The other day I wrote about American Airlines Systemwide Upgrades and how to use them. While writing that post I realized that you can actually earn additional Systemwide Upgrades through the Million Miler program.
That’s when I realized that I didn’t actually know that much about the Million Miler program and my guess is that many casual travelers have no idea what the Million Miler program is either. After all, how many American Airlines customers have their sights set on flying 1,000,000 miles. I’d assume most customers are far more concerned about flying 25,000 miles in a year to earn AAdvantage Gold status.
What Is The AAdvantage Million Miler Program?
The Million Miler program is essentially what is sounds like. It’s a secondary type of American Airlines status that customers earn over the lifetime of the program. Unlike traditional elite status, your Million Miler miles carry over each year. That means that you could earn Million Miler status in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 (etc.) years. So, although you may not fly enough each year to think airline loyalty matters, perhaps you fly enough in your lifetime the lifetime of the program*.
AAdvantage customers earn Million Miler miles on each American and OneWorld operated flight they take. Unlike traditional AAdvantage miles, you only earn Million Miler miles for each mile flown. There are not multipliers because of status or from the price paid for the ticket. An economy ticket earns the same number of Million Miler miles as a paid first class ticket.
Likewise, there is not 500-mile minimum to Million Miler miles. So if you take a short 250 mile flight, you only earn 250 Million Miler miles opposed to the 500 Elite Qualifying Miles that you also earn. Clearly this means that earning Million Miler status isn’t easy, but again, these are lifetime miles that accrue throughout the life of the AAdvantage program.
What Is AAdvantage Million Miler Status?
Many may not know this, but in addition to AAdvantage elite status, you can also earn American Airlines Million Miler status. However, just like traditional AAdvantage status you earn status by flying a certain number of miles. Specifically, as you can guess by the name, you earn status per 1,000,000 miles flown with American and qualifying partner airlines. 1,000,000 miles is no small feat so when you finally achieve Million Miler status the benefits are actually quite substantial.
The first level of Million Miler status is achieved after earning a total of 1,000,000 miles. Once you hit that million mile mark you earn AAdvantage Gold status (OneWorld Ruby) for life. Yep, after hitting that magical number you’ll never have to worry about qualifying for American Airlines elite status again. Additionally, American Airlines also gives Million Milers 35,000 AAdvantage award miles.
If you keep flying with American, as I bet many do, you hit your next level of Million Miler status at 2,000,000 miles. Once you hit two million miles you will maintain AAdvantage Platinum status (OneWorld Sapphire) for life. When you hit 2,000,000 miles you don’t earn any additional award miles, but instead you’ll earn a total of 4 Systemwide Upgrades. Personally, I much more prefer SWUs to lousy AAdvantage award miles.
After hitting 2,000,000 miles you’ll earn an additional 4 SWUs per million miles flown. For now, American is not giving out lifetime status after flying 3,000,000+ miles. I hope that changes in the future, but truth be told I’d be shocked if I hit 3,000,000 miles in my lifetime!
Final Thoughts
The American Airlines Million Miler program isn’t advertised quite like the AAdvantage program, but it’s important to know that it exists. However, I personally don’t see a ton of value in the Million Miler program myself. See, let’s say you fly enough miles to actually earn Million Miler status in, well, your lifetime. That would mean you’re flying AT LEAST 50,000 miles a year. Even with that it would take 20 years of travel to earn just lifetime AAdvantage Gold status. So essentially after being a Platinum customer for 20 years you’re rewarded with a lower tier status when you stop flying?
For that reason I just don’t see a ton of value in the Million Miler program. However, I’m not going to complain when I hit a million miles (in 5-10 years) and American wants to give me 35,000 AAdvantage miles. Hopefully by then that would be enough miles to get a one-way domestic flight!
