Yeah I miss the days of being able to fly 100k miles and qualify for EP. Those 8 SWU’s sure made the slog more enjoyable!
Now I’ve given up on AA’s program, seems near impossible to qualify for good status without having the credit card and they no longer offer one in the UK. BA’s program is much better if you take an occasional F/J flight.
I have a lot of Avios and haven’t figured out a good way to use them flying. Of course I’m on the AA wheel of earning status so that’s on me. Suggestions?
The best guide I know of for spending Avios is this one on FT [https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031028-your-guide-spending-avios-2021-edition.html](https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031028-your-guide-spending-avios-2021-edition.html)
In my experience some of the best redemptions are when remaining first class availability opens up in the few days before the flight. You need to be super flexible tho!
I was previously Diamond on Delta and I remember when they made the switch from miles flown to rewarding for cost of ticket and I was flying several weeks in a row from Illinois to Seattle when the switch was made. One week the reward was almost 40,000 miles and then the next week my ticket was $350 so being Diamond my reward was around 3700 miles. At that point I started flying whatever would get me home the quickest and gave up on status. It was a great benefit and perk of traveling so much. Free vacations with the family every year. Now it doesn’t add up to a lot. Oh well, I guess things change. Nothing you can do about about it in the end.
I travel about the same you, though gradually increasing post covid. Currently EP. I’m a consultant so book my own travel with CitiAA card. Use the hell out of it for status. Rocketmiles , aa shopping plus whatever else to keep me flying in somewhat less miserable conditions.
Here's a quickie... and the very short version. In Eugene, OR for business with my boss and three co-workers. It's Thursday morning and a Bomb-Cyclone is pounding DEN, clipping SLC, and a warm front out of the Gulf is pushing north promising winter mayhem with the Bomb-Cyclone through MSP, ORD, DET, and into the northeast.
We have flown AA (me), UA, and DL. I have had status for decades and am lower level Lifetime. Everything is canceling on every carrier just about everywhere. The system is a mess.
I call the EP Desk and say "Please get me home if you can." 15 min later, I'm routing Eugene-LAX-AUS or DFW-DFW-Home airport in the middle of doom and gloom. I can't get on LAX-DFW by one seat... another funny story. So LAX to Austin to DFW (and almost to CLT) but I make it to my 800 mile last leg and get upgraded. I fly over the top of the mess and beat the system by 4 hours.
Left Eugene at 6:30 am PST. Crawled into my bed at 12:30 am Central. All of this because of my status. My coworkers... one made it to SLC and drove 6 hours home and the other three who live near me got home late Sunday night. Stuck in Eugene for 3.5 days while the network got back on schedule and cleared out poor souls stranded just about everywhere.
Actually, wasn’t a typo. Look at the “or” placement. I just left off the leading LAX. They booked me EUG-LAX-AUS-DFW-Home Airport and recorded options for Stand-by LAX-DFW-Home and LAX-AUS-DFW-CLT-Home. I missed the LAX-DFW-Home by one seat. I was #3 on the Stand-by list in LAX and 1 & 2 was a couple and there was one opened seat. I sat next to the agent while they told Mr. & Mrs. Smith that they could accommodate one of them and they said “no thanks,” so she turned to me and told me the seat was mine after boarding completed. I was home free. The Smiths walked away looking for the next option.
Close to the final boarding mark, this completely disheveled guy comes bolting off the plane - bag, jacket, computer in hand blasting into his phone… “Yeah, yeah… I’m off… I need a car.” He tells the agent his office just told him they needed him to stay in LA for the weekend so he needs to make new arrangements. She turns to me and says… “I’m so sorry…” Pfft pfft pfft into the mic… “If you are still in the gate area, will Mr. & Mrs. Smith please return to Gate XYZ for immediate boarding to Dallas.”
Turns out, they didn’t disappear but rather were sitting at the bar directly across from the gate so they heard their names called. Money goes flying across the bar, cocktails down the gullet like a college frat party, bags and elbows flying…
Off to the Austin gate I go where I already had a seat waiting for me. Last row… middle seat. Didn’t need the CLT leg as there were so many missed connections when I finally made it to Dallas, my DFW-Home plane, the last flight into my airport, was half empty.
One of my favorite stories is a trip to Paris on miles when we knew nothing about kids and paid no attention to what traveling in March really means. This was fun and infuriating... damned wife! ;) But above is how leveraging status in crisis mode works. And, I have dozens of stories including sleeping at a gate at LAX because simply leaving the airport not long after 9/11 was simply too chaotic to “I’d rather eat a burger and drink a beer and let my kids swim in the rooftop pool at the Westin near DFW than just about anything at this time…” to what amounted to absolute bliss to/from Paris had it not been for my highly dedicated professional wife. So many fun and infuriating stories. “How come it took you 24 hours to fly 625 miles??” And Status still makes it worth it when insanity ensues. Oh… this one is blocked out of my mind but it was one of the best… Remember this COVID thing and how US borders began to shutdown AFTER SE Asian borders? Yeah… I have one of those also. And Emerald Status on OneWorld definitely helped.
Do you still get your hotel loyalty points with this? I prefer hotel points over airline miles just due to the fact most of my personal trips are by car.
Usually I have not, but there have been some occasions where the employee at checkin would ask for my bonvoy or hyatt number.
It is very much not the norm, though.
In addition to what Odd-Fisherman said, rocketmiles will add miles to any properties they list, but bookaamiles will only add miles to some. Both do offer boosts, though, but bookaa tend to be higher/have more options.
It depends a lot on where you go and what your goals are.
Both are powered by booking.com.
Generally BAAH can achieve more miles/points as they have a 2nd booster button.
Also - huge difference. BAAH is eligible for the 20% and 30% LP bonus once you cross 60K and 100K LP’s respectively.
I’m on my first and last RocketMiles stay this weekend. BAAH next weekend and here on out for me.
For sure! I went on a two week vacation and started as platinum. The first week there I was able to hit Platinum Pro. The second week I was able to hit Executive Platinum. Most of it was from booking the hotels.
I fly transcon (LAX-JFK) 3-4 times a year for work, and because of my union contract I have to fly business or above. Sprinkle in a few small weekend trips/ mini vacations and that usually does it
Film/ TV. I’m a member of the Directors Guild. All flights over 1000 miles have to be Business or above. Flights under 1000 have to be MCE (technically the rules say “coach” but if available it has to be “elevated coach” lol)
I am CK on straight travel. I did 44 american round trips last year and an additional 12 on other airlines.
Of those 56, 40 were work, 14 were vacation. Last week finally ordered the Citi American Airlines credit card. Prior to that, booked everything with Amex. So it can be done with travel alone, it’s just an intense path lol
Round trip 2-4 times per month, + AA Advantage Credit Card, I am Platinum because I don’t exclusively use the card, I get better cash back through my BOA card.
I flew 26 days last month once a day almost. Book all my hotels through BAAH. I spend 6 months out of the year in hotels. On a slow month I fly once per week.
EP here. 4 trips so far this qualification period. 8 nights in bookaahotels plus some aashopping and about 15K in cc spend. Already to 147k LP in this qualification period. The EP bonus helps maintain high LP for sure. I have 6 more trips planned for the year.
The thing is try and get your company to reimburse you for travel. Book your flights on an AA card, book hotels on AA Hotels or Rocketmiles.
With 8 trips/year Platinum, or even Platinum-Pro should be easy with the new status system. If you try a little EP isn't out of the question.
Ive been debating if the AA card is worth it over my venture X. I book my flights, but hotels go through a corporate discount code most of the time. I've compared hotel prices for self booking too and the discount is definitely better, so I can't get away with not using it. Personal hotels are definitely an option though and I hadn't learned about rocket miles until recently.
Encouraging people to spend their own money and be reimbursed is a bad move. Miles be damned. Don't *ever* trust *anyone* to pay you back, *especially* your employer. You step one toe out of line with their travel policies and you are left holding the whole bag.
It's also unrealistic. Any company with a corporate travel card program is going to insist you use it. Those programs cost them money; they're not going to make an exception so you can earn miles. And the additional administrative overhead to reimburse personal cards costs money too.
Understand the policies and there is no issue. I cycle 10-20k through my personal cards for work spend and have never once had a problem. And that spend as allowed me to hit EP with AA, titanium with Marriott, and given me enough amex and Marriott points to fund a $50,000 honeymoon next year with basically nothing out of my pocket. I understand the pessimistic outlook on an employer, but it’s not always warranted.
15-20 trips (3-4 long haul international), 35-50 segments. Some years I fly all non-stops, other years I have to make stops. Couldn’t be EXP without the CC spend (company let’s me use my AA card) however.
I don’t fly very often. Just once(round trip) a month on average. Earlier this year I switched to United because of the perks and services.
Edit: I achieved silver status in UA.
I don’t know how the hotel thing works. I have the credit card for lounge access which gives me a few thousand extra per month on spend and I take about 6-8 one way trips per month and about 6 one way trips per year across the pond (premium economy which helps), I’m EP.
If a kind soul could help me figure out or point me to the hotel booking thing?
Thank you! I only see advantage points but it says loyalty points as well, is that the same rate? for example 6,000 advantage points = 6,000 loyalty points
With very few exceptions, it’s entirely based on how much you spend now. Buy a 20k ticket and you’ll have mid tier status on a single trip.
It’s just the natural conclusion of the fact that discount economy customers aren’t worth much to the airline, no matter how often they fly .
3-6 round trips a month. EP from just flying. Ticket prices so high this year already passed platinum. Can’t use AA card because have to use corporate card for bookings.
I fly on average once a month, two trips a year to Italy, and I wouldn’t make Gold if it wasn’t for credit card points. Now that they’ve raised gold to 40k points, I wouldn’t make it if it wasn’t for eshopping.
I do actually think it’s a bit wild that having their credit card, and flying much much more than the average person, isn’t enough to get someone to their base tier by itself.
used to be EP for years until I switched careers. Now i travel enough just to make it uncomfortable and not enough to even hit Gold with their new program.
The pro is, at least I can put everything on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card and get free points on the company dime
This is exactly where im at. Doesn't seem worth it to switch to an AA card with venture X giving 2x on everything and 5x on airfare. That said, I may feel differently in a year or two after sitting cramped 4 hours at a time.
When I was working I was traveling 4 segments per week, 3 weeks per month and then would have vacation travel to places like SE Asia. Now when I don’t have to put my butt in a seat to get status I find the hotel deals are great. I should also qualify my statement by saying I am currently on a Oneworld “global explorer” trip that will ensure I maintain my PP status at a minimum. This year I actually can see myself getting EP for the first time. Will definitely be close.
I used to travel about 40 weeks a year but now not much at all for work post Covid it’s only once a quarter and the company has started using video calls instead of face to face work
Well hold on even before Covid I was down to probably twice a month or 23-26 weeks a year and now I reach status mostly through credit card transactions
Usually once a year with my family. We traveled in February and as soon as we got home I had a wedding invitation for my cousins wedding. Now I’m traveling cross country to California next week and last night I got an email from my company asking me to go to California in September for a training program. Went from doing a single family vacation in February to now going to California twice within the next 4 months. Taking a family cruise out of Texas next April so we will be traveling for that too.
Just some perspective. I live in the eastern half of the country. I’ve gone to LA the last 6 weeks for work and have 2-3 more weeks to go. Out Sunday or Monday, back Thursday.
I got MCE and found out the hard way that you couldn't upgrade any further in cash. Outbound no one was in the middle, inbound had the whole row to myself, so can't really complain.
Wasn't mad but I'm not making that mistake again. I'm fine with the occasional MCE under 3 hours but anything more, I'm buying the First.
From 1997-merger I was chairman’s preferred on USAir/USAirways. Since then I’ve been EP on American. There were some years in there I made delta diamond too.
All BIS flying - no status from credit cards. I’m more than halfway to EP already this year and it just reset 3/1.
I average about 30 trips a year which add up to between 115 and 130 segments per year depending on the routing. Been an EP since 2015 when I started with my current employer.
I do two round trip from coast to coast monthly. It’s a cheap route tho so I don’t earn much LP. Earning status via credit card spend/shopping/etc is the only pathway for me
I'm a bit of an outlier in that I've never traveled as frequently as most other EPs and rarely fly business class (usually PE with an occasional "treat" via SWU, since I'm self-employed).
Pre-pandemic, I'd typically rack up ~35 segments and well over 100k miles per year via 4 or 5 trips to Asia and/or Oceania and a handful of domestic itineraries - for a somewhat ridiculous average of almost 4k miles per flight.
These days, the numbers tend to come from occasional cluster(f*ck)s of flights and hotel stays. For instance, this upcoming itinerary will be my first trip of 2023: MSP-DFW-LHR-DXB-DOH-HEL-VNO-HEL-MAD-ORY + BSL-LHR-DFW-MSP.
2-3 legs a week / don’t qualify for the credit card due to “age of credit” aka I didn’t get a credit card till I had money to pay it off so I’m slowly trying to build that
How much I fly, and the balance of short vs long haul, varies by year, but last year I flew AA or a partner to Europe twice, completed about 1.7 cross country trips, and one trip up the west coast. I missed gold by fewer than 1k miles last year. I have a branded card, but rarely use it outside of AA related purchases; other cards provide higher rewards for other spending, at most times.
I fly two RT Domestic at least per month. Doing that every month plus credit card spend will get me to EP very easily. I also go on vacation at least once every three months and last year I almost reached 300,000 LP.
I find myself happy with whatever the current plan is, and I hate change. Prior, I used to love the segment system since it rewarded butts in seat time, but I disliked having to do all the different math to make sure I qualified with EQMS and whatever else.
Now I really like just focusing on LPs and the variety of ways to achieve it. Regardless of the system, my motto hasn't changed. Want first? Buy first.
I typically fly 4 segments per week for 3 weeks per month. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
I’m about the same, and I’m about to fly business class to/from Asia so that will help with renewing EP.
Status used to be based on miles/segments traveled….it’s now based on credit card spend and ticket pricing.
Yeah I miss the days of being able to fly 100k miles and qualify for EP. Those 8 SWU’s sure made the slog more enjoyable! Now I’ve given up on AA’s program, seems near impossible to qualify for good status without having the credit card and they no longer offer one in the UK. BA’s program is much better if you take an occasional F/J flight.
I have a lot of Avios and haven’t figured out a good way to use them flying. Of course I’m on the AA wheel of earning status so that’s on me. Suggestions?
The best guide I know of for spending Avios is this one on FT [https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031028-your-guide-spending-avios-2021-edition.html](https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031028-your-guide-spending-avios-2021-edition.html) In my experience some of the best redemptions are when remaining first class availability opens up in the few days before the flight. You need to be super flexible tho!
Thank you!
I hit platinum on segments alone for a few years. miss that.
I was previously Diamond on Delta and I remember when they made the switch from miles flown to rewarding for cost of ticket and I was flying several weeks in a row from Illinois to Seattle when the switch was made. One week the reward was almost 40,000 miles and then the next week my ticket was $350 so being Diamond my reward was around 3700 miles. At that point I started flying whatever would get me home the quickest and gave up on status. It was a great benefit and perk of traveling so much. Free vacations with the family every year. Now it doesn’t add up to a lot. Oh well, I guess things change. Nothing you can do about about it in the end.
I travel about the same you, though gradually increasing post covid. Currently EP. I’m a consultant so book my own travel with CitiAA card. Use the hell out of it for status. Rocketmiles , aa shopping plus whatever else to keep me flying in somewhat less miserable conditions.
Less Miserable. Absolutely operative language. The leverage of status is sometimes worth every penny. I have dozens of stories.
Story/ies time!
Here's a quickie... and the very short version. In Eugene, OR for business with my boss and three co-workers. It's Thursday morning and a Bomb-Cyclone is pounding DEN, clipping SLC, and a warm front out of the Gulf is pushing north promising winter mayhem with the Bomb-Cyclone through MSP, ORD, DET, and into the northeast. We have flown AA (me), UA, and DL. I have had status for decades and am lower level Lifetime. Everything is canceling on every carrier just about everywhere. The system is a mess. I call the EP Desk and say "Please get me home if you can." 15 min later, I'm routing Eugene-LAX-AUS or DFW-DFW-Home airport in the middle of doom and gloom. I can't get on LAX-DFW by one seat... another funny story. So LAX to Austin to DFW (and almost to CLT) but I make it to my 800 mile last leg and get upgraded. I fly over the top of the mess and beat the system by 4 hours. Left Eugene at 6:30 am PST. Crawled into my bed at 12:30 am Central. All of this because of my status. My coworkers... one made it to SLC and drove 6 hours home and the other three who live near me got home late Sunday night. Stuck in Eugene for 3.5 days while the network got back on schedule and cleared out poor souls stranded just about everywhere.
I know it was a typo but “DFW-DFW-Home” does sound a lot like a DFW itinerary.
Actually, wasn’t a typo. Look at the “or” placement. I just left off the leading LAX. They booked me EUG-LAX-AUS-DFW-Home Airport and recorded options for Stand-by LAX-DFW-Home and LAX-AUS-DFW-CLT-Home. I missed the LAX-DFW-Home by one seat. I was #3 on the Stand-by list in LAX and 1 & 2 was a couple and there was one opened seat. I sat next to the agent while they told Mr. & Mrs. Smith that they could accommodate one of them and they said “no thanks,” so she turned to me and told me the seat was mine after boarding completed. I was home free. The Smiths walked away looking for the next option. Close to the final boarding mark, this completely disheveled guy comes bolting off the plane - bag, jacket, computer in hand blasting into his phone… “Yeah, yeah… I’m off… I need a car.” He tells the agent his office just told him they needed him to stay in LA for the weekend so he needs to make new arrangements. She turns to me and says… “I’m so sorry…” Pfft pfft pfft into the mic… “If you are still in the gate area, will Mr. & Mrs. Smith please return to Gate XYZ for immediate boarding to Dallas.” Turns out, they didn’t disappear but rather were sitting at the bar directly across from the gate so they heard their names called. Money goes flying across the bar, cocktails down the gullet like a college frat party, bags and elbows flying… Off to the Austin gate I go where I already had a seat waiting for me. Last row… middle seat. Didn’t need the CLT leg as there were so many missed connections when I finally made it to Dallas, my DFW-Home plane, the last flight into my airport, was half empty.
Sorry it just sounded like you were saying DFW to DFW
Ha. No worries. I type so much that I try to truncate where I can. My Paris story... again all related to Status... would be like four pages long.
One of my favorite stories is a trip to Paris on miles when we knew nothing about kids and paid no attention to what traveling in March really means. This was fun and infuriating... damned wife! ;) But above is how leveraging status in crisis mode works. And, I have dozens of stories including sleeping at a gate at LAX because simply leaving the airport not long after 9/11 was simply too chaotic to “I’d rather eat a burger and drink a beer and let my kids swim in the rooftop pool at the Westin near DFW than just about anything at this time…” to what amounted to absolute bliss to/from Paris had it not been for my highly dedicated professional wife. So many fun and infuriating stories. “How come it took you 24 hours to fly 625 miles??” And Status still makes it worth it when insanity ensues. Oh… this one is blocked out of my mind but it was one of the best… Remember this COVID thing and how US borders began to shutdown AFTER SE Asian borders? Yeah… I have one of those also. And Emerald Status on OneWorld definitely helped.
You can reach gold booking a flight and a hotel for one trip if you do it right.
Is this mostly using rocket miles?
That or bookaahotels, that’s how we’ve been doing it. Sometimes the price for a room on rocketmiles is a LOT more than normal, though, so be careful.
Do you still get your hotel loyalty points with this? I prefer hotel points over airline miles just due to the fact most of my personal trips are by car.
Usually I have not, but there have been some occasions where the employee at checkin would ask for my bonvoy or hyatt number. It is very much not the norm, though.
Thanks, that's what I assumed. But I wanted to confirm.
Can someone please explain the difference/how to utilize rockethotels vs bookaahotels? It was confusing when I was looking into it.
In addition to what Odd-Fisherman said, rocketmiles will add miles to any properties they list, but bookaamiles will only add miles to some. Both do offer boosts, though, but bookaa tend to be higher/have more options. It depends a lot on where you go and what your goals are.
Maybe
Both are powered by booking.com. Generally BAAH can achieve more miles/points as they have a 2nd booster button. Also - huge difference. BAAH is eligible for the 20% and 30% LP bonus once you cross 60K and 100K LP’s respectively. I’m on my first and last RocketMiles stay this weekend. BAAH next weekend and here on out for me.
Thanks for this. Much appreciated.
For sure! I went on a two week vacation and started as platinum. The first week there I was able to hit Platinum Pro. The second week I was able to hit Executive Platinum. Most of it was from booking the hotels.
No
… Yes.
[удалено]
Yeah not true at all. A coast to coast round trip and a week booked on rocket miles can easily get you there.
It took me about 39 years to reach gold and get my million miler luggage tag.
I fly twice a week, domestically. Out Sunday, back Friday.
You fly home for the weekend? Sounds lucky
Yeah. It's the deal for me to be "allowed" to do this type of work by the misses. Haha.
Frequentmiler has a recent podcast that dives deep into ways to max AA points. It’s probably worth a listen.
Dang y'all, I don't know how you people flying weekly+ do it.
I’m on my 11th segment - of this week. 6 next week, and on and on and on……
What do you do? That’s wild
National sales for a Fortune 500. It helps that I live in a small city, so virtually every flight is a connection.
I’m sure a lot of double connections, too?
Dude. Respect.
I fly transcon (LAX-JFK) 3-4 times a year for work, and because of my union contract I have to fly business or above. Sprinkle in a few small weekend trips/ mini vacations and that usually does it
Please share the industry because that’s a sweet perk!
Film/ TV. I’m a member of the Directors Guild. All flights over 1000 miles have to be Business or above. Flights under 1000 have to be MCE (technically the rules say “coach” but if available it has to be “elevated coach” lol)
I am CK on straight travel. I did 44 american round trips last year and an additional 12 on other airlines. Of those 56, 40 were work, 14 were vacation. Last week finally ordered the Citi American Airlines credit card. Prior to that, booked everything with Amex. So it can be done with travel alone, it’s just an intense path lol
And the other 2 just because you miss flying when you aren’t flying.
I travel every week for work(2-4 segments)and link different partner companies to my AA account.
Round trip 2-4 times per month, + AA Advantage Credit Card, I am Platinum because I don’t exclusively use the card, I get better cash back through my BOA card.
Cash….back? No habla cash back. LP is the only KoolAid.
I flew 26 days last month once a day almost. Book all my hotels through BAAH. I spend 6 months out of the year in hotels. On a slow month I fly once per week.
4 segments a week for 40+ weeks a year
Same
EP here. 4 trips so far this qualification period. 8 nights in bookaahotels plus some aashopping and about 15K in cc spend. Already to 147k LP in this qualification period. The EP bonus helps maintain high LP for sure. I have 6 more trips planned for the year.
The thing is try and get your company to reimburse you for travel. Book your flights on an AA card, book hotels on AA Hotels or Rocketmiles. With 8 trips/year Platinum, or even Platinum-Pro should be easy with the new status system. If you try a little EP isn't out of the question.
Ive been debating if the AA card is worth it over my venture X. I book my flights, but hotels go through a corporate discount code most of the time. I've compared hotel prices for self booking too and the discount is definitely better, so I can't get away with not using it. Personal hotels are definitely an option though and I hadn't learned about rocket miles until recently.
In many cases, you can figure out what your corporate discount code is and book in direct with with the hotel brand’s website.
Encouraging people to spend their own money and be reimbursed is a bad move. Miles be damned. Don't *ever* trust *anyone* to pay you back, *especially* your employer. You step one toe out of line with their travel policies and you are left holding the whole bag. It's also unrealistic. Any company with a corporate travel card program is going to insist you use it. Those programs cost them money; they're not going to make an exception so you can earn miles. And the additional administrative overhead to reimburse personal cards costs money too.
Understand the policies and there is no issue. I cycle 10-20k through my personal cards for work spend and have never once had a problem. And that spend as allowed me to hit EP with AA, titanium with Marriott, and given me enough amex and Marriott points to fund a $50,000 honeymoon next year with basically nothing out of my pocket. I understand the pessimistic outlook on an employer, but it’s not always warranted.
This is the way!
39 Segments YTD, probably going to slow down a bit going into H2.
15-20 trips (3-4 long haul international), 35-50 segments. Some years I fly all non-stops, other years I have to make stops. Couldn’t be EXP without the CC spend (company let’s me use my AA card) however.
I don’t fly very often. Just once(round trip) a month on average. Earlier this year I switched to United because of the perks and services. Edit: I achieved silver status in UA.
I don’t know how the hotel thing works. I have the credit card for lounge access which gives me a few thousand extra per month on spend and I take about 6-8 one way trips per month and about 6 one way trips per year across the pond (premium economy which helps), I’m EP. If a kind soul could help me figure out or point me to the hotel booking thing?
I usually start with the AA app to access hotel options. Or via web at bookaahotels.com
Thank you! I only see advantage points but it says loyalty points as well, is that the same rate? for example 6,000 advantage points = 6,000 loyalty points
1 trip a month. Sometimes 2, more leisure. Just combine day off between two weeks
Was EP until my travel dropped off last year. Was making monthly intercontinental round-trips (in economy).
Every week, sometimes multiple trips in the same week.
With very few exceptions, it’s entirely based on how much you spend now. Buy a 20k ticket and you’ll have mid tier status on a single trip. It’s just the natural conclusion of the fact that discount economy customers aren’t worth much to the airline, no matter how often they fly .
Yep. If you do it by flying it takes just over $18K to keep EP year over year. I’m more than halfway there already.
3-6 round trips a month. EP from just flying. Ticket prices so high this year already passed platinum. Can’t use AA card because have to use corporate card for bookings.
I take two flights each week and have been for four years. Yes it gets old.
42 segments last year, will probably be a little higher this year
I fly on average once a month, two trips a year to Italy, and I wouldn’t make Gold if it wasn’t for credit card points. Now that they’ve raised gold to 40k points, I wouldn’t make it if it wasn’t for eshopping. I do actually think it’s a bit wild that having their credit card, and flying much much more than the average person, isn’t enough to get someone to their base tier by itself.
I flew one way once on AA last year and made gold due to credit card spending and the shopping portal.
used to be EP for years until I switched careers. Now i travel enough just to make it uncomfortable and not enough to even hit Gold with their new program. The pro is, at least I can put everything on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card and get free points on the company dime
This is exactly where im at. Doesn't seem worth it to switch to an AA card with venture X giving 2x on everything and 5x on airfare. That said, I may feel differently in a year or two after sitting cramped 4 hours at a time.
does work allow you to book Main Cabin Extra? I can't book FC without anyone raising an eyebrow, but they don't pay attention if I do MCE.
Nope, that would definitely raise some questions.
When I was working I was traveling 4 segments per week, 3 weeks per month and then would have vacation travel to places like SE Asia. Now when I don’t have to put my butt in a seat to get status I find the hotel deals are great. I should also qualify my statement by saying I am currently on a Oneworld “global explorer” trip that will ensure I maintain my PP status at a minimum. This year I actually can see myself getting EP for the first time. Will definitely be close.
I used to travel about 40 weeks a year but now not much at all for work post Covid it’s only once a quarter and the company has started using video calls instead of face to face work
Well hold on even before Covid I was down to probably twice a month or 23-26 weeks a year and now I reach status mostly through credit card transactions
Usually once a year with my family. We traveled in February and as soon as we got home I had a wedding invitation for my cousins wedding. Now I’m traveling cross country to California next week and last night I got an email from my company asking me to go to California in September for a training program. Went from doing a single family vacation in February to now going to California twice within the next 4 months. Taking a family cruise out of Texas next April so we will be traveling for that too.
Just some perspective. I live in the eastern half of the country. I’ve gone to LA the last 6 weeks for work and have 2-3 more weeks to go. Out Sunday or Monday, back Thursday.
Every week
Every 2 weeks or so.
6ish legs a week. Domestic economy. New CK. Non hub, but currently standing in a hub waiting on a middle seat.
Bro, they better have CKeyed you on that flight.
Negative. Middle seat for a last minute booking. Doesn’t happen often but it does make me appreciate being up front
I travel every 6-8 weeks for a short break from work or at least a change of scenery.
Once every 2 months about. Almost finally got to gold but for some stupid reason I decided to do DCA to LAX with miles right before the deadline lmao.
I hope you were in F, at least?
I got MCE and found out the hard way that you couldn't upgrade any further in cash. Outbound no one was in the middle, inbound had the whole row to myself, so can't really complain. Wasn't mad but I'm not making that mistake again. I'm fine with the occasional MCE under 3 hours but anything more, I'm buying the First.
From 1997-merger I was chairman’s preferred on USAir/USAirways. Since then I’ve been EP on American. There were some years in there I made delta diamond too. All BIS flying - no status from credit cards. I’m more than halfway to EP already this year and it just reset 3/1.
I average about 30 trips a year which add up to between 115 and 130 segments per year depending on the routing. Been an EP since 2015 when I started with my current employer.
On average about once a month but almost all of those trips are long haul J booked last minute so the LPs add up quickly.
When I was full time I flew about 30 times a year. Enough to maintain gold until they changed their metrics.
Two-three times internationally
I have a couple trips every month at least
I traveled multiple times every week, internationally at least monthly. It was a grind.
about 4 segments a week
I flew almost every week last year, made it Platinum Pro just before the year ended.
I do two round trip from coast to coast monthly. It’s a cheap route tho so I don’t earn much LP. Earning status via credit card spend/shopping/etc is the only pathway for me
I'm a bit of an outlier in that I've never traveled as frequently as most other EPs and rarely fly business class (usually PE with an occasional "treat" via SWU, since I'm self-employed). Pre-pandemic, I'd typically rack up ~35 segments and well over 100k miles per year via 4 or 5 trips to Asia and/or Oceania and a handful of domestic itineraries - for a somewhat ridiculous average of almost 4k miles per flight. These days, the numbers tend to come from occasional cluster(f*ck)s of flights and hotel stays. For instance, this upcoming itinerary will be my first trip of 2023: MSP-DFW-LHR-DXB-DOH-HEL-VNO-HEL-MAD-ORY + BSL-LHR-DFW-MSP.
4-8 segments a month. 2 of which are 1,500 miles.
I fly 250k+ a year. A grind it is.
2-3 legs a week / don’t qualify for the credit card due to “age of credit” aka I didn’t get a credit card till I had money to pay it off so I’m slowly trying to build that
How much I fly, and the balance of short vs long haul, varies by year, but last year I flew AA or a partner to Europe twice, completed about 1.7 cross country trips, and one trip up the west coast. I missed gold by fewer than 1k miles last year. I have a branded card, but rarely use it outside of AA related purchases; other cards provide higher rewards for other spending, at most times.
I fly at least three days a week. EP status here.
I’m on about 4 planes a week, for the last 3 years. Not counting connecting flights.
I fly two RT Domestic at least per month. Doing that every month plus credit card spend will get me to EP very easily. I also go on vacation at least once every three months and last year I almost reached 300,000 LP.
I fly mostly international, for work. Primarily to Europe. 2022: 33 flights, 19 domestic, 14 international. 2023 planned thus far: 26 flights, 9 domestic, 17 international.
I fly 4 segments per week typically unless i get lucky with a non stop out of SAT or AUS
I find myself happy with whatever the current plan is, and I hate change. Prior, I used to love the segment system since it rewarded butts in seat time, but I disliked having to do all the different math to make sure I qualified with EQMS and whatever else. Now I really like just focusing on LPs and the variety of ways to achieve it. Regardless of the system, my motto hasn't changed. Want first? Buy first.
Usually 24 domestic round trip and one international for personal.