American Airlines Allowing Top-Tier Concierge Key Members To Gift Executive Platinum Status
For most of the time I’ve held Executive Platinum status with American Airlines, it was the top status offered to members. Concierge Key was a “thing” but not an official membership level.
Concierge Key benefits were a bit vague, just like the qualification process. For the most part, it wasn’t about folks who spent a lot of money flying with American Airlines. It was more about travel influencers, folks who booked a lot of travel for others. The benefits were somewhat lukewarm. There weren’t necessarily extra miles or upgrades. There were folks who would help if you ended up with a mechanical or weather delay.
More recently, Concierge Key has been more formalized. Like United Airlines’ Global Services, the qualifications are still undefined. Suffice it to say that spending a lot of money ($50,000 a year) on your individual travel is table stakes. Anything less than that and you’re probably not getting an invitation.
Concierge Key members now get earlier access to complimentary upgrades over all other elite members. They also earn more miles for flying and get access to the new Flagship Lounges American has started opening. Oddly, they don’t get access to Flagship Dining.
Now, according to View From the Wing and JonNYC (a truly reliable source for AA info), some CK members are being told they can upgrade someone to Executive Platinum status:
The Final Two Pennies
This strikes me as an interesting development. I honestly don’t recall any time in the past 10 years where American has allowed members to give Executive Platinum status. When Maya Liebman ran the program, she talked about how they were very protective of their top-tier customers. They’ve relaxed these rules as of late, even offering status challenges to the EXP level.
2018 will be the first time in a decade that I don’t have Executive Platinum status. Given how tough domestic upgrades have gotten, I wouldn’t be thrilled with this development going forward. For now, it looks like a limited number of folks who are eligible. And, there aren’t that many Concierge Key members overall.
Still, Executive Platinum status is getting a bit less exclusive with this move.
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Your comment above, “Executive Platinum status is getting a bit less exclusive….” got me to thinking — are there any metrics to indicate how the number of AA elites in the various ranks have changed with the EQD requirement? I would have assumed there would be fewer Executive Platinums in 2017 and surely in 2018 since there is now a 12K spending requirement which, at best, can be cut in half if one has and puts a boatload of spend on a Barclay Silver Aviator card.
James, unfortunately there are no published numbers on the elite ranks. I’d love to see that data. I would expect that the total number of elites has decreased. But, the number of seats they can upgrade into has decreased as well with the number of discount F seats being sold.