My American Airlines AAdvantage membership went from no status on September 3 to AAdvantage Gold on September 5 after flying 6,342 miles from Orange County SNA, California to Copenhagen, Denmark last week via Chicago and Dusseldorf.
My flights from Bergen, Norway to San Francisco two days ago pushed me past 12,000 EQM for AAdvantage Platinum elite with flight segments from Bergen to London to Dallas to San Francisco.
One completed round trip to Scandinavia and I am now AAdvantage Platinum elite with 13,205 elite qualifying miles (EQM) credited to my account today.
This month I am flying three times from California to Scandinavia to earn American AAdvantage fast-track elite status through a targeted offer I signed up for in June 2015. If I fly 30,000 EQM by October 9, then I fast-track to American AAdvantage Executive Platinum membership.
My new AAdvantage Platinum elite status confers Oneworld Alliance Sapphire membership. One of the primary benefits of AAdvantage Platinum for my immediate use during the return flights to Bergen, Norway in a few days is access to airport Business Class lounges. I’ll be hanging out in London Heathrow for several hours over two days on a 19 hour overnight layover in London before continuing to Bergen, Norway on my flights next week.
The other benefit of AAdvantage Platinum elite is 100% bonus miles for the remaining 25,000 or so flight miles on Oneworld airlines I have ticketed over the next month.
That was indeed a fast elite fast-track upgrade in AAdvantage membership.
As an AAdvantage base member without elite status, I earned no flight bonus miles last week when I flew Orange County, California to CopenhagenMy elite status was AAdvantage Gold with 25% bonus flight miles this week when I flew Bergen to San Francisco. Next week I will earn 100% bonus flight miles on my two segment itinerary SFO – London LHR – Bergen BGO, Norway.
My objective is AAdvantage Executive Platinum after 30,000 EQM. That requires three more transatlantic crossings, which I should complete in a little more than two weeks from now as I fly San Francisco to Bergen next week, travel north of the Arctic Circle in Norway to hike around a few days, then fly one more round trip Bergen, Norway to San Francisco.
Loyalty Traveler AAdvantage Elite Challenge Fast-Track posts
My account has been upgraded to AAdvantage Gold after 6,000 EQM this week (September 6, 2015)
I have been a member of AAdvantage since 1990, more than 25 years now.
I am AAdvantage Gold–FFP elite again after 5 years Oct 12, 2015. This is an article with some personal history about why I started Loyalty Traveler in April 2006 and some of the issues I faced in keeping it all together over some rough years of self-employment. I am 7 months away from the 10th anniversary of Loyalty Traveler.
AAdvantage Mileage Run Potential? Copenhagen to Los Angeles $421 round trip April 27, 2015 – I had forgotten about writing this article. I find this article interesting because I did an analysis in April on how a person could buy four round trip tickets and fly LAX to Copenhagen and then fly three round trips originating in Copenhagen to LAX on low cost tickets to earn AAdvantage Platinum for under $2,000. This is essentially what I am doing this month, except my ticket prices are lower (Bergen, Norway to San Francisco $373 and $398) and my AAdvantage fast-track challenge allows me to earn AAdvantage Executive Platinum with only three round trip tickets between California and Scandinavia for under $1,500.
My fantastic American AAdvantage elite fast-track offer (June 22, 2015)
This is the original post describing my targeted AAdvantage fast-track offer for AAdvantage Executive Platinum upon flying 30,000 EQM by October 9, 2015.
Cost of flying 30,000 AAdvantage flight miles (June 22, 2015)
This is my original planning thoughts on how to complete the fast-track challenge. There were a whole world of possibilities for places to go with ticketing 30,000 flight miles.
Thoughts on my AAdvantage Executive Platinum challenge (July 23, 2015) Thoughts on my AAdvantage Executive Platinum challenge looks at value and benefits of top elite status. Spending $2,000 to $3,000 demands reflection. I don’t have the kind of money sitting around to blithely enter into this kind of expensive venture without knowing that I will fly enough in 2016 to get $2,000 in additional value back from future flights through February 2017.
Nested tickets for more AAdvantage EQM California to Scandinavia (July 23, 2015) My flight plans were coming together with California and Stockholm and the idea of flying to Copenhagen and then flying Stockholm to San Francisco on a cheap American Airlines ticket at $450, and possibly an Anchorage trip to reach 30,000 EQM.
AAdvantage Executive Platinum Challenge 39,294 EQM booked for $1,583 (July 28, 2015) My current flight itineraries were planned and ticketed between July 23 and July 27. This is the post with the details of the AAdvantage Challenge flights. The next issue was what to do in Europe on those flights? There are links in this post to the hotel strategies I considered to reduce the overall cost of three weeks traveling in Europe between flights.
American Airlines Executive Platinum Challenge routing ticketed and six intra-Europe flight choices(July 30, 2015) This post details the intra-Europe flights and ticket prices with my rationale for why I chose the industrial tour of Malmo, Sweden and Brno, Czech Republic and Clermont Ferrand, France for places to hang out several days and nights.
Go for EQM or EQP? American AAdvantage ExPlat Fast-Track (Aug 24, 2015) Weeks after ticketing my 30,000 EQM in flights, I examined the option of EQP. This is a more relevant post now that many members received a different offer this week from American AAdvantage to fast-track to Executive Platinum with 25,000 EQP.
AAdvantage Executive Platinum 30K Challenge – Day 1 California to Dusseldorf 5,956 EQM (Sep 3, 2015)
My account has been upgraded to AAdvantage Gold after 6,000 EQM this week (September 6, 2015).
That is my AAdvantage Executive Platinum Challenge 2015 story to date.
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