How do you become an american airlines platinum member?

Question

Im on standby for a flight that is overbooked. I am next on the standy list. But they told me that platinum memebers have priority over us. How is it that you become a platinum member?

Answer 1

I think it has to do with how many frequent flyer miles you accrue.  Something like 100,000 in a calendar year.

Answer 2

American (AA) has 3 tiers of elite status.

Gold: 30 segments or 25,000 Miles/Points

Platinum: 60 segments or 50,000 Miles/Points

Plantinum Executive: 100 segments or 100,000 Miles/Points

One segment = one flight.  If you are a flight from Chicago (ORD) to Los Angeles (LAX) via Dallas (DFW), that counts as 2 segments.

Miles are earned based on actual miles flown.  

Points are based on miles with a multiplier for booking class.  If you're on a deeply discounted class (ie, the cheap tickets), you'll earn 0.5 points per mile.  So ORD-SFO would be 1846 miles x 0.5 = 923 points.

Full fare economy, First, and Business classes earn 1.5 points per mile.  All other booking classes earn 1 point per mile.  

You have to travel quite a bit to even make the lowest elite tier.  I'm Premier on United (30 segments or 25k miles) and Silver Medallion on Delta (25k miles).  The folks making Platinum and Platinum Exec are your real road warriors and earn the priority they get over the occasional traveler.  

There are a couple other ways to earn Platinum status.  One is to have an equivalent status on another airline (Gold Medallion on Delta or Premier Executive on United, for example) and do a status match challenge with AA.  In this case, AA will give you Plat status if you fly a certain number of miles or segments within 90 days.  

The other way is through lifetime miles accumulation.  If you hit 1 million lifetime miles, you get Gold for life.  2 million or more gets you Platinum for life.  All miles count for this benefit, including flight miles, partner miles, credit card miles, etc.  Some people spend over $100k/year on their credit cards (for business + mortgage payments + personal) and, with other partner and flight activity, can get to 1 million miles in 3-5 years.

One other note: elite qualification miles are solely for attaining status with and airline and are different from redeemable miles which can be used to book award travel.  Elite miles reset every year, ie, you start from 0 on Jan 1.  Redeemable miles will carry over unless you have no activity over a certain period of time (varies by airline, but anywhere from 18 months to 3 years to no limit).

Answer 3

OR, run a Challenge!

see:

http://members.shaw.ca/fewmiles/AA/recht...

Answer 4

why dont you actually call the airline and ask them how you become a platinum member