American Airlines will be raising most rates for an Admirals Club membership effective May 1, 2013.

Rates for non-elites will remain unchanged, with prices for new or renewal memberships for AAdvantage Gold members going up by $25. If burning miles is more your style, the rates for Golds are going up by 5,000 miles with the exception of the “single annual renewal” rate remaining at 60,000 miles.

Cash rates for Platinum and Executive Platinum members will go up by $50 across the board. And mileage rates will increase by 5,000 miles with the exception of the “single annual new” rate jumping by 10,000 miles for Plats.

Here’s a table of the new structure:

American Airlines Admirals Club Membership Rates

Both Delta and United recently increased their airport lounge rates, so American seems to be following along.

Personally, I’m glad I’m getting Admirals Club access via my American Express Platinum card. I hope that program doesn’t change!

(Hat tip: AAdvantage Geek & Frequent Flier)

Related posts:

How an American Express Platinum Card Pays For Itself

United Club Membership Rates Increase

Virgin America today extended its status match program for elite frequent fliers with American and United – and added Southwest Airlines. It’s a match/challenge combo, actually, where you’ll be matched outright until June 30, 2013 and offered the ability to extend your status through the end of 2013.

This extension is for new applicants as of April 2, and will not include anyone who participated in their original offering last November.

First, here’s the chart of how the American, United and Southwest elite tiers match to Elevate Silver or Gold:

Here are the benefits of Elevate Silver and Gold:

There are a couple of exceptions to the perks above in the T&Cs for those members matched. During the challenge period (now through June 30, 2013), you will not receive the 25% off discount codes, nor will you have reciprocal benefits (lounge access, primarily) on Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia that require a physical membership card. Cards will not be issued for matched members. Also, matched members will only receive one complimentary pass to the Virgin America lounge at LAX.

To have your matched status extended through the 2013 program year, you must:

It’s a nice break they’re giving for Virgin America Visa Signature cardholders, according to the chart above.

Application link: Virgin America Visa Signature Credit Card

The current bonus mile offer for being approved for the credit card is 10,000 bonus points after the first purchase. You can also earn up to 5,000 additional bonus points if you transfer a balance within the first 30 days.

While they don’t have a complimentary first class upgrade program for elites, Virgin America does open up purchased upgrades earlier for Silver (12 hours) and Gold (24 hours) members. Upgrades to Main Cabin Select seats are, however, complimentary and follow the same timeframe/window. While waiting for that upgrade, elites can book Main Cabin Express seats (those near the front) at the time of booking.

Sorry Delta fliers… there’s still no match for you. American, United and Southwest elites, click here for the status match page with instructions on how to apply.

Related posts:

Virgin America Launches Status Match for American, United Elites

Flight Review: Virgin America First Class LAX to Seattle

Flight Review: Virgin Australia Business Class Sydney to Perth

Flight Review: Virgin Australia Business Class Perth to Sydney

I receive a referral credit if you use the credit card application link on this page and get approved for a Virgin America credit card. I remain grateful to any who apply using my links and thank you for your support of my blog.

I’ve long held off adding one of the American Express Platinum credit cards to my wallet due to the hefty annual fee and the fact that United doesn’t participate in the lounge access benefit. But as my nearly exclusive flying on United is coming to an end soon by locking in million-miler status, I took the plunge and applied for a card. And the annual fee will pay for itself each year in travel benefits on other airlines, specifically lounge access and $200 in annual airline fee credits.

Link: The Platinum Card® from American Express: The current standard offer provides 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $2,000 within 3 months, $200 in airline fee credits (more on that below), access to American, Delta, US Airways and Priority Pass airport lounges, plus a host of other Platinum perks. The annual fee on this card is $450.

Link: The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN: The current standard offer provides 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 within 3 months, access to American, Delta, US Airways and Priority Pass airport lounges, plus a host of other Platinum perks. The annual fee on this card is $450.

Link: Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Mercedes-Benz: The current offer provides 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $1,000 in 3 months, access to American, Delta, US Airways and Priority Pass airport lounges, plus a host of other Platinum perks. The annual fee on this card is $475.

American Express has recently been mailing targeted offers out for the Platinum card with 100,000 Membership Rewards points, which is the best deal of course. But if you’re not lucky enough to get one, the above cards can still pay for themselves.

While not officially stated as a benefit of the Business or Mercedes-Benz cards, they do reportedly get $200 in airline fee credits. The credits are advertised as being for incidentals, such as checked bag fees, in-flight purchases (not Wi-Fi), change fees and the like. But airline gift card purchases have been widely reported as being successful.

My Plan

As my flying on American Airlines will increase in the coming months, I’ll designate them as the carrier for the $200 credit. Then, I’ll purchase gift cards (probably in $50 increments) under their program to capture the statement credit and use those cards for future flights.

And I’ll be able to avoid purchasing an Admirals Club lounge membership ($400 at my current AAdvantage Platinum status). So, the $450 annual fee will certainly pay for itself this year given my travel habits and patterns. Oh, and if you don’t already have Global Entry, American Express will reimburse the $100 application fee if you pay for it with your Platinum card.

I’m probably one of the few people who has held off for so long getting an AMEX Platinum card. And I only recently started getting targeted offers with the more generous Membership Rewards points, so never thought the previous 25k or 50k offers were worth the trouble as I focused predominantly on Chase and Citi cards.

Application link: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Application link: The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN

Application link: Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Mercedes-Benz

For other airline, hotel and flexible credit cards that earn miles or points, click here.

I receive a referral credit if you successfully apply for a card using some of the links on this post. I remain grateful to any who apply using those links and thank you for your support of my blog. The decision to apply for credit is yours and includes the responsibility to read and understand all terms and conditions.

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While not an officially advertised benefit, American Airlines has for years provided “soft landings” to elite members who fail to qualify for status the following year. And even though it’s a known program, I was a bit surprised that American was generous enough to grant me Platinum status through February 2014 given I barely flew them last year and only had Executive Platinum status in 2012 due to their status match offer.

My new card arrived (perfectly timed) on March 1 with the following note:

'Soft Landing' Note from American

Once I hit million-mile status on United in a couple of months, it would make switching loyalty and gunning for full-year 2014 American status a bit less painful. And it’s just smart business, in my opinion, showing that loyalty is actually important to American even after falling from grace.

United used to offer soft landings, even for Premier (Silver) fliers who didn’t re-qualify:

Premier Emeritus Card Circa 1994

But as far as I know, United hasn’t done so for years. Delta and US Airways also don’t seem to be keen on soft landings from what I’ve heard. I wonder which stance the soon-to-be Doug Parker-run American will take?

In any case, thank you, American, for the generous drop to Platinum for the remainder of the program year. I hope to be flying with you shortly after locking in million-miler at United.

Related posts:

Why an American-US Airways Merger Worries Me

What the New American AAdvantage Program Might Look Like

American Offering Fast Track to Executive Platinum Renewal (Targeted)

With a merger announcement between American Airlines and US Airways imminent (tomorrow morning by all accounts), we’ll finally put some speculation to rest, but open the door on months of new supposition. [Edited 2/14/13: And it's official]

Of particular interest to me (and many of you, I’m sure) will be the changes to American’s AAdvantage frequent flier program. After all, earning miles and gaining status are at the core of my addiction to airlines. So here then are some guesses as to elite tiers, revenue requirements and upgrades in the eventual new program.

Elite Tiers

I, as many others do, believe American will adopt a four-tier mileage-based elite system being named Silver, Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum. This would mean a downgrade in name for 25,000-mile fliers, but it wouldn’t necessarily translate into reduced benefits from what they have today.

Adding in a 75,000-mile level as the new Platinum would likely shed some benefits away from current 50,000-mile fliers, also downgraded in name to Gold. I think they’d still be oneworld Sapphire, but their bonus award mile amount would probably drop from the current 100 percent.

And as for the new Platinum 75,000-mile level, I imagine American would provide marginally better benefits than Gold, such as better upgrade priority and bonus award miles. It’ll be interesting to see if they follow the US Airways model of 25/50/75/100-percent bonus award miles by status, similar to United.

Evolving to a four-tier elite program will also help even out the ranks when combining the two programs. And I’m certain American’s unadvertised Concierge Key program will remain.

Revenue Requirement

If you subscribe to InsideFlyer, Randy’s opening remarks in the February issue point to an opportunity for the merged carrier to pull off adding a revenue requirement for elite status at the same time as officially operating as one airline.

And I tend to agree. It’ll certainly take time to reveal the eventual new AAdvantage program, but when it debuts (probably in 2014), I wouldn’t be surprised at a Delta-esque spend requirement for each elite level – particularly with Doug Parker at the helm.

And I think United will announce something similar beginning in the 2014 year, effective with 2015 status.

Upgrades

One of the great things about Executive Platinum status right now is the “protection” of being the only level with unlimited complimentary upgrades. Other levels currently have to use 500-mile e-stickers for the privilege to upgrade.

But just as US Airways offers unlimited domestic upgrades, American will likely evolve AAdvantage to do the same and become competitive with United and Delta. Not necessarily good news for the Executive Platinums out there, I know, but I truly believe it’ll happen.

As far as American’s generous e-VIP (Systemwide) upgrade policy allowing all purchased coach fares to upgrade into business internationally, I think that will change, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if a minimum fare class requirement were instituted with the new AAdvantage program.

It will certainly be interesting to watch everything unfold in the next several months to a year, beginning tomorrow.

Related posts:

Why an American-US Airways Merger Worries Me

Delta’s New Medallion Qualifying Dollars Revenue Requirement

• Following up on the big reveal of their new image yesterday, American Airlines launched a redesigned website today. Appropriately sporting the new logo, it’s much cleaner and very attractive, in my opinion. And more importantly, everything seems to work.
• American is reportedly matching Delta’s Diamond Medallion SkyMiles members to Executive Platinum, according to reports on Flyertalk. This may not be new, as American has been matching United 1Ks as well, but it certainly eases the pain for Delta fliers looking to switch elsewhere after they introduced a Medallion Qualifying Dollars requirement for 2014.
• MLT Vacations, the tour operator owned by Delta Air Lines, will be dumping United Vacations as it focuses on Delta Vacations and other partnerships with SkyTeam member airlines. No replacement has been named yet, but I’m certain competition for the business will be stiff. Personal note: I’m always intrigued by wholesaler/vacation-packager news since I worked for two such organizations in the 1990s.
• The TSA says they’ll be dumping the Rapiscan scanners by June, which are the X-ray backscatter machines that produce the “Nude-O-Scope” images. Full body scanning machines will still be in airports, but of the less invasive Gumby-image variety as seen at many airports today.
• A Marine recruit reportedly had second thoughts about boot camp by jumping a fence at San Diego Airport, losing his pants and hiding in a janitor’s van near the Southwest Airlines terminal. File this under weird airport news.

Related posts:

Notable Airline, Hotel and Travel News: January 17, 2013

Notable Airline, Hotel and Travel News: January 16, 2013

Notable Airline, Hotel and Travel News: January 15, 2013

Reader Cristian sent me the following email:

I have 150k miles with American Airlines, but have recently moved to the UK, and am thus considering joining British Airways’ Executive Club. I fly regularly from the UK to California, and from the UK to Europe – almost always on British Airways.

Do you think there is any advantage to keeping my American Airlines frequent flyer program going? And assuming you recommend a fresh start with British Airways, do you know if there is a way to transfer my American Airlines miles to my British Airways account (as they are both part of the oneworld alliance)?

First, I would absolutely open an Executive Club account with British Airways. I’ll get to my reasoning for that in a moment. But to answer your question whether to keep your AAdvantage account going or switch to Executive Club collecting Avios depends on how you want to redeem your miles. And if achieving elite status is important to you, it might take longer to reap better benefits if you post exclusively to British Airways versus American.

As to mileage redemption, one of American’s advantages is reduced North America to Europe off-peak coach award levels at 40,000 miles. The lowest rate for using British Airways Avios at any time is 50,000 for the same award (except for NYC/BOS/WAS, which is 40k as John777 notes in the comments). That said, you could use fewer Avios on flights if you’re willing to add in a co-pay (think cash+points). Another advantage with American is for N.A.-UK/Europe first class award redemptions. You’d only need 125,000 miles on American for a first class award versus 150,000 Avios on British Airways. And as other readers mention below, beware of the fuel surcharges on British Airways awards.

British Airways Avois have advantages, too. Besides the aforementioned cash+points scheme, you’d only need 9,000 Avios for a roundtrip coach flight from London to Frankfurt versus 20,000 American Airlines miles. London to Rome would be 15,000 Avios versus 20,000 American miles. And both programs currently earn 1 Avios (BA) or mile (AA) per mile flown on the cheapest coach tickets.

If elite status is important to you, flying British Airways and posting to American on the cheapest coach tickets will get you oneworld Sapphire status faster. American’s program requires 50,000 miles to hit that level versus 600 tier points with British Airways. To break that down, it would only take 4.58 LHR-LAX roundtrips to hit Sapphire in American’s program versus 8.57 roundtrips posted to British Airways. Sapphire status grants you priority check-in, boarding, lounge access and other perks when traveling internationally.

Finally, the reason I mentioned that you should open up an Executive Club account is simply to take advantage of bonus Avios opportunities. British Airways recently brought back its credit card for U.S. residents that offers large bonus Avios. If you can still maintain a mailing address in the U.S., consider applying for this card.

And sadly, no… you can’t transfer your AAdvantage miles to a British Airways account.

Readers: Any other advice you’d provide to Cristian?

I realize I’ve been quite the cheerleader lately for American Airlines. My experiences flying with them and communicating with their social media team have been stellar since last year, and I’m happily on my way to qualifying for Executive Platinum for 2013.

However, as I’ve started to fly them and book more tickets with regularity, I’m now joining the large group of bummed out fliers who can’t track their mileage on one of the many third party services out there.

It all started last year when American notified the majority of such services (AwardWallet, MileWise, PageOnce, etc.) that they could no longer access AAdvantage program balances on behalf of their members. The claim was that security was a major issue and user passwords being stored by third party sites opened up the possibility of fraud.

In response, AwardWallet proactively created a plug-in that satisfied this security threat whereby account information was never stored on AwardWallet’s servers. Instead, information was sent/received through the actual owner’s browser and then updated on their AwardWallet account. Well, that only lasted until February this year as American decisively said that was a “no-no,” as well.

As Gary pointed out on his blog, the assumed actual reason behind the change was likely to force AAdvantage members to log into their accounts on AA.com, thereby increasing the likelihood of a sale or another type of marketing impression. I imagine that’s truer to fact than the security thing since the AwardWallet “fix” was subsequently squashed.

To be fair, Southwest Airlines also restricts third party applications from the same type of data collection and display. But I’m still annoyed American is the only airline I fly where I can’t see my balance tracked on my personal favorite tool, PageOnce. Its main function is to track all of your financial accounts, but their frequent travel program tracking is simply stellar, too. They seem to notify me of a schedule change before any of the airlines shoot out a notice.

I wish there were some type of “opt-in” ability to allow these third party companies to resume tracking my balance. The IT infrastructure to handle that on a case-by-case basis, though, is probably too prohibitive. I can dream.

So there. I had to at least tip the scale a bit and post something I don’t like about American.

Boy, American is really in the giving spirit lately. If the free Admirals Club passes weren’t already enough of a welcome surprise last week, this morning they emailed me yet another gift.

It’s a targeted offer with a dedicated link, so sadly I can’t post it to share with the masses, but I’m certain I’m not the only one to receive it. The fine print of the email reads, “This email was sent to darren@frequentlyflying.com because you have recently attained AAdvantage Executive Platinum status.”

If you think about it, they’re really being smart marketers. Offering useful perks above and beyond what you already receive as a top-tier elite – especially being a new Executive Platinum – really helps build loyalty and drive future purchase decisions. And the timing of them arriving after receiving the EP credentials in the mail allows them to bring American top-of-mind again at this later date.

Thanks, American, for another fantastic gift!

American Airlines continues to impress the heck out of me lately. I flew with them quite a bit last year during my quest to achieve Platinum status and earlier this year I took advantage of their Executive Platinum status match for United 1Ks.

My first trip with American this year is coming up next weekend and the only piece of my normal “United” routine of travel that I was going to miss was lounge access. I have yet to purchase an Admirals Club membership (nor am I a non-U.S. airline oneworld elite that would get access) and have been holding off buying it until I really start flying them in earnest in September.

Lo and behold what arrives in the mail today:

Were they reading my mind? Naw, they’re just smart marketers and realize an opportunity when they see one. I’d like to think it was someone being proactive and noticing my first flight on AA was approaching since being newly minted as a status-matched EP from United. However I got them, THANK YOU American!

The letter enclosed with the certs was from Suzanne Rubin, the President of AAdvantage, and simply said they value my business and want to ensure I am as comfortable and productive as possible. Yeah, it was also a plug for the club, but a welcome one at that!

Besides the 10,000 miles I plan to fly on United this year to renew 1K through 2014, American is getting the rest of my business. They’ve just got it going on right now, especially making renewal of Executive Platinum relatively easy.