In March 2023, American Airlines rolled out a new program called “Enhance with Miles,” which gives elite members the opportunity to gift elite status for a day… at a cost, and with quite a few catches. I wanted to provide an update, as American has just informed me that it has lowered the mileage redemption amounts required for this, in order to make it a better value. Let’s go over all the details.
In this post:
Basics of American’s “Enhance with Miles” concept
Nowadays American AAdvantage elite status is earned based on how many Loyalty Points you accrue during a program year (the year goes from the beginning of March until the end of February of the following year). As a reminder, here are the current elite requirements:
- AAdvantage Gold status requires 40,000 Loyalty Points
- AAdvantage Platinum status requires 75,000 Loyalty Points
- AAdvantage Platinum Pro status requires 125,000 Loyalty Points
- AAdvantage Executive Platinum status requires 200,000 Loyalty Points
American Airlines offers a program named “Enhance with Miles,” whereby you can redeem miles for special status perks as you pass the above Loyalty Points thresholds. Note that this is totally separate from the Loyalty Point Rewards program, whereby you can select perks at no additional cost when passing various Loyalty Points thresholds (ranging from 15,000 Loyalty Points to 5,000,000 Loyalty Points).
How does the Enhance with Miles concept work?
- When you pass 40,000 Loyalty Points, you can redeem AAdvantage miles to gift someone else AAdvantage Gold status for a day, or you can redeem AAdvantage miles to give yourself AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for a day
- When you pass 75,000 Loyalty Points, you can redeem AAdvantage miles to gift someone else AAdvantage Platinum status for a day, or you can redeem AAdvantage miles to give yourself AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for a day
- When you pass 125,000 Loyalty Points, you can redeem AAdvantage miles to gift someone else AAdvantage Platinum Pro status for a day, or you can redeem AAdvantage miles to give yourself AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for a day
- When you pass 200,000 Loyalty Points, you can redeem AAdvantage miles to gift someone else AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for a day
You can see the options available to you by logging into your AAdvantage profile, and clicking on the “Enhance with Miles” tab in the Rewards Hub. While American doesn’t state publicly how many miles are required to redeem for this, it does seem like it’s consistent.
As of October 2024, American has significantly lowered the pricing of this redemption. However, note that this only applies for those who have already earned status for next year (so those people would see a note that says “Expires: March 31, 2026”).
So, how has pricing changed?
- Gifting AAdvantage Gold status has decreased in cost from 15,000 miles to 5,000 miles
- Gifting AAdvantage Platinum status has decreased in cost from 20,000 miles to 8,000 miles
- Gifting AAdvantage Platinum Pro status has decreased in cost from 30,000 miles to 12,000 miles
- Gifting AAdvantage Executive Platinum status has decreased in cost from 40,000 miles to 20,000 miles
I have to hand it to American, those are some significant price decreases!
As you’d expect, there are some terms associated with this:
- You can take advantage of this up to two times at each threshold
- The status for a day perk must be purchased at least seven days before travel
- Those who don’t have access to Main Cabin Extra seats will receive four Main Cabin Extra seat coupons, which expire two days after the selected date, and must be applied to future travel before then
- Members who receive status for a day can’t purchase a discounted Admirals Club membership based on the higher elite tier
- The status for a day perks are only valid for flights operated by American, and not for travel on partner airlines, so you couldn’t use this to take advantage of oneworld Sapphire and oneworld Emerald perks on partner airlines
- If you pre-paid for any preferred seating or similar perks, you can’t get a refund for those
- Any complimentary elite upgrades will only clear based on the higher elite tier on the day of travel, and not based on the typical elite window
- Status for a day perks can be applied to all tickets, including tickets purchased with cash or miles, or even employee travel
My take on American’s elite status for a day concept
As I’ve often said in the past, I think the ability to share elite status perks with friends and family is such an underrated benefit that can help cement long term loyalty. For example, World of Hyatt’s Guest of Honor benefit allows Globalist members to gift their status perks to others. On the airline front, Air Canada Aeroplan offers Status Pass, whereby you can select the ability to gift elite perks as part of your suite of elite benefits.
American AAdvantage is the first US airline to offer something like this. While I’m happy to see a perk like this, the reality is that you do have to redeem miles, so this isn’t something offered on a complimentary basis as part of elite benefits.
Am I the only one who finds the execution of all of this to be a little complicated? For one, it’s kind of confusing to figure out how and when the perks apply through this.
As far as the value goes, I’d say that under the old pricing, this almost never made sense. However, with the new pricing I could see situations where this makes sense, if you know what you’re doing.
I do think in some situations, people will potentially set themselves for disappointment. For example, say a Platinum Pro member redeems miles to get Executive Platinum status for a day.
What are they really getting? Incrementally higher upgrade priority for a day, but only on the day of travel? Wouldn’t they be better off redeeming those miles to try to score a confirmed upgrade? I mean, Executive Platinum upgrades aren’t exactly plentiful nowadays…
However, there are some situations where I could see this being worthwhile. For example, say you have AAdvantage Platinum status, and are traveling as a family of four to Europe in economy. Your status would allow you to take one guest into Flagship Lounges, but if you spent 8,000 miles to upgrade status for one more person, then you could all get lounge access. I’d say that could be a good deal.
Bottom line
American AAdvantage offers the Enhance with Miles concept, whereby you can redeem miles for select experiences when passing certain Loyalty Points threshold. The way this works, you can either redeem miles to gift someone else your elite status for a day, or you can redeem miles to elevate your status to Executive Platinum for a day.
American has considerably lowered the cost of these packages as of October 2024. While it’s possible that different accounts may show different offers, it seems to me like the price has decreased from a range of 15,000 to 40,000 miles, to a range of 5,000 to 20,000 miles.
What do you make of American’s elite status for a day concept?
The biggest benefit of Exec Platinum for a day is that you get 120% of the base status miles for that trip. I spent 40k miles for 2 passes on a recent trip in business class to Europe. I earned an additional 10000ish status miles (as well as the "net price" of the upgrade being 30k) which is much more valuable to me. AA is asking almost $3k to upgrade your status for the year,...
The biggest benefit of Exec Platinum for a day is that you get 120% of the base status miles for that trip. I spent 40k miles for 2 passes on a recent trip in business class to Europe. I earned an additional 10000ish status miles (as well as the "net price" of the upgrade being 30k) which is much more valuable to me. AA is asking almost $3k to upgrade your status for the year, so this seems like a really good value if you need those miles to jump a level. One World Emerald appeared on my BA connecting flight boarding pass (bought as an AA code share, not sure if a separate BA ticket would have got this) so I got access to BA first lounge at LHR. Status appeared in my AA app several days before I departed and expired a couple of days after. I was wondering if that's how they use the existing system to implement the status upgrade benefit? It's possible you might get "free" status perks for additional flights if you have a trip with flights on adjacent days.
I'm gifting gold status to a person who doesn't have any status - in essence, they get a better check-in experience and don't have to pay for the bags that they were planning on checking (3 people in her party, each with 1 checked bag). Saves them $120 and only costs me 5k miles. A nice little bene for them.
As a longtime EP on AA, I was pleasantly surprised that I actually got upgraded on 2 of 4 flights last week. I will say that 1 of those didn't clear until I was already sitting in Main Cabin, and that was because #1 on the list didn't show up....AND HE WAS AN ON DUTY PILOT!!! I still literally cannot believe that Pilots are getting upgraded above loyal customers. It's literally the worst policy ever...
As a longtime EP on AA, I was pleasantly surprised that I actually got upgraded on 2 of 4 flights last week. I will say that 1 of those didn't clear until I was already sitting in Main Cabin, and that was because #1 on the list didn't show up....AND HE WAS AN ON DUTY PILOT!!! I still literally cannot believe that Pilots are getting upgraded above loyal customers. It's literally the worst policy ever done by any company. Very, very frustrating as a loyal customer to see an employee get a seat you are eligible for.
so can you use this to get into lounges. For example can i gift myself Platinum pro on a day i'm flying Qatar out of LAX and go enjoy the Qantas First lounge? Or can I gift my wife platinum status on a day 4 of us are flying out of T3 in LHR and we can all go lounge hopping and each bring a guest? You could come up with lots more examples.
The article expressly stated that the benefit is only usable on flights operated by AA itself. Your LAX example would not work. Your LHR T3 example, assuming an AA flight, would work. You just need to ensure that the boarding pass reflects the tier status.
I’m honestly surprised AA even has the tech to support this on the back end
I think it works by giving you the upgraded status for a limited period. Your status changes in your AA account a few days before your "booked" day and expires a few days after. I guess that way you get added to the upgrade process automatically by their systems at the appropriate window. They have been doing temporary status match things for years so this is probably easy. The only exception they seem to have...
I think it works by giving you the upgraded status for a limited period. Your status changes in your AA account a few days before your "booked" day and expires a few days after. I guess that way you get added to the upgrade process automatically by their systems at the appropriate window. They have been doing temporary status match things for years so this is probably easy. The only exception they seem to have added is you can't use the temporary status to get a lounge membership discount.
What an incredibly worthless and expensive benefit to offer. So you can gift someone EP status and it will move them up on the upgrade standby list from 35 to maybe 8. Worthless…..totally worthless. I am so glad I got off the AA hamster wheel. They’ve ruined what was a pretty good program that drove a lot of loyalty to a carrier who, frankly, didn’t deserve it.
Do you get the higher level of points earning of the temporary tier? I was thinking about doing this before a long haul trip (but later learned, as you pointed out, that it wasn’t good on BA metal). My rationale was simply that gift high status to someone who otherwise has none could come out in the wash if they’re getting 11X points per dollar.
Yes you do. And they are status miles. It's the most valuable benefit if you are flying on a high $ ticket.
How about earning miles to lose status for a day? a week? a month? I’d do that.
Or maybe to make those higher up than you on the upgrade list lose their status for a day…
Delta (and Marriott) also allow gifting status to others (for a year) through their Choice Benefits programs.
Have been underwhelmed by AC status pass. Gifted AC Super Elite status to a friend last week, but they got very few of the benefits. They got one extra bag (to be fair, they had already paid for two) and AC lounge access. They didn’t get free seat selection (not included with status pass), any waitlist for upgrade (not included with status pass) or Conceirge assistance when the flight was cancelled (presumably also not for...
Have been underwhelmed by AC status pass. Gifted AC Super Elite status to a friend last week, but they got very few of the benefits. They got one extra bag (to be fair, they had already paid for two) and AC lounge access. They didn’t get free seat selection (not included with status pass), any waitlist for upgrade (not included with status pass) or Conceirge assistance when the flight was cancelled (presumably also not for status pass). Free but underwhelming; but I would pay for a status pass that gives status benefits
I get what your saying, but to me it makes complete sense that the only benefits are all before you get on the plane. You get business check in, security priority, extra bags and lounge access and priority boarding. There is no differnece bettwen 50k, 75k or 100k status passes, its all one status pass.
My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that the status pass also moves you to roughly 50K status on the waitlist for upgrades.
I think they lowered them for the set expiring in 2026, I see that the new Gold gift for a day is 5,000 miles in my account now but last year's is still 15,000
@ Jon -- Interesting, thanks for the heads up. Do you (or anyone else) mind sharing the amounts for the other status tiers as well, beyond Gold? Appreciate it! :-)
ben, here's what's showing for the other levels for the set expiring in 2026:
platinum: 8,000
platinum pro: 12,000
executive platinum: 20,000
Gold - 5k
Platinum - 8k
Platinum Pro - 12k
Executive Platinum - 20k
The AA board of directors doesn’t need status for a day. They need to be a customer for a day. They’d immediately fire all AA execs.
Airlines run on very thin margins with large costs (leases, union labor, fuel, high taxes...). For the amount people are willing to pay for a ticket, the legacy three are doing a pretty good job with the revenue they collect.