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American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines have been monetizing the remaining seats on many of their flights versus giving them away as upgrades to elite members. The biggest difference between the three is that when you buy-up to First or Business Class on American, you did not earn miles or Loyalty Points. That changed today as the airline is now aligning with its rivals and awarding these earnings on paid upgrades.
Buying up to a premium cabin will get you everything that comes with sitting there (seat, meal, etc.) and now the money spent will earn miles and Loyalty Points the same way they would when buying a ticket outright. Cash upgrades now earn the following AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per dollar spent:
- AAdvantage non-elite members: 5x AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per $1 spent
- AAdvantage Gold®: 7x AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per $1 spent
- AAdvantage Platinum®: 8x AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per $1 spent
- AAdvantage Platinum Pro®: 9x AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per $1 spent
- AAdvantage Executive Platinum®: 11x AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points per $1 spent
Many people complain that they no longer see upgrades like they used to receive. I can’t fault the airlines. Premium seats are selling and if they can eke out some additional revenue from these seats by selling upgrades, they should. But, customers should also earn what they can on a paid ticket. For Delta that means that SkyMiles and Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs), which are needed to earn status are awarded. Paid upgrades for United MileagePlus® members earn Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs), which United requires for elite status.
Anthony’s Take: It’s about time that American begins granting people the same earnings that they would get on paid tickets. This will likely make even more American AAdvantage elites buy-up to First now that they can earn miles and Loyalty Points.
(Image Credit: American Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
1 comment
Hate to give credit to AA for anything, but this is a big positive. American does have reasonable buy ups (I’ll shell out $129 for CLT-DFW for a 530am flight, especially as it serves a meal when I’ve got a 45 minute connection on the back end). This combined with some great low domestic mileage redemptions are both strong good points for AA. Doesn’t do me a lot of good as I credit everything to Alaska as a superior program, but I end up with orphaned AA miles from credit card and promos that’s usually enough to fund 3-4 one ways a year that I’m redeeming in the $0.04-$0.055 range. 7500 miles to save $400 is a good deal.