worth the effort?
If it’s convenient for you to fly American Airlines or another oneworld alliance airline regularly, then yes, it can be worth the effort.
Gold status was worth it for me last year for the priority boarding on other oneworld airlines, which prevented me from having to check my camera gear. It also allowed me to upgrade to business class on a 15-hour flight, which was huge. (This was only the second time I’ve flown business.) As for platinum status, I’m still unsure since I’ve only had the status for two months. It did get me into the Admiral’s Club in LAX a few weeks ago, and it’s allowed me to get main cabin extra seats with extra legroom on both American Airlines and British Airways flights for free. I can’t upgrade with miles on British Airways flights, which is a bit of a bummer.
In addition to the American Airlines credit card ($95 annual fee), I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which has a hefty fee of $550. There’s a $300/year travel credit so the fee is technically only $250, and it covers Global Entry every five years. Chase was my go-to card for earning points that I redeemed for flights and hotels. It was the card I used the most until last year when I started making my American Airlines card my go-to card. After I hit platinum, I focused on using the Chase card until the new loyalty points year started on March 1. My point is that having American Airlines status almost makes it not worth paying for other credit cards. In the next year, I’ll either downgrade the Chase card or I’ll change my airline alliance.
I’ve organized most of my travel this year to be on oneworld airlines to earn more points and also enjoy the benefits of lounge access and priority seating.
STATUS UPDATE:
As of August 2024, American Airlines Platinum status has definitely been worth it but ONLY because I organized most of my flights with American Airlines and one world airlines. First of all, it gave me access to Fast Track security in London Heathrow with British Airways, which is similar to TSA PreCheck. This was a game changer because I was through security in minutes without having to take out all my electronics. I got access to the Cathy Pacific Lounge, which is the best lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3, with my oneworld emerald status. The spacious and quiet lounge had a NOODLE BAR and free-flowing champagne. I boarded the plane a happy girl with a belly full of bao and pho. Literally, it was the best airport lounge I’ve ever visited.
The priority boarding and seating meant that I didn’t have to check my carry-on bags on British Airways flights. I was able to choose free seats with extra legroom. On my London to Austin flight in July, I was able to choose an aisle seat with a two-person row in front of me so I had no seat in front of me so I could totally stretch out!
Fast forward a couple of weeks later, I was trying to fly from Austin to Charlotte but was hit by multiple delays (10 hours of sitting in the Austin airport!). I ended up switching flights in the app and was upgraded for free to first class for the flight! This was the first time I’ve ever been upgraded domestically, which seems like a bit of a fluke related to the delays and switching flights. I have some long-haul flights to Asia coming up on American and their partner airlines in a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted on if the benefits are worth it with those!
I’m purposively flying through LA to be able to enjoy the American Airlines Admirals Club lounge because it’s one of their best ones I’ve visited. Charlotte and Austin’s Admiral’s Clubs are a bit blah. The Austin admirals club does have free pints of Electric Jellyfish, my favorite beer that’s usually $9/pint in a bar, but you have to pay (7,900 points) to access the lounge if you’re not flying internationally. I paid for the lounge with points so I could work during my 10 hour delay. It was worth it for the value.
Two weeks after I wrote the update above, I got upgraded again on a domestic flight from CLT to SFO. Then, I was approved for an upgrade on an 11-hour LAX to Tokyo flight to business class, which is paid ($350 plus 25,000 miles). My connecting flight to Bangkok was on Japan Airlines, another oneworld airline, so I got priority boarding AND Fast Track security, a total game changer. (I’ve add issues with Japan Airlines being stern about the weight of my carry-on luggage when flying from Vietnam to Tokyo, which I know thing was just the local staff at the airport. I was really concerned about this in Tokyo, but they didn’t weight my bags at all.) I had two rough and long weather-related delays so my status really helped make the flights more manageable. I’m typing this from the Cathy Pacific lounge at Narita Airport in Tokyo that I got into with my status. It’s been a quiet reprieve to get some work done, shower, eat and drink a glass of champagne.
New Changes to the American AAdvantage Program
On May 1, 2024, American Airlines is changing the program so that you can only earn loyalty points through their preferred third-party vendors. They haven’t specified who these are yet but will announce it in April. Basically, they are trying to force everyone to book through their website. If this list doesn’t include Egencia, which I am required to use for one of my jobs, then I’ll likely switch my alliance to United Airlines very quickly. The list is supposed to be announced in April.
Even if your loyalty is with another airline, they will have very similar benefits and ways to earn miles/status. I hope you find this helpful.
