American Airlines Business Extra is a business travel rewards program that is separate from the AAdvantage frequent flyer program. If you have a company and purchase American Airlines tickets, it’s a great way to double-dip on rewards. All you have to do is include your Business Extra number in the reservation.
The point structure is different from the frequent flyer program, as you earn 2 points per $10 spent on eligible fares, which must be on American Airlines, British Airways, or Iberia ticket stock. You get one account per business, and you can have multiple employees use the same business to pool points toward the same account.
Back in 2014, there was a popular referral program where one could earn 1,000 points per referral, up to 5,000 points total. Many of us maxed that out.
However, Business Extra points expire on December 31st two years from the year they were earned.
This means that for anyone who earned Business Extra points in 2014, your points will expire this Saturday, December 31st, 2016.
Fortunately, there’s time to quickly log in to your account and redeem your points before they go kaput on Sunday.
There are several interesting awards that one can redeem for, but I think there are three awards that are of particularly good value.
- Gift AAdvantage Gold status for 2,400 points. By redeeming for this award (BXP5) now, it should be valid until January 31, 2018.
- One-segment domestic upgrade certificates for 650 points each. These awards (BXP1) are not valid on cheaper fares (B, N, O, Q, S) but can be used on other economy class fares within North America or between North America and Hawaii or the Caribbean. They are confirmable segment upgrades that confirm into ‘A’ class currently, and ‘D’ class in the near future. As someone who is losing my American Airlines status, but keeping Alaska Airlines status, I redeemed for several of these for longer domestic flights. They expire in 1 year (December 2017).
- Admirals Club Membership for 3,000 points. Personally, I would get a credit card like the Citi Executive card, which gives you and up to 10 authorized users Admirals Club access similar to that of a membership. However, if the credit card route isn’t feasible, this can be a good option, especially since the Citi Prestige is losing Admirals Club access in 2017.
There are some other awards that can be used for Saver award levels, but I just don’t trust American’s Saver award space at the moment to redeem for those certificates.
Bottom line:
Remember, if you earned Business Extra points in 2014, you must redeem them by this Saturday, December 31st, 2016! You can check out what awards are available at this link.
