My Experience Converting American Airlines 500-Mile Upgrades

Update: American Airlines has retired the 500-mile upgrade system effective July 13, 2022. All AAdvantage elite passengers will now be able to upgrade themselves and a companion for free on upgrade-eligible flights and leftover 500-mile upgrade certificates will automatically be converted to Loyalty Points.

American Airlines recently introduced complimentary upgrades for elite status passengers, replacing the previously offered system where you had to collect and use 500-mile upgrades. You used to be able to collect 500-mile upgrades and use them for yourself as an AAdvantage Gold or Platinum or use them as a status passenger at any level upgrading a companion.

Because American is sunsetting the 500-mile upgrade program entirely, many elite travelers are stuck with these upgrades in their accounts. American’s formal policy is to convert these upgrades, which were usually sold at $35 to $40 apiece, to 250 Loyalty Points per upgrade — a measly offering, especially if you were well-off for earning status.

If you’d like to explore other possibilities, American is offering a replacement program for these upgrades, where you can choose several other options or do nothing and default to the earning of 250 Loyalty Points per upgrade. Let’s review my personal experience with this process.

Options for Converting Purchased Upgrades

I had 8 500-mile upgrades in my AAdvantage account. I used a credit card at one time to purchase 4 of these upgrades in anticipation of using them for an upgrade on a companion. The other 4 were earned, meaning they were earned at either the Gold or Platinum level but never used by the time I elevated my status to Executive Platinum.

American’s replacement program for 500-mile upgrades will only replace purchased upgrades and not earned ones, so no matter what, the earned ones will default to 250 Loyalty Points each sometime this summer.

I contacted AAdvantage customer service to see what options I had for replacing the purchased upgrades and was presented with several options.

Based on the 4 purchased upgrades I had in my account, I was given a choice of:

• 1,000 Loyalty Points (250 Loyalty Points x 4 purchased 500-mile upgrades)
• 20,000 AAdvantage bonus miles (5,000 bonus miles x 4 purchased 500-mile upgrades)
• Travel Voucher of $160 (the paid amount for the 4 purchased 500-mile upgrades)
• Refund of $160 to the original form of payment or check, depending on when the upgrades were purchased

In deciding what to choose, I thought of several things:

• To me, earning Loyalty Points is useless. I fly enough each year to earn Executive Platinum naturally and don’t need further help towards earning status.
• Earning AAdvantage miles was by far the best option for me, as these are flexible and can be used on any flight I want, especially building up towards a premium cabin redemption. Upgraded Points values AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents per mile, meaning 20,000 miles would potentially have a value of $280.
• While $160 in travel vouchers was equal to the amount paid, I compared this amount with the number of AAdvantage miles I was being offered and decided I was better off with miles over the voucher.
• All the upgrades were purchased several years ago, and refunding would not be possible.

In the end, I chose the AAdvantage miles and I was happy that I did. I used 25,000 AAdvantage miles and a $350 cash co-pay to upgrade a flight from London to the U.S., and the number of miles I received covered most of this upgrade.

Hot Tip: Learn more about the recent changes American has made to the upgrade process for AAdvantage elites.

Final Thoughts

If you have purchased 500-mile upgrades in your AAdvantage account, it’s certainly worth it to call American to see what offer can be made to convert these upgrades. You’ll likely be presented with the same options as I was, simply converted based on the number of upgrades that you have.