Earning AAdvantage Status Through Credit Card Spending – Worth It?

Recently, American Airlines revamped how you’ll qualify for elite status within the program, and one of the biggest changes was the added option to earn Loyalty Points through credit card spending. Starting in 2022, it will now be entirely possible for you to earn American Airlines elite status exclusively through credit card spending.

But does it make sense to do so? Let’s find out!

American Airlines Elite Qualifying Levels

First things first, we have to run through what it will take to qualify for each level of American AAdvantage status moving forward.

Here’s how many Loyalty Points you’ll need to earn to each level of elite status:

• AAdvantage Gold: 40,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Platinum: 75,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Platinum Pro: 125,000 Loyalty Points
• AAdvantage Executive Platinum: 200,000 Loyalty Points

Hot Tip: If you need a refresher, here is a look at the benefits you receive at each level of American AAdvantage status.

Credit Cards That Earn Loyalty Points

Every co-branded American Airlines card from both Barclays and Citi earns Loyalty Points, including business cards. Here is the full list:

• AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Blue Mastercard^®
• AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Mastercard^®
• AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Red World Elite Mastercard^®
• AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Silver Mastercard^®
• AAdvantage^® Aviator^® World Elite Business Mastercard^®
• American Airlines AAdvantage^® MileUp^®
• Citi^® / AAdvantage^® Gold Mastercard^®
• Citi^® / AAdvantage^® Platinum Select^® World Elite™ Mastercard^®
• Citi^®/AAdvantage^® Executive World Elite Mastercard^®
• CitiBusiness^® / AAdvantage^® Platinum Select^® Mastercard^®

Hot Tip: If you’re not sure which card is right for you, here is a look at the best American Airlines-branded cards.

How Many Loyalty Points Do You Earn From Credit Card Spend?

With each co-branded American Airlines card, you’ll earn 1x Loyalty Point for every $1 spent, with the exception of the AAdvantage Aviator card that earns just 1x Loyalty Point for every $2 spent.

This means you’d need to spend $40,000 on your card in order to achieve Gold status, $75,000 to achieve Platinum status, $125,000 to achieve Platinum Pro status, and a whopping $200,000 in order to reach top-tier Executive Platinum status.

Running the Numbers

Assuming your goal is to reach top-tier Executive Platinum elite status, you’re going to need to spend $200,000 on one or more American Airlines credit cards. In order to determine if it makes sense for you to do so, we need some points of comparison. In other words, could you spend that money on another card and receive more value?

Of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the comparable options but should serve as a guide to help you realize what you could get by putting that spend needed to reach Executive Platinum status elsewhere.

Is It Worth It?

Well, the answer to that question is going to depend almost entirely on how much you value American Airlines Executive Platinum status.

One important assumption here is that it might take you most of the entire year to hit the $200,000 in spend threshold, and because of that you’ll have to make trade-offs. If you’re a business owner that has high 5-figure to low 6-figure monthly expenses, then you could reasonably afford to spend your way to American status without forgoing many other options. But for the rest of us, sacrifices have to be made.

Let’s run through a few of our examples here:

AAdvantage Status vs. Capital One Miles

Since we value the 400,000 Capital One miles you’ll earn at $7,200, and the 200,000 American miles you’ll earn at $2,800, you have a net difference of $4,400. If you don’t value American Executive Platinum status more than $4,400, then you’d be better of putting that spend on one of the Venture cards.

AAdvantage Status vs. Cash-back

At the low end, you could earn $4,000 in cash-back for $200,000 in spending using a card like the Double Cash card.

After deducting the $2,800 in value you’ll receive from the American miles you’ll earn, that is a net difference of $1,200 at the low end and $2,450 at the high end. Now keep in mind that these aren’t the perceived value of miles, this is cold hard cash.

Think of it this way — if someone gave you the option to purchase Executive Platinum status for $1,200, would you say “yes?” Would you purchase it for $2,450? If the answer is “no,” then you’d be better off opting for the cash-back.

AAdvantage Status vs. Chase Ultimate Rewards

Putting that $200,000 in spending on the Freedom Unlimited card would earn you 300,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which we value at $6,000, assuming you’re able to pair it with a card that provides access to the Chase transfer partners like the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card.

With that, unless you value American Executive Platinum status more than $3,200 ($6,000 minus the $2,800 value of the American miles you’d earn), then you’d be better off putting this spend on the Freedom Unlimited card.

AAdvantage Status vs. World of Hyatt Status

What if you put that spend on the fan-favorite World of Hyatt card instead? Our valuation of the points you’ll earn is quite close ($2,800 vs. $3,000), but after hitting $140,000 in spend, you’d reach Hyatt Globalist status and you’d receive a free Category 1-4 certificate for spending $15,000 on the card.

Assuming you had to choose between one or the other, would you rather have American Executive Platinum status or Hyatt Globalist status?

AAdvantage Status vs. Southwest Rapid Rewards Status

If you’re an American flyer this may feel like a ridiculous example, but assuming you live near an airport that offers plenty of nonstops for both American and Southwest flights, it could be a worthwhile comparison.

After all, after earning 135,000 qualifying points, you would receive the Southwest Companion pass that allows you to bring a companion on all paid and award flights; all you have to pay are the taxes. If you’re someone who does the majority of your traveling with a significant other, there is a good argument to be made that you’d get significantly more value out of the Southwest Companion Pass than you would from American Executive Platinum status.

Bonus: AAdvantage Status vs. Hitting Sign-up Bonuses

Just for fun, here is a bonus comparison where instead of putting $200,000 in spend on one card or another, imagine instead that you used some of that spend to hit the sign-up bonus or welcome offer across multiple cards.

Assuming the average minimum spend requirement for a welcome offer is $4,000, $200,000 would equate to 50 card bonuses throughout the year. This is, of course, a completely ridiculous expectation, as just about anyone would have a near-impossible time getting approved for 50 new cards over the course of a year.

A much more reasonable expectation would be 12 new cards throughout the year, or 1 new card per month. Assuming that the average value per welcome bonus was at a conservative $800, that would add up to $9,600 in value for those bonuses throughout the year.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, it makes little to no sense to spend your way to American Airlines status if you aren’t already flying with American Airlines quite often. Otherwise, you’ll be getting hardly any value at all out of the benefits.

Chances are, if you’re someone who values elite status with American, then you probably are already flying the airline fairly often. Given that, it makes the most sense to spend your way towards status as a supplement to the Loyalty Points you’re already earning through flying, without relying on credit cards alone to get you there.