American Airlines Proves Me Wrong While Knocking The Cover Off The Ball

Just last night I posted about American’s announcement about this year’s version of Elite Rewards.

I was duly excited because for the first time ever that I could recall American was going to allow elite members to qualify for Elite Rewards through miles, points or segments as opposed to just points (as has always been the case).

I figured a generally frugal American still working its way through the tail end of bankruptcy had made a big step with this promo and it was surely just ambiguity in the terms and conditions, as I’m sure they didn’t mean to also hand out 4 rewards to an existing Executive Platinum member who flew 150,000 miles this year.

I reached out to a contact at American just to be sure.

Boy, was I happy to find out I was wrong!

American has confirmed that members re-qualifying can earn in all 4 categories. That means an EXP who flew 150,000 miles and chose miles for all 4 tiers would earn a 100,000 mile bonus. Wow.

There are tons of other great configurations, especially considering they’re also giving away systemwide upgrades and Platinum status for a friend.

But, hands down, this is the best American promo I’ve seen other than Double EQMs, and I’d have to think a bit on whether this might actually be better for some than DEQMs.