WOHOOOO! As expected, the joys of Chapter 11!

American has just announced that they’ll be running a double elite qualifying miles promotion for travel between December 13, 2011, through January 31, 2012. Best of all, the double elite qualifying miles even apply to previously booked travel, so there’s no restrictions as to the booking date.

YES! YES! YES! I don’t actually need the miles, but there’s something oh-so-exciting about this.

If you’ve never been on a mileage run before, this would be a great time to start. This is a way to get top tier status on American for only 50,000 flown miles, which will get you eight systemwide upgrades that you can use to upgrade any revenue ticket worldwide, even cheap ones!

I would expect United to match within 48 hours.

Posted on December 13th, 2011 by lucky
Filed under: American, Great Deals | 37 Comments »

  1. December 13th, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    katey said,

    Benjamin,

    Soooooooooooo tempting!!!

    That means renew my AA EXP for 50,000 miles.

    Any way to fly premium fares to get that 50k lower?? Would love to hear your insanely brilliant thoughts on how to work this!!!!

    Love,
    katie

  2. December 13th, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    lucky said,

    @ katey — Keep in mind that this is a double elite qualifying miles promotion and not a double elite qualifying points promotion. On American premium fares only earn one mile per mile flown, but earn bonus points. So you’d actually have to fly just as many miles in paid first class as you’d have to on the cheapest coach fare. Sorry!

  3. December 13th, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Darren said,

    I’m not so certain United will match. (Would love them to, however)

  4. December 13th, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    Paul said,

    So, miles flown before 12/31 only count for 2011, correct? I have 0 EQMs on AA this year, so don’t want to get started too early. May call for a January mileage run, seeing any good ideas from LAX?

  5. December 13th, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Phil said,

    Yawn. Two weeks to get the 95k I’d need to retain EXP. And I already booked my Jan flights using the new domestic air currency Avios

  6. December 13th, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    lucky said,

    @ Phil — That’s correct, any travel flown on or before December 31 would still count towards this year.

  7. December 13th, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    chris said,

    I have 0 AA miles. But the system wide (including Australia?) sound very tempting! What mileage runs would your wise mind propose?
    Thanks Lucky

  8. December 13th, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    lucky said,

    @ chris — Unfortunately American doesn’t fly to Australia so you couldn’t use them to fly there. Where do you live?

  9. December 13th, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    ArizonaGuy said,

    *grumble bitch moan etc* I’m out of the country most of January. Even if United matches I won’t have much time to participate. Grrr. Nothing like a jump start on 2013 status. Maybe I’ll figure something out.

  10. December 13th, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    chris said,

    Lucky – currently live in boston as a student but home is in Sydney. I admire all your posts : ) well done!
    So u couldn’t get upgrade on a code QF share?

  11. December 13th, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    hobo13 said,

    Seems you may have made the right choice Ben….

    now if only there was a good website to search for MR opportunities!

    As for the match — UA would have matched already….. COdbaUA? hard to say.

  12. December 13th, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    Dan said,

    If United fully matches, I will have a very full January.

    Of course, I can easily see United not applying this to existing itineraries, limiting it to high fare codes, or both.

    But we shall see.

  13. December 13th, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    lucky said,

    @ chris — You can only upgrade on American metal flights, unfortunately, so the Qantas codeshare wouldn’t work. I would suggest using farecompare.com/flyertalk to search for mileage run fares, but unfortunately the site is down for now…

  14. December 13th, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    Rick said,

    I have 31K to go for Exec Plat on AA.

    I’m making a trip at the end of this week from ORD to LHR, 3953 miles. Double miles means 15,812 for the trip.

    Any suggestion for another flight this year that will take me over 100K? I suppose I could go back an forth to LHR for a ride.

  15. December 13th, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Antonio said,

    Since United already has one DEQM promotion going on right now, and is busy with all the merging business, I doubt they’ll match the promotion. As you said: the joys of bankruptcy! Just like my WaMu 5% APR savings account I had right before they went under.

  16. December 13th, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    AdamH said,

    It looks like there has been a targeted offer out since the beginning of the month. Albeit only on higher fares. http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,53892,00.html. I was not aware of this offer until just now, though it didn’t let me sign up when I tried. So perhaps they were trying to steal some customers they knew were loyal to AA and AA did this to match.

  17. December 13th, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Will said,

    How do you add the bonus code to previously booked travel?

  18. December 13th, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    lucky said,

    @ Will — There’s no need to add it to any particular reservation, as it’s linked to your account. As long as it’s attached to your AAdvantage profile you’ll earn it for all travel during the period.

  19. December 13th, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Chaos said,

    Sitting here with 42K EQP and 30K EQM. Was hoping for double EQP. May just have to wait for January.

  20. December 13th, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    hartd said,

    ben, what would this mean for Illinois, CA, or TX residents flying the promo from ORD or DFW to SFO or LAX. For instance a roundtrip ORD-LAX would get 1745 (one way mileage) x 2 (for the roundtrip) x 2 (for the IL,CA,TX resident promo) miles = 6980, would this double that to 13960?

  21. December 13th, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    lucky said,

    @ hartd — Unfortunately you can only earn one set of double elite qualifying miles per flight.

  22. December 13th, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    NateEs said,

    Luck, would this include any flights using AAadvantage# flown through partners like Alaska Air or JetBlue? Im FLying NY To SJD (stopover in Chicago)on AA, SJD to PHX(Stopover in LAX) on Alasaka, and PHX to NYC (stopover Boston) all before New Years. Would be great to get those extra EQM’s.

  23. December 13th, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    lucky said,

    @ NateEs — Unfortunately this is valid for American and American Eagle metal flights only.

  24. December 14th, 2011 at 12:57 am

    john said,

    I tried to access and register for the United promo. While I can access the link that AdamH posted, when I enter my MP account number, it tells me that I am not eligible for the promotion. I’m a Premier Exec, so perhaps it’s only being offered to select Premier and General Members? When I click the link to see “My Promotions”, the site then tells me that there are no promotions for me currently. HUH ???

  25. December 14th, 2011 at 4:00 am

    London Tim said,

    Are we going to see you qualify for top tier in record time then?

  26. December 14th, 2011 at 7:34 am

    u600213 said,

    Too bad its not double EQS but cool

  27. December 14th, 2011 at 11:27 am

    Aric said,

    I notice that the “Q” and “O” fare classes only qualify for 0.5 points per mile. But do miles flown under these classes still count towards the double qualifying mile bonus? Thanks.

  28. December 14th, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    lucky said,

    @ Aric — They sure do. American has both elite qualifying miles and elite qualifying points, and you can qualify for status through other means. This would still count as double elite qualifying miles based off the base amount of one mile per mile flown.

  29. December 14th, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    American’s interesting international fare pricing - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] yesterday’s announcement by American that they would be offering double elite qualifying miles through January 31, 2012, I’m sure I’m not the only one that logged onto aa.com to see [...]

  30. December 14th, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    Maximizing the American double elite qualifying miles promotion through January 31, 2012 - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] game and have asked me when to start mileage running, the answer is January 1 on American. American announced a double elite qualifying miles promotion yesterday, which is valid through January 31, [...]

  31. December 14th, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    Ken said,

    Lucky, how long are the expirations on SWU, and how long is one qualified as an elite?

    I.e. if I spend $1500-$2000 to get EXP this year (mainly through this promo), I receive 8 one-way SWO on AA metal (expiration?), EXP status through ____, and the ~50k or so miles earned to reach the status?

  32. December 15th, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    How to use ITA to find mileage run fares - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] Obviously I’m not the only person that loved Fare Compare’s city search tool, since over the past couple of days I’ve constantly been asked where to go to find low fares, especially in light of American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion. [...]

  33. December 15th, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    chris said,

    thanks ben!

  34. December 21st, 2011 at 12:46 am

    The sad cost of January airfare… - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] need to fly in January. Not because American is offering double elite qualifying miles, but because I’ve gotta get the heck out of here. Change of scenery, please! Well, the double [...]

  35. January 1st, 2012 at 10:18 am

    How I’ll be taking advantage of American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion in January - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] I posted about a couple of weeks back, American is running a double elite qualifying miles promotion through [...]

  36. January 18th, 2012 at 10:49 pm

    American’s interesting approach to domestic upgrade availability - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] American, given that many of you are going for Executive Platinum status thanks to American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion (and in many cases triple elite qualifying miles promotion) through the end of the [...]

  37. January 26th, 2012 at 8:27 am

    Off to Shanghai today on an empty one! - One Mile at a Time said,

    [...] take advantage of American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion for the month of January I’m off to Shanghai today for a mini-vacation (aka mileage run of [...]

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