All available 500-mile upgrades which are currently in your American Airlines AAdvantage membership account will each be converted to 250 Loyalty Points by the end of July of 2022, as this addition of Loyalty Points will help you reach AAdvantage elite status faster and boost your priority to upgrade on a future flight.
500-Mile Upgrades to Be Converted to Loyalty Points With American Airlines AAdvantage
Once the conversion of 500-mile upgrades has been completed, you will see the deposit of Loyalty Points in your AAdvantage membership account activity — along with the corresponding details in the 500-mile upgrade card in your wallet.
500-mile upgrades were also colloquially known as electronic stickers — harkening from the days when 500-mile upgrades used to be physical paper certificates.
Members of the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flier loyalty program who have earned Gold or Platinum elite level status with American Airlines AAdvantage are no longer required to use 500-mile electronic upgrade certificates effective as of Wednesday, March 2, 2022 in order to be upgraded for a domestic flight within the United States — or between the United States and Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Caribbean, or Central America…
…and complimentary upgrades for members of the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flier loyalty program who have earned elite status now extends to one companion for travel effective as of today, Thursday, July 14, 2022. Complimentary upgrades apply to travel on all purchased fares which are published by American Airlines within North America — they include award tickets for members who have earned AAdvantage Executive Platinum elite status — and complimentary upgrades for existing reservations will be automatically requested by tomorrow, Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Final Boarding Call
These latest developments are all part of a bold move which arguably pioneers a simpler way of qualifying for earning elite status in a frequent flier loyalty program: Loyalty Points were introduced to American Airlines AAdvantage effective as of Saturday, January 1, 2022 — which means that gone are the days of accruing Elite Qualifying Miles, Elite Qualifying Dollars, and Elite Qualifying Segments to qualify for elite status, as members of the program may now earn elite status with additional ways to do so…
…and this change in procedure may ultimately benefit the airline — in the form of possibly needing fewer gate agents — in the long term as well as the consumer.
All photographs ©2019 by Brian Cohen.
