View From the Wing says “American’s holiday gift promotion makes no sense, and is stunning in its lack of generosity.” The Points Guy says “American hyped holiday cheer and gifts, but delivered me disappointment.” But my message to American Airlines is thank you very much for the modest but unexpected holiday gift.
American Airlines Offers Holiday Gift To All Passengers
On Monday, American Airlines teased a special holiday gift to all AAdvantage members. AA also really hyped it up, calling it an “appreciation” gift for my “loyalty” (which was zero flights on AA this year).
Yesterday, I registered for the promotion and was immediately able to view my gift:
500-mile upgrades. Check your Wallet to see your gift.
I liked the plural s on upgrades…and four 500-mile upgrades just showed up. AA also threw in a one-class car upgrade from Avis, though I can only imagine there must be a lot of fine print that will render it worthless.
To find your promotion, login to your AA account and then click “Promotions” followed by the blue “Registration details” button.
Your gift will pop up:
Click “register” if you accept your gift:
I was also presented with a challenge to take four flights in January or February to earn four additional 500-mile upgrades plus 2,000 miles:
Earn 4 additional 500-mile upgrades and 2,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles from January 1 – February 28, 2021:
- Register by December 16, 2020, and before creating a flight reservation
- After you’re registered, book 4 qualifying, eligible flights in Premium Economy, Business, or First for travel on or after January 1, 2021
- After completing your qualifying flights, you’ll earn 4 additional 500-mile upgrades and 2,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles
Now I must admit I’m not going to book even very cheap flights just to earn 2,000 miles or four 500-mile upgrades (that cost $40 each to buy). These 500-mile upgrades do come in handy, especially because AA does not offer complimentary companion upgrades to Executive Platinum members, but United if offering me double credit on flights in January and February…
Thank You American Airlines
Nevertheless, I’m not going to lampoon American Airlines for what was still a gracious and unmerited gift. With all the negative commentary AA has received over this, I wouldn’t be surprised if American Airlines just throws up its hands and says why bother. It should bother…because all else equal, even four 500-mile upgrades makes me more likely to choose AA if I am traveling with a friend or family member.
So thank you American Airlines. Now how about extending Executive Platinum status through 2023? 😉
CONCLSUION
I’m not going to complain about something that I never asked for and that is at least worth something. And in my case, four 500-mile upgrades is actually quite useful. Thank you American Airlines for the unexpected gift. I appreciate the effort.
The purpose of the gift was to make the promotion focal and generate engagement with the promotion.
If they had given everyone 100 miles or 250 miles I’d have shrugged. The airline promoted this as a big deal, they provided advance notice the promo was coming, and they said it would be really tailored to members’ level of engagement with the airline in the past.
As an Executive Platinum member with unlimited complimentary upgrades they gave me a gift of 500 mile upgrades, which I’ve had sitting dormant in my account already since I was a Platinum member back in 2011. Not well targeted, but ok.
Then the promotion I received was to earn a whopping 2000 miles if I bought and flew four premium cabin flights in January/February. That’s 500 miles extra per flight purchased in a premium cabin. That’s what’s stunningly ungenerous. 500 miles per premium cabin flight (but only if I buy four!) is not in any way motivating. What’s the point?
Tend to agree with you, Gary. As an Execut Plat for the past decade or more I have buckets of those upgrades unused and they serve little purpose to me. You would think it might be tailored somehow in knowing that for a large percentage of their most frequent flyers (the ones they are desperate to get back to flying next year) that something a bit more “thoughtful” would be in order. It’s like giving a home ice cream maker to Ben and Jerry…sure, thanks for the thought…but was there any thought?
A nice effort, sure. But this is one of those cases that they might have been better off to just send a cheery Christmas card.
Fair enough, to both you and Gary. I have zero e500s and was happy to (potentially?) receive even two.
Too bad we can’t do regifting, lol. Would be glad to send you them!
Funny that I have over 100 E500s in my AA account and the last time I flew AA was more than 15 years ago. It looks like they never expire. 🙂
My gift was a lump of coal.
I agree with Gary on this one. This promotion, and the whopping 100 miles I received, did nothing to steer my future travel to AA or increase my loyalty to them in the future. I think they would have been smarter to give 1x club passes or free preferred/MCE upgrades to people as that is something tangible to people….that can actually drive a booking. Even one-way I can see people booking AA vs DL/UA/SW all things equal just because they get a club pass. And lets face it, the clubs and MCE seats aren’t going to be filled with elites in Jan and Feb so it’s not like giving it to people will displace an EXP. I think for higher up elites like EXP or PLAT PRO they could have done more as well.
I think as too they really missed the mark on the “challenge” part of the promotion. United runs their Milesplay promotion several times per year and the offers are WAY better. My AA offer is just underwhelming compared to almost all other airline promotions in recent months/years.
I appreciate AA tried to be rewarding to all members but I think they fell short.
I got 100 miles each on both accounts, and I’m happy.
the best gift they could give would be to re-instate the free-stopover on award tickets
The gift was a joke. They did not tailor gifts to their customers.
For example, some of their top frequent fliers received a “preferred seat coupon” when they always get to fly first class (or business class) and would never need a coupon in the main cabin for a preferred seat. Others in the top tier received a 500 mile coupon when they already have tons of these due to their status.
Whoever was responsible for this debacle at the American Airlines Marketing Department should be fired.
It seems like they basically did the United Mile Play, but only once and made it sound like it’s great. I recently received 5,000 miles for two trips with a minimum of $25 (I actually just booked my next flight as two one-way trips and that works)…that’s a much better deal and United doesn’t even really publicize it.
I rarely ever fly AA and received 100 miles! So now I have a whopping 6,200 AA miles! The real question is whether this is enough to prevent those miles from expiring on the 27th of this month! haha
Scott, I am in the same boat. I got 100 miles to add to my 5,421 expiring in January. I regifted them to charity, using the form on AA.com. Now I am the proud owner of 0 AA miles and do not plan to ever earn any more.
During the pandemic, miles do not expire.
interesting, they should update the miles page because it says they expire on 12/27/2020…I had no idea there was an expiration until I saw that.
They should, but it’s unfortunately not a permanent thing (yet). Just a COVID-19 measure.
According to AA’s FAQs miles expire after 18 months unless you have any qualifying activity. https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/faqs/aadvantage-faqs.jsp
Nevermind, I responded before seeing you responded. Yeah I see nothing expires in 2020, but not really clear what happens after 2020…not that I am too worried about AA miles.
Barclay gave my SO the following AA offer (to compare with the 100 miles AA gave her):
Use your AAdvantage® Aviator® Red Mastercard® for purchases from November 10, 2020 to January 31, 2021 and earn up to 60,000 miles.
Earn an additional 10 miles for every $1 spent on purchases made from November 10, 2020 to January 31, 2021, up to 10,000 miles.
The miles you earn with this offer are in addition to the miles you already earn with your AAdvantage® Aviator® Red Mastercard®.
Plus, earn 50,000 miles when you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from November 10, 2020 to January 31, 2021.
So yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, but he does not look like Doug Parker in a red suit.
I just logged in and my gift was 100 AAdvantage miles. I haven’t flown American in years, so perhaps that’s why?
Either way, it seems like not every member is getting the same thing.
I got 100 miles but have not flown on AA in 6 years!
I got the 4 500mi certificates and I was thrilled. I use them to upgrade companions all the time, and I was down to only 2.
I have a mountain of AA miles and 10SWUs, so honestly this was probably the best gift they could have given me.
It is true American did not have to do anything. The way they branded this effort built up more excitement than they delivered. My gift was 250 miles and an offer for double miles flying over the next three months (don’t think they were even EQM miles). As an Ex Plat who actually accrued 35,000 EQM miles before COVID shut travel down, I was expecting something more aligned with my status (e.g. a systemwide upgrade). First world problems for sure but as a loyal AA flyer, thought it would be a stronger offer.