American Airlines has quietly changed the rules for its ‘basic economy’ tickets. As of today, buying a basic economy fare means no mileage-earning and no credit towards elite status for the flying. Tickets purchased prior to December 17 still earn based on the old rules.
Índice
The news was flagged by aviation watchdog JonNYC – and, notably, not by American Airlines.
AA: basic economy, someone sends: pic.twitter.com/HsVNN7dGlp
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) December 17, 2025
This mirrors Delta, and is tougher than United – which awards miles and qualifying points (but not qualifying flights) for basic economy tickets.
For American, it represents another of many shifts. There have been near-constantly changing rules for basic economy since they first introduced restrictions on these fares in 2017. And it is probably a bad idea. Maybe that’s why they didn’t announce it to customers. They announced renovations to one of their three airport lounges at D.C.’s National Airport today.. but not this.
How Airlines Use Basic Economy
Basic economy is the tool airlines have used, not so much to get customers to pay a bit more for what used to be included in a standard fare, but to price discriminate and sell tickets to ultra-low cost airline customers without offering those low fares to existing passengers willing to pay more.
By making the restrictions unpleasant, they offer their seats cheaply to compete with Spirit and Frontier but in a way that avoids lowering the price of ticket sales to everyone.
That’s been a key way they’ve successfully competed against low fare airlines. They are simultaneously a high fare and a low fare airline on the same plane. And that gives them a much better revenue mix than Spirit et al (albeit with higher costs as well).
Previously they would have to match fares or they would lose too much business – but in so doing they lost too much revenue. Basic economy became the new advance purchase and Saturday stay fare rules that gated business travelers and leisure travelers, allowing them to sell expensive tickets to people flying on company money and cheap tickets to those coming out of their own pocket. It is how they avoid selling cheap tickets to business and premium leisure passengers.
The thinking now seems to me ‘those who care about AAdvantage will buy up or be kept from buying down’ and that might be true. It might also be that without mileage-earning those passengers aren’t loyal and defect to Delta.
American’s Schizophrenic Approach To Basic Economy
Since the very beginning with these fares, American has been constantly tweaking the rules. Perhaps they’ve done it so often they no longer feel the need to tell customers when the rules have changed. They’ll discover it when they fly, or in the case of mileage and elite status credit, after they’ve flown.
American rolled out basic economy in 2017 and they even treated these customers worse when cancelling their flights in addition to offering no changes or credit for cancelled tickets; last to board; no free advance seat assignments; no upgrades; and reduced elite qualfiying credit.
In 2018 they started allowing basic economy passengers to bring carry-on bags on board making their basic economy much more attractive than Untied’s (United still bars standard carry-on bags, which is worse than Spirit which charges for them).
In 2019 they started selling seat assignments to basic economy passengers – it was no longer ‘no seat assignments in advance, period’.
During the pandemic, American restored elite benefits like upgrades, extra legroom coach seats, and confirmed same-day changes to basic economy (as well as allowing basic economy passengers to buy upgrades, priority boarding, and Main Cabin Extra).
American elimianted basic economy earning towards elite status in 2021, and then brought it back starting in 2022.
Last year, American made it possible for basic economy customers to retain some ticket value when cancelling a ticket.
Now they’ve taken away all mileage-earning and status credit, but those with credit cards and status can still use their benefits.
Why American Airlines Will Take A Revenue Hit From This Change
In recent years, American has taken the approach that basic economy is the gateway into AAdvantage. They start with budget travelers and begin moving them up the ladder.
It’s one thing if they didn’t want these fares to count towards elite status, but that too seems like a mistake (because flying and credit card spend combine towards status). But not awarding miles at all means there’s no point in joining or engaging with the program. And they’re already awarding few miles because mileage-earning is based on fare paid and basic economy fares are cheaper to begin with.
Encouraging flyers to join AAdvantage is the first step in converting them to a co-brand credit card. This will eliminate the incentive for new and price-sensitive travelers to start the Citibank journey that drives their profits.
American Airlines loses money flying. Their costs of flying are greater than passenger revenue. More than the entire profit earned at the airline is represented by revenue from Citibank, which is estimated at around 50% margin.
They’re moving to free inflight wifi for AAdvantage members. They want people joining the program! When they had a JetBlue partnership, high spending New Yorkers were joining in droves, outpacing additions from other hubs. Now they need all the help they can get adding to the member base, because their co-brand has fallen from number one in charge volume seven years ago to number three among airlines today. With this move they are choosing marginal ticket revenue over their Citi partnership which seems unwise.
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