In late 2023, American Airlines made major changes to its small business rewards program. The airline ended the American Business Extra program, and replaced it with the AAdvantage Business program.
Continue reading: American Improves AAdvantage Business Program
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Another initiative of AA's now-departed wunderkind was to convert CK phone agents to bots. This was slated to be in place by 2026. Given what is transpiring, I'll guess that AA might not remove the human touch from its most valuable relationships. For me, well beyond the business program issues, too much has changed at AA and (by choice) this will be my last year as CK. And, given the state of the marketplace, it'll be free agency.
As a small business owner we used to exclusively fly American due to the aairpass program. Now they have shuttered it we have been utilizing other airlines with pleasant surprises related to service etc. if American were to reintroduce the aairpass program we might consider returning.
Yawn. I’ve moved all my business to raved away from AA in part because of the gutting of BusinessExtra and AirPass. Too little. Too late.
We moved all of our business travel to Southwest when AA ended business extraa. We are a Dallas-based company. We can only fly other carriers when a direct flight is not available. Just so much more dependable with SWA. Unfortunately, SWA's business program has proved too complicated for employees to effectively use - they still book on southwest.com instead of going to the separate Swabiz.com website.
Doesn’t move the ball at all . Like others , I moved my biz away when AAirpass was eliminated . And let’s not forget the terribly uncompetitive million miler program. Really enjoying UA and DL and their partners.
AA needs to update and rework its Million Miler program ASAP. I don't think those with Credit Card spend from 2010 should count on this new scheme either. So, AA should make some new date of counting them, and then investigate those who had butt in seat and/or promotional miles from before the "Barclays spend days". There are many high quality passengers sitting on the sidelines who have moved their business due to AA policies.
tried registering as a small business, after years of business extra and the system just wouldnt work. Emailed the agents.....crickets
As a travel advisor I know longer actively avoid them. But only promote them if the clients is "hub bound"
877-229-8278 = 877-AA X VASU
Whoever came up with that number should be promoted!
FYI. AAdvantage Business should also provide an email address. I recently made a reservation without indicating that the travel was for business. I called AAdvantage Business this morning to add my reservation to my AAdvantage Business account but was rebuffed. Therefore, the change you cited in your article that AAdvantage Business can include your AAdvantage Business number prior to travel is not true. Thank you.
I find it ironic that you consider WN much more reliable than AA. My Southwest flights have been heavily delay prone this summer. I am on a Southwest flight once a week. With a lot of WN East Coast flights transiting through Florida, which loves summer thunderstorms and WX, delays are expected now.
I tried to book multi-city itinerary for 5 a couple of months ago (you can’t). What a disaster! Ended up booking online on aa.com without the business bonus miles. I can confirm that as of May, you can not add your AAdvantage Business number afterwards. Still pretty much useless to this small business owner.