Here's how you can take advantage of the status challenge:
Step 1: Enroll in the offer
There are two ways to do this first step. One way is to go into your online American Airlines account and check your “Promotions” tab, where the offer may be waiting for you to easily enroll.
If you don’t see it there, simply call American Airlines at 800-433-7300 (their customer service line) and ask for your personalized status challenge offer.
Depending on your history (or lack thereof) with American Airlines, you may receive an offer for a higher or lower tier of status challenge, it depends on their algorithm.
Step 2: Extend or renew that status
Once you enroll, you’ll have the status for a four-month period. During those four months, you can either extend or upgrade your status by earning the following numbers of loyalty points:
- Gold: 10,000 points
- Platinum: 25,000 points
- Platinum Pro: 42,000 points
- Executive Platinum: 67,000 points
Although the points requirements above are only a third of what you’d need to earn normally to achieve each status tier, the timeframe is also one-third of the normal timeframe, so it balances out.
As a reminder, you can earn qualifying points by flying with American Airlines, using their dining program, using the AA shopping portal, or even spending on a cobranded American Airlines credit card.
This is great, because you have no shortage of ways to earn status, plus you get to enjoy the benefits of the gifted status for that four-month period. So even if you don’t end up extending or upgrading your status, this is a great way to enjoy some nice perks while flying on AA over the next four months.
Step 3: Extend or renew that status (see step 2)
This is where it gets a little confusing. If in step 2 you renew or upgrade your status, you’ll have that status for another four months with the same opportunity to either extend or upgrade the status… again.
Additionally, if you don’t earn enough points to renew your status, you’ll be downgraded to the status tier below your current tier and still have one last chance to extend your status during the final four-month period.
So let me sum it up:
After registering, you’ll have some level of status. Over the next two 4-month periods, you’ll have the chance to either extend that status or upgrade that status by earning the required number of loyalty points.
I think this could be worthwhile to pursue if you either fly with AA a lot or if you wanted to explore elite status for the first time without all of the crazy requirements.
