Missing American Airlines Loyalty Points

In 2022, American Airlines announced a new way to earn status for future years: Loyalty Points. Given that American Airlines' loyalists can rely on credit card spend to earn status, the timing of accruing Loyalty Points is very important. Recently American Airlines announced that credit card transactions completed through the end of the status-earning year (the last day of February of each year) would count for the prior year's earnings, regardless when the credit card statement is issued. However, this transition was botched and there are missing American Airlines Loyalty Points.

3/30/24 Update: See my updates below for the latest drama and lack of communication from American Airlines.

The Goal

As we outlined recently, you can earn American Airlines status via accural of Loyalty Points. The elite status thresholds are:

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

Luckily for most, spend on an American Airlines co-branded credit card counts toward elite status. You earn 1 Loyalty Point per $1 spend on all cards. These cards include, among others:

• Barclays Aviator Red Mastercard
• Citi AAdvantage Mile Up
• Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select
• Citi AAdvantage Executive
• Citi AAdvantage Business

In announcing changes to the 2024 elite status-earning year, American Airlines announced that credit card spend during February, but posting on a March credit card statement, would retroactively apply to Loyalty Point accrual for the prior year. This was overwhelming positive news, as before any spend after your February statement cut (even on February 1st) did not count for the prior year's Loyalty Point accrual. Unfortunately, this is not happening and there are missing American Airlines Loyalty Points.

The Problem: Missing American Airlines Loyalty Points

With any loyalty program and/or IT updates, there are bound to be glitches. But this is a bad glitch. I initially noticed by Barclays AAdvantage Business card did not post any Loyalty Points on the March 3, 2024 statement. I was traveling in Africa and planned to call upon arriving back at home. Frankly, I did not anticipate it was a big issue and figured a quick call could fix it.

However, my Citi AAdvantage Executive card statement closed on March 6, 2024. It too did not earn any Loyalty Points. This is when the alarm bells went off for me. No Loyalty Points were earned on either an AAdvantage personal or business credit card. So I decided to dig deeper.

The Investigation

First, I double-checked that all cards earned Loyalty Points on all prior statements. I always double-check each statement to confirm, but wanted to triple-check this time around. I confirmed that I earned Loyalty Points on each and every AAdvantage credit card statement which I earned AAdvantage miles in 2023 and 2024.

Second, I went over to where souls go to die (otherwise known as Reddit) for any data points. While this is a good resource for crowd-sourcing data points, is it that hard to be nice and stay friendly? Oh well, not everywhere is as friendly as ToP! Sure enough, EVERYONE is reporting no Loyalty Points were accrued from AAdvantage card statements issued in March 2024. This seems to be widespread and, likely, true for everyone.

Diving into the terms on American Airlines' updates to credit card spend, it states that Loyalty Points accrued from credit card transactions in February may take 8-10 weeks to reach your AA account. If true, this is simply unacceptable. Why? Loyalty Point Rewards, which you earn by reaching certain Loyalty Point thresholds, have a March 31, 2024 deadline for selection. If you do not make a selection by this deadline, you could lose a value perk like:

• Systemwide upgrade
• 30,000 American Airlines miles
• Up to 6 Admirals Club day passes
• Or, many more.

Thus far, American Airlines has neither acknowledged the problem nor announced an extension of the March 31 Loyalty Points Rewards selection deadline. We are reaching out to American Airlines directly for comment.

March 30, 2024 Updates

Within the last week, we heard reports in the Facebook group that previously missing American Airlines Loyalty Points were posting. Sure enough, my Citi AA Executive card LPs (3/6/24 statement closing date) posted on 3/22/24 and my Barclays Business LPs (3/3/24 statement close date) posted on 3/23/24. It appears missing LPs are posting within ~3 weeks.

As I mentioned in the original post, these missing American Airlines Loyalty Points would push me over the 250,000 LP threshold and two Loyalty Point Rewards, which must be selected by the end of March (later moved to April 5). However, with zero explanation or communication by American Airlines, any milestones reached in March/April are automatically receiving a 30 day extension from the date you hit the mark. I reached the 250,000 LP threshold on March 23, 2024 and I have until April 23, 2024 to select my rewards. Why American Airlines didn't think to COMMUNICATE this in advance is beyond me. Had I known members received an automatic 30 day extension to make choices, I would not have stressed about it. AA really botched this whole process and it is very frustrating.

Missing American Airlines Loyalty Points – ToP Thoughts

While we certainly understand an IT glitch or snafu, this currently dilemma seems like a total cluster. Since there are missing American Airlines Loyalty Points from all March 2024 statements, American Airlines should acknowledge the problem. Further, American Airlines should announce an extension of the March 31, 2024 Loyalty Point Rewards selection deadline. These rewards are far too valuable to be ignored and a little more clarity on this situation is warranted. We have reached out to American Airlines directly and will update this post when possible.

Are you missing American Airlines Loyalty Points? Come over to our Facebook group and let us know.