Now you can finally earn miles, Loyalty Points from American Airlines paid promotions

The day has finally arrived.

Finally, you can now earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points from upgrades purchased on American Airlines flights. The feature was first teased by the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier earlier this year, with the promise that it would launch by the end of 2024.

Going forward, any paid upgrades purchased on Aug. 14 or later will be eligible to earn miles and loyalty points.

Value check: Are airline credit cards still worth it?

Mileage accrual rates will mimic those from traditional paid tickets. You will earn miles based on how much the upgrade costs, and bonuses with higher member categories, as shown below.

• Advantage Member: 5 miles per dollar
• Gold member: 7 miles per dollar
• Platinum Member: 8 miles per dollar
• Platinum Pro Member: 9 miles per dollar
• Executive Platinum Member: 11 miles per dollar
• Key Concierge member: 11 miles per dollar

For example, if an upgrade costs $75, you’ll earn between 375 and 825 AAdvantage miles for the upgrade, depending on your status level. According to TPG figures for August 2024, American miles cost 1.7 cents a piece, so this translates to a discount of between $6.38 and $14.03 on future trips from a $75 upgrade.

Miles and status: Your ultimate guide to American Airlines AAdvantage

In addition to redeemable miles, travelers looking to upgrade their status will earn Loyalty Points on upgraded purchases just as they would on a traditional prepaid ticket. The number of Loyalty Points you will earn for the upgrade will be equal to the number of redeemable miles earned.

For example, an Executive Platinum member can earn 825 AAdvantage miles for a $75 upgrade, and 825 loyalty points for this purchase.

After completing the trip, miles and Loyalty Points from advanced purchases will be credited to the individual account.

Adding the ability to earn miles and Loyalty Points from paid upgrades is undoubtedly a welcome upgrade to the Advantage loyalty program.

In recent years, American carriers have been all the rage for selling paid upgrades after booking your flight. These upgrade offers have a variable price based on real-time availability and can sometimes represent a great deal compared to buying a premium cabin outright.

Although this advanced purchase has translated into a few luxury upgrades for exclusive members, it makes sense for the American to take the required amount of premium cabin as possible.

So far, the airline has not allowed loyalty members to earn miles and status as a result of upgrades. For me, that’s been a reason to generally avoid these buy-in offers and instead switch my ticket to business- or first-class fares if it makes more sense in the long run.

But now, I’ll be very tempted to buy an upgrade with American the next time I get a reasonable offer.

Beach, please: American is adding new routes, more advanced flights to the Caribbean

American’s other major competitors, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, also sell post-booking upgrades on select flights. With Delta, upgrade tickets qualify for extra mileage and special stacking tied to an upgraded seat. On United, purchasing a post-booking upgrade will accrue additional status credits (eligible Premier points), but will not earn you additional redeemable miles.

As such, with this change, American will join Delta in offering comprehensive loyalty benefits to travelers who purchase upgrades.

In addition to earning miles and status credit from the upgrade, American promised that other improvements to its loyalty program are coming later this year. This includes the ability to request program-wide upgrades online and use miles to upgrade through multiple airline partners.

This functionality will appear later this year at an undisclosed date.

Related reading: