On March 1, 2024, American Airline's status qualifying metric, the Loyalty Point, is set to reset to 0. AA has a peculiar status qualification period that runs from March through February.
I'm just about 3,000 Loyalty Points away from hitting status, so I'm going to walk you through how I'm getting those last few LPs so I can walk around with AA Platinum status for the next year.
What Are The Benefits Of AA Platinum Status?
Airline status can be particularly useful when flying for the added perks and increased return on spend. From American Airline's website, Platinum status offers the following benefits:
- Complimentary upgrades on American and Alaska Airlines (certain routes are excluded)
- 48-hour upgrade window
- 60% status mileage bonus
- Complimentary Main Cabin Extra and Preferred Seats (at booking)
- 2 free checked bags
- Access to priority lanes
- Complimentary standby
- Oneworld Sapphire status
As someone who flies primarily using miles, I've found that the complimentary upgrades and Main Cabin Extra seat selection at booking are the highest-value perks. I've also been able to use complimentary standby to get onto earlier flights. Overall, I think Platinum status is a fantastic sweet spot to be in for American Airlines benefits.
One of the coolest things about AA status is that it's one of the easier statuses to get without needing "butt in seat" revenue fares. I've actually gotten most of my loyalty points via non-flying-related methods.
The Situation
I currently have 71,988 LPs and therefore need 3,022 more to achieve AA Platinum status for the entirety of the Mar 2024 – Feb 2025. AA Platinum has some fantastic benefits that are worth securing, so I need to quickly scour up LPs. I don't plan on flying anywhere either, so it's time to get creative.
My LP Earning Multiplier: 20%
When I hit 60,000 LPs, I unlocked a 20% Loyalty Point bonus when spending with select partners (within 6 months of unlocking the reward). These partners include the following:
- American Airlines Vacations™
- SimplyMiles™
- AAdvantage® eShopping℠
- AAdvantage Dining℠
- AAdvantage Hotels™
We'll be mainly looking at the AAdvantage eShopping portal today.
AA Shopping Portal
The AAdvantage eShopping portal is a shopping portal that allows you to earn miles for online purchases you make through the portal. Merchants listed on the portal are paying the portal to sell their products, and portals give rewards to consumers who purchase products via these portals.
Purchases via the portal that are successfully tracked will pay out American Airline miles and loyalty points. This is exactly what we are looking for.
This portal has some incredible offerings that can make out to be some fantastic deals. For example, in taking a quick look at the "top deals" section of the portal as of 02/27/2024,
So here begins the AA shopping portal phase of this "mileage run". Notably, some of these offers are only rewarded once per account (I believe this is a 2 year lookback period), so I am not eligible for some of these options.
National Geographic Wines of the World
There is an elevated offer from National Geographic's "Wines of the World." This offer is for 2,500 miles (or 3,000 LPs with the 20% bonus), which is already about $37.5+, assuming a 1.5 CPP for AA miles. This 14 bottle case + two glasses is being sold for $64.99 + $19.99 and taxes, so assuming the total all in cost is around $90, the overall price per bottle excluding the miles isn't too bad in itself ($6.5ish per bottle).
Despite the volume of wine bottles I already own from other AAdventures, I plan on purchasing some more bottles with this offer so that I can make sure I get closer to locking in AA Platinum status.
Total Expected LP Earn: 3,000 LPs
Firstleaf
As you may notice, there are a lot of wine offers on AA's shopping portal. It's all pretty funny to see just given how many miles each of them provide—I'm genuinely curious how many wine bottles anyone who plays the LP game has in possession at any given time...
Firstleaf is another one of these wine companies, except their spin is to match you with wines. I'm planning to purchase 6 bottles here for my parents to try out.
Given that the total intro offer costs ~$45 and you're getting 6 "decent" bottles, you're only paying ~$7.5 for each one, excluding the miles you earn. Although I'm now only about 20 LPs away from Plat status, I'm a bit paranoid and don't exactly trust AA's systems to accurately track everything, especially if something is clawed back for whatever reason. Thus, getting 1-2k more LPs might be useful as an added layer of insurance.
Total Expected LP Earn: 3,000 LPs + 2,040 LPs = more than enough for AA Platinum status
When Do Points Post?
While it can take even up to 8 weeks for purchases from AA shopping to post, points are credited back to the date of purchase. So if I place my orders for today, February 27, 2024, even if my LPs don't arrive until 2 months later, the purchases will be credited on today, so I will still have my status.
Are There Ever Any Issues With Tracking?
Oh man... I don't want to get started here with the issues I've had in the past with AA Shopping.
In summary, it's incredibly important to be diligent and to make sure you're using a browser without adblockers or anything of the sort. Screenshots are tremendously helpful to show proof. I've noticed that AA Shopping customer support is actually quite helpful and good at keeping track of support cases. Just make sure you have the appropriate evidence as needed and open your cases whenever required. Don't be scared to follow-up aggressively with them.
Conclusion
For those of you who just need a few more LPs to lock in status for nest year, there are several last minute ways to get them. We mainly talked about ways via AA Shopping, but there are several other methods available to you, including SimplyMiles, AA Hotels, AA Dining, and just plain old flying.
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