American Airlines Renewing Elite Status for Free for Some Members

A few weeks ago, American Airlines announced their “buy-back” and “boost” options for renewing and boosting up to the next tier of elite status.

According to some members, within the last day or so, American has been sending out emails offering complimentary renewal of their elite status tier, or enough to bring them to the next tier, if they’re just short of qualification.

It reminds me a bit of this famous quote from the old television show Get Smart:

There are some notes on this that should be taken into account about this offer:

• This doesn’t appear to be for anyone within range of Executive Platinum, or is at a loss of renewing Executive Platinum.
• There doesn’t appear to be a set threshold by which you need to meet in order to receive an email.

One reader on FlyerTalk was sent this email:

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We appreciate your business so much that, even though you didn’t fly quite enough to earn elite status, we would like to offer you AAdvantage® Platinum membership in recognition of your revenue contribution.

We hope you’ll enjoy the many perks of your Platinum status, recognized as oneworld® Sapphire by our partner airlines, including 100% bonus miles and a 72-hour upgrade window. Your Platinum card will arrive by mail soon. You can find more information regarding your benefits at aa.com/elitebenefits.

In the second quarter of this year, we’ll bring the Dividend Miles program into the AAdvantage program.
Learn about the combined program and your updated benefits »

Thank you for choosing American. We look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

Sincerely,
Suzanne L. Rubin
President

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Here’s where the emails are likely targeted:

• Passengers who have consistently purchase high fare tickets.
• Passengers who have attained Platinum or Gold status on points previously.
• Passengers who appear to have larger financial contribution to AA, despite not flying enough miles.

While I’ve earned Executive Platinum off of miles alone, I did earn quite a few points as well – mainly off of some good deal Business Class fares to Europe.

If you’re an AAdvantage member, and are shy the next elite tier, or a renewal of your current tier, you may be receiving a similar message in your email inbox soon.