American Airlines is easily the program that I engage with the most. I pretty much used them exclusively for the last 7 years or so, as they offered the best flights for what I was needing. I even got status for a few years, which was a ton of fun upgrading to first class every time I flew between Birmingham, AL and Charlotte (there was always a free upgrade on that route!). For all of its quirks and pain points, I really do enjoy flying with American (maybe I just love flying in general lol).
Last year, American Airlines announced that they were shifting to a new type of loyalty program. Historically, programs awarded you miles based upon how far you flew, gaining elite status after a certain number of miles, gaining better status the more you flew. In the last decade, they added a spend requirement (so people couldn’t take a few cheap flights to Asia and get elite status).
Starting this year, American Airlines has moved to the concept of a “Loyalty Point.”
Loyalty Points: The New Currency of American’s Elite Status Program
In a nutshell, how far you fly doesn’t matter anymore for earning American Airlines elite status. Rather, it’s how you engage with the mileage program overall (while some stated that this was “transforming” how loyalty status was earned, it’s actually not that much different than how Southwest Rapid Rewards has worked for years, IMO). For example, it’s not just flying that gets you elite miles, but spending on American Airlines credit cards, using the online shopping portal, and booking partner activity (such as hotels, car rentals, and vacations) through American Airlines channels.
Other blogs cover the intricacies of the program pretty thoroughly (here’s a great review by Gary at View from the Wing). However, I am in quite an interesting predicament that I thought may be of use to some readers in regards to my own loyalty status.
I live in DC, and, while Dulles and Baltimore are possible places to fly from, they both take at least an hour just to get there from my downtown DC apartment. On the contrary, Reagan National is a quick 15 minute metro ride on Metrorail’s Yellow line, making it my go-to airport for flying.
American is the biggest airline at National, and I want to have status with them, mainly for priority boarding, free checked bags, discounted extra-legroom seats, and an occasional upgrade to first class. Furthermore, I find their miles incredibly useful using them to fly business class abroad to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Given that I won’t be flying these next two months on American, I want to start getting my act together to hit at least Gold status (earned by getting 30,000 loyalty points in a year). General members get 5x loyalty points for each dollar spent on an American Airlines flight. To reach the 30,000 loyalty points strictly by flying, I would need to spend $6,000 on American Airlines flights (hard pass), and I don’t have an AA credit card anymore. Thus, this had me thinking about ways to possibly expedite getting elite status, and, with the recent 5x promotion with SimplyMiles, it had me thinking: could SimplyMiles be an easy way to help expedite getting elite status from no status at all with American?
What is SimplyMiles?
At it’s core, SimplyMiles is a (very basic) shopping portal that gives you American miles for making purchases at different retailors. These miles are also one of the partners that American gives you loyalty points for using. What differentiates this portal from others like TopCashBack and Rakuten is that SimplyMiles requires you to securely register your Mastercard (and only a Mastercard), activating offers that you may use when you are shopping day-to-day.
For example, right now, you can get 1 mile per dollar spent at J. Crew (may differ by account) by activating the offer on SimplyMiles and using your registered card at J. Crew. If I wanted to, I could go to J. Crew, spend $30,000, and I would have elite status with American (I wouldn’t recommend this, but you do you).
However, there is another set of offers that I think could be exploited over the year to help a general member get elite status more quickly with American Airlines. These offers give you a set amount of points for spending a certain amount of money at a given retailor.
For example, right now, I can get 465 miles for spending $30 at Barnes & Noble. What makes this offer even better is that it’s online, and I can do it from the comfort of my own home!
I have today off from my day job (and can write this long post), so I went in and bought two books I’ve been wanting using my registered Chase Freedom Flex card (which is one of the only Chase cards that is a Mastercard, not a Visa). While it normally takes 3-5 days for SimplyMiles to track the purchase, I did double-dip and go through Rakuten, and that purchase is already tracking. In a few days, I should have 465 American miles deposited into my account and get me that much closer to getting loyalty status!
Is This More Efficient than Just Flying?
I would say yes. Using simple math, it’s actually gets me closer to elite status than spending my money to fly on something that I was going to purchase anyway.
On a per dollar basis, I got 465 loyalty points for a purchase that came out to $43.93. That means I got 10.56 points for every dollar I spent at Barnes and Noble.
The general member gets 5 points per dollar spent for flying American. By this metric, it was more efficient for me to get loyalty points this way than by flying. Indeed, Gold members get 7 points per dollar, Platinum members get 8 points per dollar, and Platinum Pro members get 9 points per dollar, suggesting that this is a more lucrative way to get miles for them as well. As someone who is hoping to travel as cheaply as possible, it’s always good to know that this is an option.
What Offers Have There Historically Been?
I’m the first to note that this is a rather niche play, but I have seen offers in the past that have been quite lucrative. For example, I’ve seen spend $45 at CVS and get just shy of 5,000 miles; you could buy a $50 gift card to somewhere you’re going to shop anyways, and it should trigger this offer for you.. Of course, there was the 5x promotion last quarter where you got 40 (+ 5x) miles per dollar donating to Conservation International. They change on a regular basis, and it seems to me that it changes month to month (most expire at the end of the month). It remains to be seen if these are just as lucrative as they have historically been at generating points. I’ll make sure to keep checking and will update as I see potentially useful offers.
Conclusion
With the changes to American Airlines loyalty program, there is a new frontier about how elite status is earned. It is my hope that you can use the tricks with the SimplyMiles program in order to get some extra loyalty points and gain elite status more quickly (I won’t comment on why the change were made to their loyalty program, as that is the subject of a different blogpost discussing the role of loyalty in marketing).
Do you plan on using SimplyMiles to generate more loyalty points?
-PoP
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