In case you are not aware, American Airlines ran a promo called Fast Track to Elite. The promotion was that an AAdvantage member who has never had elite status can earn elite status by flying a much fewer amount of Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs) than regularly published levels. It was a promotion that was supposed to be targeted. It soon became known that anyone can enroll but was, at the time, not known if it was targeted. The flood gates opened and a lot of people registered for the promotion, but not me.
| Elite Level | Promo EQMs | Published EQMs Needed |
| Gold | 6,000 | 25,000 |
| Platinum | 12,000 | 50,000 |
| Executive Platinum | 30,000 | 100,000 |
Why I Didn’t Enroll
As you may gather, I don’t travel nearly as much as I would like, and most of my flying is on Alaska Airlines. Having elite status on American wouldn’t help me get benefits tat are useful to me on Alaska. I currently don’t have any planned travel on American. I looked for good mileage runs on American and didn’t find any that wouldn’t take a massive amount of time on the weekends (the only days I can travel without taking time off of work). I realized that I would possibly paying quite a bit for what really would have amounted to bragging rights… but why would I brag about spending money to get elite status with very little intentions of using the benefits of having the elite status?
My Elite Status Plan
I do have a plan to achieve elite status on Alaska Airlines. Having elite status on Alaska Airlines would give me benefits that I can actually make use of. To get MPV status (which is the low level elite status), I need to fly 20,000 EQMs on Alaska or 25,000 EQMs on Alaska and partner airlines. Including my upcoming travels, I will end the month of September with just over 19,800 EQMs on Alaska. I know I’ll be flying to Vancouver at least once more this year and I’ll cross that 20,000 EQM threshold. There’s a possibility I’ll be flying about 5,300 miles on American in September which would put me just over 25,000 EQMs.
