Major Overhaul Already: American Airlines Updates AAdvantage Business Program with New Perks – View from the Wing

Major Overhaul Already: American Airlines Updates AAdvantage Business Program with New Perks

by Gary Leff on July 16, 2024

American Airlines let go Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja, architect of their strategy of chasing award managed business travel. His thesis had been that they were going to fill their planes, and didn’t need to offer companies discounts. They’d make more money, and do so at a lower cost – without the sales teams and special customer service to service those accounts.

The airline was also going to war with travel agencies, reducing their support, pulling the lowest fares from agencies that didn’t use the airline’s preferred booking technology, and had announced a plan that customers who booked through those agencies would no longer earn miles.

Now they’re offering travel agencies commissions again to sell premium fares, and trying to rebuild some of their business travel efforts. They backtracked on ending mileage-earning for agency tickets when the agencies weren’t doing enough business with American through ‘New Distribution Capability’ systems (that often didn’t work right).

And they’re restoring some of the service elements to their small business program.

• Business ExtrAA was replaced by AAdvantage Business
• It represented a two-thirds to three-quarters devaluation
• Points in that program would only be earned for bookings directly with American, not agency bookings
• And they didn’t offer customer service for problems with the program, to any real degree

While they’re not restoring value to the program, they’re making a couple of key changes:

1. Earn with AAdvantage Business wherever tickets are booked. Agency bookings are no longer excluded.
2. Get customer service over the phone, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. CT, Monday – Friday, at 877-229-8278 

I find the inability to apply AAdvantage Business details to booking for more than one person frustrating, and the need to book with an AAdvantage Citi co-brand business card to gain full earnings in the program.

The one positive of AAdvantage Business is earning a bonus loyalty point per dollar spent on tickets credited to the program. Additional flexibility they will be adding to the program going forward:

• Redeem miles directly from AAdvantage Business, without the need to transfer miles to a personal account first
• Manage trip credits for the business, and redeem for any registered traveler (trip credits belong to the business, not the individual)
• Customize travel policy by traveler or team
• Transfer tickets between travelers “Name change waivers for agency bookings will be available for all program members”

Those are helpful efforts! But the earn rate of this program still pales in comparison to the value offered by Business ExtrAA, sadly.

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