American Airlines recently revamped their loyalty program for 2022 and beyond. The end result is that, for most people, AAdvantage® elite status is going to be much easier to obtain. Even though I liked the announced changes, I didn’t give much thought to actually trying to achieve elite status.

However, a series of recent events sparked my interest and I’ve decided to go for Gold — status that is! I’ll explain what led to my decision and how I intend to reach elite status, but first let’s review American Airlines’ new loyalty program.

Historically, achieving elite status required racking up a mix of Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs), Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQDs) and Elite Qualifying Segments (EQSs), earned through flying with the airline and its partners. With the new simplified program, earning elite status is tied more to spending and not necessarily distance or segments flown. Instead of EQMs, EQDs and EQSs, status is now determined by Loyalty Points.

Loyalty Points

Members earn Loyalty Points on American Airlines flights, when using AAdvantage credit cards and with AAdvantage partners.

• Base members earn 5 Loyalty Points per dollar on paid tickets with American Airlines, its Oneworld partners and JetBlue (elites earn between 7 and 11 points depending on status level)
• Credit card holders earn 1 Loyalty Point per dollar spent on AAdvantage credit cards (you won’t earn additional points for spending in bonus categories or from new card sign-up bonuses)
• Loyalty Points can also be earned by:
  • shopping online through the AAdvantage eShopping portal and from personalized SimplyMiles offers
  • dining out through the AAdvantage Dining program
  • booking vacations via American Airlines Vacations or bookaacruises.com
  • booking hotels via bookaahotels.com, Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, Marriott Vacations and Rocketmiles
  • renting cars with American Airlines Cars, Avis, Budget, Payless, Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty, Alamo, National and Sixt
  • via retails partners Shell, NRG Energy, Reliant Energy, Xoom and Miles for Opinions

As you can see, the new program really incentivizes loyalty beyond just flight activity. In fact, qualifying on flights alone is much more expensive in the new program.

New Program Calendar

AAdvantage elite status will be determined annually based on Loyalty Points earned between March 1 and February 28. The membership year, during which your status is valid, takes effect the date you qualify, or April 1 (whichever comes first) and will be valid through March 31.

Example: If you qualify for elite status on October 15, 2022, it will take effect that day and remain in effect until March 31, 2024.

Elite Status Requirements

The new elite status requirements are:

• AAdvantage Gold: 40,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Platinum: 75,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Platinum Pro: 125,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Executive Platinum: 200,000 Loyalty Points

Benefits of Gold Status

So what do I get if I achieve AAdvantage Gold elite status?

• 40% status mileage bonus
• Priority check-in and boarding
• One free checked bag
• Same-day standby priority
• Priority phone line
• Complimentary access to Preferred Seats at booking, if available
• Complimentary access to Main Cabin Extra Seats at check-in, if available
• Complimentary upgrades on American Airlines domestic and short-haul international flights, if available
• 24-hour upgrade window
• Automatic OneWorld Ruby status and additional elite benefits with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue

Earning extra miles on paid flights is nice, as is the free checked bag. However, the possibility for complimentary upgrades and access to better seats are the most exciting benefits. In the old days, those were the perks that only actual frequent flyers had acccess to. However, I now have a shot to earn that same status without having to do all the flying.

In practice, perks like the complimentary upgrades, could be hard to use given that Gold members are prioritized below all other elites. On the other hand, I’ll certainly be able to choose Preferred Seats at booking and have a decent chance at Main Cabin Extra Seats at check-in.

For information on the benefits of Platinum, Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum statuses, see the American Airlines’ status benefits page.

How I Intend to Reach Gold Status

Going into 2022, I owned the Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ and CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® cards. I didn’t use either card very much because they don’t have great bonus spending categories. For example, neither card offers bonus miles for spending on groceries or dining out, whereas the American Express Gold card earns 4x points in both categories. So for the most part, those cards sat in a drawer in my office.

That all changed, however, after a series of events got me thinking that going for elite status was completely achievable. Let’s look at these events one by one.

Citi Bonus Miles Offer

The first event was a bonus offer from Citi on my MileUp card where I could earn 5x miles on online purchases up to a maximum of 2,500 miles. I quickly gobbled up all 2,500 bonus miles. Of course those bonus miles didn’t count towards Loyalty Points, but the spending I made to earn them did.

In addition, since the spending had to be online, I started all purchases on the AAdvantage eShopping portal. Doing so earned me more Loyalty Points and started to make earning elite status seem possible.

AAdvantage eShopping

The AAdvantage eShopping site offers bonus miles for purchases made online at a variety of retailers. For example, the site might offer 5 miles per dollar spent at Nike.com. To get the bonus, you need to begin on the shopping portal and click over to Nike.com. The site records your visit, and once Nike confirms the purchase, you receive 5 miles for every dollar spent. Those bonus miles also earn Loyalty Points, so in this example a $100 purchase earns 500 Loyalty Points. Additionally, paying with an AAdvantage credit card nets another 100 Loyalty Points for a total of 600 points.

Earning 5 miles per dollar is pretty good, but there are some merchants that offer flat bonus amounts, and those can be even more lucrative. I earned 1,200 miles and Loyalty Points by subscribing to Discovery+. Make sure to read the fine print on every offer, but in this case, I only had to subscribe for one month at a total cost of $4.99. Earning 1,200 miles/Loyalty Points on a $4.99 purchase is like getting 240 miles/points per dollar!

You can even search and sort on merchants by earn rate to find ones that give you the biggest bang for your buck.

SimplyMiles

Around the same time that I received the Citi bonus miles offer, I noticed that American’s SimplyMiles had many interesting offers available. As an added bonus, many of those offers where at merchants where I intended to shop at anyways. Even better, most offers could be redeemed multiple times. I was able to earn 465 miles on an Uber ride, 465 miles on Uber Eats and 465 miles filling up my car at BP, all multiple times.

The best offer I’ve used so far was for Wine.com where I earned 1,400 miles on the purchase of 8 wines, all for $118. My MileUp card had an offer for $30 off a $100 purchase, so my net purchase was only $88, or $11 a bottle.

Simply Miles is easy to use. First you register an account and link your AAdvantage Mastercard(s), then activate your personalized offers and finally, complete your purchase using a registered card.

The best part is that all of the miles earned translate to Loyalty Points, and it’s not based on the actual spending amount. The Uber offer for 465 miles was good on any Uber ride, no matter the amount spent.

Increased Credit Card Offers

At the same time, I’d been tracking prices on an American Airlines flight I needed to book. Since I knew I’d be making a large purchase on American Airlines soon, I looked into ways to maximize the miles earned. I ran across a terrific offer on the AAdvantage Aviator Business Mastercard from Barclays. The offer was a whopping 80,000 bonus miles after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months. Plus the annual fee is waived for the first year. While the sign-up bonus doesn’t count towards Loyalty Points, the spending needed to earn it did.

Soon after earning the sign-up bonus on my new Aviator card, Citi announced an all-time best sign-up bonus of 75,000 miles on the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card after spending $3,500 in the first 3 months. Even though I had just finished earning the sign-up bonus on my Barclays card, I couldn’t resist applying for this one as well. The spending I’ll make to earn this sign-up bonus will give me more Loyalty Points.

NRG Energy

At this point, I was all in on going for Gold status and looking for a way to earn a large chunk of Loyalty Points to get me over the hump. I receive emails all the time from both American Airlines and United Airlines about earning miles from a partnership with NRG Energy. I’ve looked into these offers before but found a lot of bad feedback about NRG Energy online. So, until now, I’ve never pulled the trigger.

The deal is for 12,500 miles/Loyalty Points, which I’ll receive after completing 2 months of continuous service with NRG Energy. The complaints I found on the Internet are mainly around a “bait and switch” game that the company plays. The initial energy supply rate is less than the supply rate from your current utility, but it’s only fixed for the first 3 months. After that time, the rate is variable and can go up as much as 30%.

People who don’t read the fine print are likely surprised and obviously upset when this occurs. But I’ve read the fine print, and after 3 months, I will cancel my NRG service and return to my utility. I’ll get the Loyalty Points I’m after and won’t be burned by rising rates!

Update: After 2 months of continuous service with NRG Energy, I received the 12,500 bonus miles I was expecting. However I didn’t get any Loyalty Points! As it turns out, I missed the fine print (exactly what I was bragging about above). In reading the FAQs on the American Airlines website, it says you’ll receive Loyalty Points on “base” miles earned from eligible partners. It also states that “bonus” miles earned from special promotions will not earn Loyalty Points.

My Progress (updated monthly)

Once I’ve achieved Gold Elite status, I’ll report back on how I’ve be able to use it and whether it’s been worth it. Even if I don’t end up getting much out of having the status, at least I’ll have settled my curiosity about it.

Goal Achieved: Even without receiving any Loyalty Points from NRG Energy, I was able to achieve Gold Status in mid-September.

Category	Loyalty Points
Online Shopping (AAdvantage eShopping)	30,868
Everyday Spending	20,996
Simply Miles	12,665
Flights	3,873
Surveys (Miles for Opinions)	3,411
Partners/Dining	3,194
TOTAL	75,007

Finally, pursuing airline status was really fun for me. I thoroughly enjoyed hunting for deals and offers, especially when they aligned with my everyday spending habits. Have you ever had status with an airline? Let me know if you though it was or wasn’t worth it.