AAdvantage: Everything you need to know in 2024

To American, selling the AAirpass was like giving itself a high-interest payday loan–it gave the airline a much-needed cash infusion, but predictably, caused bigger problems in the long term. In 2007, AA calculated that each AAirpass holder was costing them up to $1 million per year. 

Needless to say, the AAirpass debacle taught American Airlines to dial back its loyalty rewards.Thankfully, the modern descendant of the AAirpass–the AAdvantage program–is still highly generous with perks, bonuses and milestones. You won’t get free First Class for life, but you can still score free flights, bags, upgrades, and more if you understand the system. 

So let’s cover everything you need to know about AAdvantage. 

What is AAdvantage? 

AAdvantage is American Airlines’ loyalty rewards program. It’s free to join, and as a base member you’ll instantly start earning five AAdvantage miles for every dollar spent with AA (minus taxes and fees). You can also rack up miles by shopping with AA’s retail partners or by using a Citi AAdvantage credit card (see our list of the Best AA Credit Cards). 

Once you’ve amassed enough points you can redeem them for flights, upgrades, lounge passes, retail spending and more. 

As you spend with AA you’ll also earn another currency called Loyalty Points, which count towards your next status tier (e.g. Gold, Platinum). In between status tiers you’ll also earn Loyalty Point Rewards at certain milestones (e.g. Group 5 Boarding at 15,000 Loyalty Points). 

That’s the basic gist of the program–now let’s dive into the details. 

AAdvantage: Pros and cons in 2024

AAdvantage Miles Explained

AAdvantage miles are the primary “currency” of the AAdvantage loyalty program. At a high level (pun intended), you’ll earn miles by booking flights directly with AA and its partners, shopping with the airline’s retail partners or by using a Citi AAdvantage rewards card. 

Then, you can redeem your miles for anything ranging from a flight to a seat upgrade to a shopping spree. You can even redeem miles for AA’s Five Star Select service, which adds a car service, a personal escort to the Admirals Club and more. 

Here’s how it all works. 

How to earn AAdvantage miles

American Airlines gives you ten total ways to earn AAdvantage miles: 

• Book flights with American or one of its 25 airline partners (see the complete list below). As a base member, you’ll earn 5X per dollar spent–and the rate rises up to 11X once you reach higher status with AA. 
• Book hotels with AAdvantage Hotels, Hyatt, Marriott or IHG. 
• Rent cars with Avis or Budget
• Book vacations or cruises through American Airlines. 
• Use your Citi / AAdvantage or Barclay/AAdvantage credit card and earn up to 4X on American Airlines purchases (see complete list below). 
• Take advantage of partner offers with various retail partners like Blue Apron and Under Armour. 
• Shop online through American Airlines’ eShopping portal
• Dine with AA restaurant partners which seem to be plentiful in most major U.S. cities. You can search by zip code here.
• Spend through SimplyMiles, which allows you to link any Mastercard to your AAdvantage account and earn a few extra miles by spending with big retailers like Amazon, Target and Best Buy. 
• Donate to Stand Up to Cancer and earn 10X on donations of $25+. 

For the most part, you’ll probably earn the bulk of your miles either booking with AA or by using your Citi / AAdvantage credit card. So before we move on, let’s talk about those cards for a bit. 

Which rewards cards generate AAdvantage miles? 

As of this writing there are four personal credit cards you can use to earn AAdvantage miles at a much faster rate: 

There’s also a business credit card, the CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select Mastercard, that you might consider if you primarily fly AA for work.  

But for personal use, we recommend the non-work, jeans-wearing variant: the regular Platinum Select. With a steep welcome bonus, free bags and solid rewards it essentially augments your entire AA experience–and helps you earn free flights much faster .

In any case, once you’ve built up a nice pile of AA miles, what can you spend it on? 

How to redeem AAdvantage miles

American Airlines offers eight ways to redeem your hard-earned miles: 

• Flights on AA, AA partner airlines or Oneworld alliance airlines (25 total)
• Upgrades
• Main Cabin seat reservations
• Admirals Club membership fees
• Cars, hotels and other vacation bookings made through AA
• Five Star and Five Star Select service at the airport which includes car service, lounge access and other forms of pampering. Must already have a first or business class ticket.  
• Mastercard Priceless Experiences
• Mile donations to partner charities

That’s a nice long menu of options, but again, you’re probably going to spend most of them on flights and upgrades. You’ll tend to get maximum value that way, too; various estimates pin the value of a single AAdvantage mile to between 1.5 and 1.8 cents when redeemed for flights, meaning they’re some of the most valuable airline miles in the industry.  

To put that valuation into context, reward flights start at just 7,500 miles for one-way domestic, and just 10,000 for one way jaunts to the Caribbean. That means your welcome bonus with the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card could easily get you to San Juan and back–and with plenty of miles to spare. 

Anyways, before we get distracted by thoughts of warm beaches and mojitos, let’s cover everything you need to know about AA’s approach to status.

AAdvantage Status Explained

American Airlines does status a little bit differently than its competitors. Sure, you’ll find the usual tiers named after shiny metals (e.g. Gold and Platinum) but you’ll also unlock bonus perks once you reach certain milestones called Loyalty Point Rewards. 

By combining tiers and Loyalty Point Rewards, AA has devised a program that has a bit more to look forward to than many of its competitors. Here’s how it all works. 

How to earn AAdvantage status

You’ll earn both AAdvantage status and Loyalty Rewards by accumulating enough Loyalty Points. 

In a very general sense, you’ll earn one Loyalty Point for every *qualifying* AAdvantage mile you earn. Qualifying AAdvantage miles include the ones you earn from: 

• Purchasing tickets with AA (including Basic Economy) and its partner airlines
• Shopping with AA retail partners (e.g. eShopping, AAdvantage dining)
• Using your Citi or Barclays credit card, minus welcome bonuses and multipliers
• Renting with Avis and Budget

You won’t earn Loyalty Points from the following, though: 

• Bonus miles from special promotions
• Miles from Buy/Gift/Transfer transactions
• Anything that isn’t part of the base fare of a ticket (e.g. government taxes and fees)
• Converting another program’s points to AAdvantage miles
• As mentioned, any welcome bonuses or spend bonuses from Citi or Barclays / AA credit cards

In essence, you’ll almost definitely be earning Loyalty Points at a far slower rate than vanilla AAdvantage miles. Case in point, the welcome bonus you’ll get with your Citi AAdvantage rewards card (ranging from 15,000 to 75,000 miles, depending on the card), will account for a grand total of 0 Loyalty Points. 

Instead, you’ll be earning Loyalty Points almost exclusively through booking AA flights. But before we discuss whether it’s worth the effort and spending requirement, let’s look at what you have in store. 

AAdvantage status tiers explained

One of the “drawbacks” of the AAdvantage status tier system is that there are simply way too many perks, tiers and Loyalty Point rewards to list out here. To their credit, American does a solid job of organizing everything into two pages: one for Loyalty Point Rewards and one for Status benefits. 

But to give you a quick overview, here are all of the rewards waiting for you at the first five milestones: 

• 15,000 – Loyalty Point Reward #1
  • Choice of 1,000 Loyalty Points, Priority privileges and Group 4 boarding for one trip or five Preferred Seat coupons
• 40,000 – AAdvantage Gold
  • Complimentary upgrades on AA and Alaska Airlines flights
  • 24-hour upgrade window
  • 40% bonus on AAdvantage miles earned
  • Complimentary Main Cabin Extra Seats at check-in
  • Complimentary Preferred Seats
  • 1 free checked bag
• 60,000 – Loyalty Point Reward #2
  • Choice of Avis Preferred Plus or 20% Loyalty Point bonus when you spend with select partners within the next six months
• 75,000 – AAdvantage Platinum
  • Complimentary upgrades on American and Alaska Airlines*
  • 48-hour upgrade window
  • 60% status mileage bonus
  • Complimentary Main Cabin Extra and Preferred Seats*
  • 2 free checked bags^
• 100,000 – Loyalty Point Reward #3
  • Choice of Avis President’s Club status or 30% Loyalty Point bonus when you spend with select partners within the next six months
• 125,000 – AAdvantage Platinum Pro
• 175,000 – Loyalty Point Reward #4
• 200,000 – AAdvantage Executive Platinum
• 250,000 to 5,000,000 – Loyalty Point Rewards 5 through 12

Now let’s touch on what you’d have to spend to get there. 

Since you’ll earn 5X on AA flights as a base member, you’d theoretically have to spend $8,000 in basic ticket prices only to reach AAdvantage Gold status. Add back in government fees and taxes and you’re looking at spending upwards of $10,000+. 

Granted, if you use a Citi AAdvantage credit card you can easily increase your earnings rate to 7X on flights, lowering the amount you’d need to spend to reach Gold to around $5,700 (in base fares). 

But that is still quite a chunk of change to spend just to earn the lowest status tier with the airline. 

Is it worth it? 

Is it worth the effort to attain AAdvantage status? 

Well, let’s recap what you get for Gold: 

• Free bags
• Free upgrades
• An earnings multiplier (40%)

Hmm… these look suspiciously like the benefits you’d get with the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card, which include: 

• Free bags
• Preferred boarding
• 2X on gas, dining and AA purchases (7X total combined with 5X for being a base member)
• 1X on all other purchases

What we’re not-so-subtly implying here is that you can always spend around $10,000 on AA flights to earn Gold status–sure–but you can earn a lot of the same benefits by simply applying for a credit card with a $99 annual fee (provided you have the 670+ required FICO score). 

Sure, the card doesn’t offer complimentary seat upgrades–but if you don’t mind squeezing in coach, using a Citi AAdvantage rewards card provides a massive, money-saving shortcut to many of the best benefits on the status ladder. 

Last but not least, let’s fulfill an earlier promise by sharing the complete list of AA partners that you can earn (and spend) miles with: 

AA partner airlines

To preface, AA maintains two separate lists of partner airlines: one you can earn AAdvantage miles with and one you can spend miles with. 

Here are both lists as of publication. Note that while there’s definitely lots of crossover, the two lists are not carbon copies of one another: 

Earn miles

• Aer Lingus 
• Air Tahiti Nui 
• Alaska Airlines 
• American Airlines 
• British Airways 
• Cape Air 
• Cathay Pacific 
• China Southern Airlines 
• Etihad Airways 
• Fiji Airways 
• Finnair 
• GOL Airlines 
• Hawaiian Airlines 
• Iberia 
• IndiGo 
• Japan Airlines 
• JetSMART 
• Malaysia Airlines 
• Qantas 
• Qatar Airways 
• Royal Air Maroc 
• Royal Jordanian Airlines 
• Silver Airways 
• SriLankan Airlines 

Redeem miles

• Air Tahiti Nui
• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Cape Air
• Cathay Pacific
• Etihad Airways
• Fiji Airways
• Finnair
• GOL Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas Airways
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Air Maroc
• Royal Jordanian Airlines
• Silver Airways
• SriLankan Airlines

How AAdvantage compares to others

Perhaps the greatest drawback to AAdvantage is the high spending threshold you have to meet to reach the very first status level: AAdvantage Gold. As mentioned above, to earn the requisite 40,000 Loyalty Points you’ll have to spend around $8,000 on flights with AA and its partners, not including other earning methods. Unless you want to spend on an AAdvantage credit card to help get status faster, prepare to do a lot of flying on American before you reach even the low-level status tier. 

For comparison, Delta and United have a Silver level at around $5,000 in spending, and both are nearly as rewarding as AAdvantage Gold. 

You could argue that AA does have a Silver-ish tier at 15,000 points–but Group 5 Boarding simply can’t compete with the free checked bag and free upgrades that both Delta and United offer at Silver. 

So if you’re a less-frequent flyer looking for an airline with attainable status, you might want to look elsewhere. But if you’re already an American Airlines diehard, there’s still a lot here to look forward to.

Please note that card details are accurate as of the publish date, but are subject to change at any time at the discretion of the issuer. Please contact the card issuer to verify rates, fees, and benefits before applying.