American currently offers small business rewards for flights with its Business Extra program, which I’ve written about several times in the past.
That program has a unique and extremely valuable award chart, which will be killed off on 12/15. Unredeemed points will be transferred into AA miles at a 1:6 ratio.
Enrollment in Business Extra is now closed, in favor of the new program AAdvantage Business. The new program is far less lucrative than the old one.
In the new program, enrolled businesses will earn 1 AA mile per dollar spent, which can be transferred on demand to employees of the business. Those are on top of regular mileage earnings for employees.
Enrolled employees will earn 1 bonus loyalty point per dollar spent, on top of the normal loyalty points earned for travel.
Businesses will need to have 5 active registered travelers, $5,000 in flights every rolling 12 months, and a tax ID number to enroll. However, new CitiBusiness AA cardholders will be automatically enrolled in the program, even if they don’t meet those criteria. Existing cardholders will be enrolled within the next year.
One major difference from the previous program is that your AAdvantage Business number must be entered at the time of booking by logging into your account and selecting business travel, it can’t be added later on.
On new CitiBusiness AA cards, an AAdvantage Business account will be opened automatically. Miles earned from purchases will post to the company’s AAdvantage Business account. Loyalty points earned by the primary cardholder’s card will post to the primary cardholder’s AAdvantage account, while loyalty points earned by secondary cardholder’s cards will post to the secondary cardholder’s AAdvantage account. Miles can be transferred from the business account to employee accounts on demand. If the card is closed, the AAdvantage Business account remains open, but it will then be subject to expiration and the threshold rules above.
You can read more in the FAQ here and program terms here.
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4 Comments On "American Replacing Generous Business Extra Program With Inferior AAdvantage Business Program"
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With the overall devaluation of American miles, is there a way to buy miles from individuals at a lower rate than AA charges on their website? American allows miles transfers, correct?
Will the upgrade certificates still work after 12/15?
If you convert existing points to AA miles after 12/15 at a 1:6 ratio will you get loyalty points for that?
Hmm, doesn’t let me redeem for anything since my last $5k spend was just over 12 months ago. I hope they will at least let me redeem automatically after 12/15, so I don’t lose my points. Someone should tell AA PFHHGS.
Same here. Very disappointing change they initiated recently. I have points, just won’t let me use them.