Travel China and Beyond

Fast Track to Elite Status in Frequent Flyer Programs

American Airlines has an unadvertised feature of its frequent flyer program whereby a customer can attain Gold or Platinum status by flying a greatly reduced number of miles–as long as they inform American Airlines beforehand of their intentions and they complete the flights within a three month period.  To attain Gold status, you only need to fly 5000 miles and Platinum status only takes 10,000.  This is a great deal fewer than the 25,000 and 50,000 miles respectively that are required for normal qualification for these statuses.

So how do you do it?  Just call American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer program (1-800-882-8880) and tell the representative that you are speaking with that you would like to enroll in the Gold Challenge or the Platinum Challenge. (I’m not sure if you need to sign up with AAdvantage first–that might be a good idea).  If the representative says that there is no such thing, call back and speak to someone else.  (I’ve never had trouble asking American Airlines representatives about the Gold and Platinum challenges, but I’ve heard that some people have.)  If you think that you won’t be able to attain enough miles to make the Platinum Challenge, go for Gold–otherwise, you should try for Platinum because it has much better benefits.  One catch is that only American Airlines miles count toward the Gold/Platinum challenge–you can’t use miles from their airline partners to qualify.

Can you do the challenge more than once?  Yes, but only if you have legitimately achieved the status you want to re-take the challenge for in-between Challenge attempts.  For example, if you take the Platinum challenge and attain Platinum status by flying the requisite 10,000 miles within 3 months and then you re-qualify for Platinum in a subsequent year in the standard, non-challenge way, if you then lose your Platinum status after that, you can re-take the challenge.  Otherwise, you can’t.  Successive challenges without legitimately acquired elite status in between them are not allowed.

How else can you get elite status?  Well, once you have gotten elite status with one frequent flyer program, you can ask for a ‘elite status match’ from another frequent flyer program and they very may well give it to you.  Typically, all you need to do is to call the airline in question and ask them what you need to do to get an elite status match.  They should give you a number to fax your documentation to and tell you exactly what you need to send in.  You typically need to send them your most recent statement from the frequent flyer program that you currently have elite status with. It is a great way to get elite fast, but you have to be elite in one frequent flyer program already in order to make this nifty trick work.

The nice thing about elite status is that due to mileage bonuses, once you have attained elite status (by whatever means), it is much easier to re-qualify for it.  So, the next time you are considering a faraway trip, consider taking advantage of the AAdvantage challenge!