American Airlines is the last holdout of the legacy carriers that still hasn’t announced any relief effort for their AAdvantage Elite members for the current and coming membership year.
Pretty much all competitors have now published a complimentary elite status extension policy for their customers but so far it’s been crickets from American.
We’ve been monitoring all loyalty programs and kept our readers up to date whenever a new program announced the complimentary extension which most of them did by now.
For example:
American has been noticeably silent though and as of now no information about status is included on their COVID-19 related site.
People aren’t very patient when their airline of choice is the only one that still hasn’t come out with any relief policy and the related comments on social media isn’t all too kind to say the least.
The only reaction to the topic of Elite extensions was a video with AA’s Sr. VP of Customer Experience American Airlines released last month where the matter was briefly touched upon.
That was three weeks ago though and since then their entire competition has reacted. So why hasn’t American?
One possibility is that they are still doing some modeling how the blanket status extension for all members would likely impact business. The argument against this would be that all other carriers have already given their members a free extension so the optics would be really bad if AA decides to abstain from offering something similar. Customers would feel cheated and not valued, resulting in an avalanche of complaints and likely lost business in the future.
Personally I don’t think they have a choice but eventually do the right thing and extend everybodies status and certificates. The airline industry especially in North America basically just copies each other in terms of program structures.
Conclusion
Just like in the case of Marriott who was also the very last hotel company to announce their extension I believe that American isn’t doing themselves any favors by dragging this out. Get it out of the way and let members plus their own departments breathe, focusing on more important things.
Readers have also asked about the implication of a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on their miles and status. In previous bankruptcies the mileage programs remained untouched and in fact the programs nowadays are extremely profitable so it would be unwise to do away with them. Customers wouldn’t forgive that. The only instance where I can remember this happening was Ansett Australia. However part of participating in the U.S. governments “bailout/stimulus plan” is that the airlines aren’t allowed to file for Chapter 11 so I’d say it’s unlikely that this is on the horizon this time.
Yes, still patiently waiting for American to extend status, keeping my fingers crossed. One thing they could be thinking is that if they don’t extend status they could do an offer to charge people to keep their status. However when all the other legacy carriers are extending status and American starts charging people this will piss off a lot of status members. I am sure people that live in places where there are other airline options will take their business away from American Airlines. Not a smart idea IMO, but I am just one FF member out of millions. I am definitely taking a hit because I had to cancel two major trips, with one of them being a European vacation that would have earned me a ton of miles and at least got me to Platinum status. Also, my credit card spending is down so I don’t think I will get the boost of miles or hotel credits to help me.
We dont care about your tons of miles
Hey you don’t have to be so negative about it. People that do fly and have loyalty to an airline care about these things. It is the perks of status more then the amount of miles. However, you need the miles to qualify for status so don’t blame me for the airline requiring lot of miles.
I’m not sure if Harold adams is a real person, or a bored person just trying to be pertinent to the discussion. I have received multiple emails from American all saying status has been extended. Have you got any yet? I think that they didn’t make a statement to the world is what has people up in arms. They are talking to their customers and that is what matters 🙂
Yes, I did get the email about status being extended. In the email it also informed me that the requirements of both EQD and EQM has been lowered to be able to achieve status at each level. Also, the perk that I like is that if you have a co-branded credit card every dollar that you charge from May – December will count toward your million miler balance. This is something that American did away with many years ago when they changed the program. It is very difficult for status members today to get to Lifetime Gold or Lifetime Platinum since they made this change. Only the base miles that you fly count toward your million miler balance.
If they screw this up, I’m definitely switching to another airline. My company prefers Delta and for my routes, Delta offers better schedules. I’m sick and tired of the penny pinching by AA.
I’m Gold with American and my status has already been extended to 2022.
We dont care gold LOL that a bunch of balls will get you nothing
Still waiting for Air France and KLM to show a token of appreciation for their frequent flyers but so far…..nothing
Same with KLM and Air France…still waiting for a token of appreciation for their frequent flyers! Actually, I think they don’t care so much about them
Just playing devil’s advocate here, because I do want the status extension, but the opposite side of that is if they don’t do an extension then it will force those still flying later this year to remain loyal to AA if they want to keep status. The competitors don’t have that hanging carrot to lure their elites back this year, giving them chance to try competitors and maybe even move to another program altogether.
The bulk of my long haul travel is late in the year anyway, so I’m not stressed, I’ll easily make EXP again regardless… having said that with an extension and UA doing 50% PQPs, I may go for another year of UA 1K too… I’m exactly the kind of customer that AA is trying to hold on to. They only way they could do a blanket extension and retain people like me is to do the same as AC, allow me to gift my status to my spouse if I requalify for EXP in the normal time.
British airways hasn’t given anything as well actually. 30% lower requirements but only for those whose status year ends until june. Lol! At least March, April, May will be lost, how does that not affect those whose status is expiring after June. I was actually already affected and had to skip legs of my original C itinerary in march, because of the travel restrictions, so lost the TPs for that.
I’ve already signed up for an Star Alliance status match. Fuck BA if they won’t come up with something real.