lazecraze53 asked in a recent comment,
“I have been Gold on AAdvantage numerous times, how did you become a lifetime member ? And if you become a lifetime member could you move up to Platinum?”
There are 3 published levels of elite status on AA:
Gold-Requires 25,000 flight miles or 30 flight segments in a calendar year.
Platinum-Requires 50,000 flight miles or 60 flight segments in a calendar year.
Executive Platinum-Requires 100,000 flight miles or 100 flight segments in a calendar year.
Executive Platinum is generally regarded as the best elite published elite status of any domestic carrier, and is generally not attainable by any method except flying 100,000 miles or 100 flight segments.
AA has a few undocumented ways of attaining Gold and Platinum elite status.
One undocumented method of attaining elite status is via AA’s “challenge” by which you can attain Gold or Platinum elite status by flying as little as 5,000 Q-points in 90 days. I wrote about the challenge and Q-points 2 years ago, so there’s no reason to cover that topic again.
Another undocumented method: When you earn 1,000,000 AA miles you earn lifetime Gold elite status. In addition you also get 8 500-mile domestic upgrade stickers if you live in North America, or 4 one-way international upgrades certificates if you live outside North America.
When you earn 2,000,000 AA miles you earn lifetime Platinum elite status. In addition you also get 4 one-way international upgrades regardless of where you live.
AA is the only airline in the world that counts all miles towards million miler/lifetime elite status! Every other airline only counts actual “BIS” flight miles to attain lifetime elite status.
As the lifetime program is completely undocumented, it is liable to change at any time. There have been rumors for some time now that AA wants to go to actual flight miles for lifetime status, but lacks the technology to go back and see how every member actually earned their miles.
For now all miles earned, whether by flying, opening credit cards, or transfers from Starwood, count towards lifetime status. Even if you spend miles, your lifetime counter does not decrease.
You can check your own progress towards lifetime status on AA.com.
It took AA about 3 months to send me my million miler package:
dan thanks for the information, can you post how you became avis chairmans club?
and does continental have a challenge program too?
how would you recommend getting those million miles quickly?
spending 1m$ or jsut fly
the world
Dan I am platinum for life with AA with over 6M miles to date. Sorry but I beat you by a few. I have over 500K starwood points to date,and over 300K Continental miles to date,and 25K Amtrak miles. I just called Continental for a status match, Thank you, that worked. Where else can I do that.
Nice, what status did CO give you?
Most US airlines give status matches.
over the phone they told me gold. I sent in a copy of my card asking for platinum.
Thanks for answering my question !!!
Hey DAN, CAN YOU PLEASE DO A BREAKDOWN OF THE BEST AIRLINES CREDIT CARDS.
I REALLY LIKE AMERICAN AIRLINES CREDIT CARDS NOW THAT I KNOW THAT ALL CREDITS WILL APPLY TO A LIFETIME MILE CATEGORY.
THAT SAID, I AM GOLD STATUS EQUIVALENT ON DELTA AND UNITED- WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE BEST CREDIT CARDS FOR AMERICAN AIRLINES(1) UNITED AIRLINES(2) AND DELTA(3)
I HAVE REALLY LOST ALL RESPECT FOR DELTA AIRLINES. THEYRE MILES ARE WORTHLESS AND AND REALLY LOVE UNITED AND AMERICAN.
CAN YOU PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ME WHICH CREDIT CARDS ARE THE BEST LONG TERM FOR AMERICAN AND UNITED AIRLINES. NOW THAT I KNOW, THAT CREDIT CARD POINTS ADD TO LIFETIME MILES I WILL PROBABLY TRY TO MATCH STATUS ON AMERICAN AIRLINES AND THAT WILL BE MY AIRLINE OF CHOICE.
ESPECIALLY SINCE MY MOST OF MY PRIMARY CITIES(MIA, NYC, CHICAGO, ATL, SAN JUAN,DALLAS, LA)ARE AMERICAN HUBS
Do you know why they waited to march to send you the status? Is’ent that their cut off date or somthing?
As well, is there a way to change a local address international? 4 System wide upgrades are much better than 500 mile upgrades.
Does AA give anything for reaching 3000000 lifetime miles?
no, 2,000,000 max at plat is all you can get. You can’t even get lifetime exec plat for 10,000,000 miles.
you gotta fly to get exec plat..
Is the CO match an annual match ( in which case you can redo every year ? ) or lifetime match ? Any update on whether AA is going to convert to just flown miles at some point ?
@ROB:
A status match is once in a lifetime.
Dan,
Benefit for being lifetime gold – new tags and 8 * 500 free upgrade on published fare tickets and not award tickets. Other than that, is there any other benefits to being gold? Thanks!
Jane
no late booking charges
I just lost status with aa (I was platinum), I was just missing couple hundred miles to reach gold, is their a way to go around that