American Airlines just announced what they call AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards: starting in March 2023, there will be new ways to earn rewards, redeem miles and reach your travel goals with the AAdvantage program, before you reach status tiers. Yes, before.

The main idea is to introduce new loyalty point rewards tiers, every x number of points reached, you will be able to select rewards. This incentive is directed to please customers in between tiers that often fall short to qualify and don’t get any reward.

The new Loyalty Point Rewards don’t even require flight segments at all. You can earn get rewards through shopping or credit card spending, and rack up both status and rewards before you start flying.

AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards: How does it work?

Intuitively, there are reward levels each time you qualify for a new AAdvantage Status tier, i.e. at:

AAdvantage Gold: 40k Loyalty Points
AAdvantage Platinum: 75k points
AAdvantage Platinum Pro: 125k points
AAdvantage Executive Platinum: 200k points

In addition, there are new reward levels at 15k points, 60k, 100k, 175k, 250k, 400k, 550k, 750k, 1M, 3M, and even 5 million loyalty points! This means that each time you cross those thresholds you will be able to select a new reward, and, the more you climb, the better the reward.

The AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards include anything from:

Free systemwide upgrades
Bonus miles
Trip credit in cash ($200-$250)
Admirals Club membership
Flagship lounge visits and flagship dining experiences
Carbon Offsetting your flights
Bang & Olufsen products
Gift AAdvantage Status to friends or family
Miles is back on award redemption
Priority boarding coupons

How to Earn AAdvantage Loyalty Points in 2023

Earn miles and Loyalty Points when you fly, use an AAdvantage credit card for purchases, or engage with AAdvantage partners. You can redeem AAdvantage miles for your next trip or other great offers. Plus, your Loyalty Points count toward earning status, and additional benefits when you travel. One AAdvantage mile equals one loyalty point.

1. Travel on eligible airlines

Fly on American Airlines, American Eagle, any oneworld® airline, and other partner airlines.

2. AAdvantage Credit card purchases

American Airlines AAdvantage credit card members will earn one Loyalty Point for every eligible AAdvantage mile earned from purchases using their U.S. or internationally-issued AAdvantage® credit card. Read more here.

3. AAdvantage eShopping, AAdvantage Dining, SimplyMiles & more

Shop, dine, travel, and more with our partners and watch your miles and Loyalty Points add up faster. Read here how I qualified for AAdvantage Gold just by using the eShopping portal.

4. Level up faster with status mileage bonuses

If you have AAdvantage status, you’ll earn more miles and Loyalty Points when you travel with American and our partners, making it easier to qualify for status again.

AAdvantage member: Earn 5 miles per dollar.
AAdvantage Gold: Earn 7 miles per dollar. 40% more
AAdvantage Platinum: Earn 8 miles per dollar. 60% more
AAdvantage Platinum Pro: Earn 9 miles per dollar. 80% more
AAdvantage Executive Platinum: Earn 11 miles per dollar. 120% more

AAdvantage Loyalty Point Rewards: What do you think?

American Airlines introduced new changes to the AAdvantage program in 2022, and many frequent flyers are claiming that these changes are program deterrents that make the program less rewardful and more crowded. With more people qualifying for status, the competition is higher to get upgrades and enjoy lounges.

The post-pandemic changes introduced by American Airlines make sense from the standpoint of attracting more customers to their program, given that most people turned to cashback credit cards and other types of reward systems. Is the Loyalty Point Rewards here to fix that issue?

Let me know your thoughts or experience in the comments or via Instagram. For now, I’m going to give it a shot and follow up with another post after I’ve tried qualifying for some of those tiers.