Back in 2011 I earned Lifetime Gold status with American Airlines. An overwhelming majority of the miles earned to get to Gold were due to credit card sign-up bonuses.
American Airlines Gold status is the lowest tier of status and it doesn’t really offer a ton of benefits. However it does allow for one free checked bag and priority boarding.
I just received an e-mail from American Airlines that describes their new boarding process which should simplify boarding.
I initially assumed that a new boarding process meant some sort of loss in benefits.
However, all this new, simplified process really means is a change in group names. (Yeah, not so exciting…)
Starting on March 1, the new boarding group names will be quite unique (not). The groups will simply be numbers 1 through 9.
As I’m an AA Gold member, I will still board with the fourth group meaning Gold will now be listed as 4. See how simple that is…
Here are the other boarding groups: (from aa.com)
| Preboarding | ConciergeKeySM members | |
|---|---|---|
| Priority boarding lane | First Class Active duty U.S. military with military I.D. (Business Class on a 2-class international aircraft) |
Group 1 First Class Active duty U.S. military with military I.D. (Business Class on a 2-class international aircraft) |
| Priority boarding lane | Business Class Executive Platinum oneworld® EmeraldSM |
Group 2 Executive Platinum oneworld® EmeraldSM (Business Class on a 3-class aircraft) |
| Priority boarding lane | Platinum Pro Platinum oneworld® SapphireSM |
Group 3 Platinum Pro Platinum oneworld® SapphireSM |
| Priority boarding lane | Gold oneworld® RubySM |
Group 4 Gold oneworld® RubySM |
| Priority boarding lane | Alaska Airlines MVP® members AirPass Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive cardmembers Customers who bought Priority boarding |
Group 4 Alaska Airlines MVP® members AirPass Premium Economy Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive cardmembers Customers who bought Priority boarding |
| Main boarding lane | Group 1 Main Cabin Extra Eligible AAdvantage® credit cardmembers* |
Group 5 (Preferred boarding) Main Cabin Extra Eligible AAdvantage® credit cardmembers* Eligible corporate travelers** |
| Main boarding lane | Group 2 | Group 6 |
| Main boarding lane | Group 3 | Group 7 |
| Main boarding lane | Group 4 | Group 8 |
| Main boarding lane | Group 9 Basic Economy |
Hugh Mann or human- That is a good question.
henry LAX- That does make sense and if so, AA lied. lol
Tom- Yea who knows…
DaninMCI- It does appear as a downgrade for Gold but why the division on the chart?
I asked AA about this Gold downgrade. They responded that there is no downgrade and that they just moved everyone to a boarding number. Obviously this isn’t true. The new boarding process is simple and should work better but it also simply downgraded all AA Gold elite members. I think they divided the chart so they can pretend that Gold will still board in the same position which is not true.
So Gold’s got downgraded a spot to board with credit card holders. As a Gold I see this as no longer given any elite privilege in the boarding process.
Haha. So complicated. Nine boarding groups (really 10 since there is pre-boarding) is crazy. I think Delta manages five (PREM, SKY, 1, 2, 3).
@Hugh Mann : it’s the reverse. the old system allows the “4a” first, then “4b”. in new process, 4a+4b are merged into a new “4” and will board at the same time.
Why is group 4 divided like that? Are they letting gold in before the others in the second group 4 bucket? Shouldn’t that technically be group 5 then?