Enroll in a Free American Airlines Platinum Status Challenge From FoundersCard

Deadline to Enroll: March 2, 2018 at 11:59pm CT

FoundersCard offers members many benefits, from complimentary status to discounts and much more. One of the fairly consistent benefits with FoundersCard has long been its American Airlines Platinum status challenge. And to kick off 2018, FoundersCard is offering the Platinum challenge once again.

FoundersCard members can now enroll in the status challenge for AAdvantage Platinum status. And, if successful, you'll retain the status through January 31, 2019. Once you enroll, you'll get Platinum status benefits for three months — from March 14 through June 12, 2018. Then, if you meet the following requirements, you'll keep the status through January 31, 2019:

• You must enroll in the AA Business Extra Program
• You must earn $2,000 Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQDs) and 12,500 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs) or 16 Elite Qualifying Segments (EQSs).

You must enroll in the challenge by 11:59pm CT on March 2, 2018, in order to participate — so you have some time to plan your strategy. If you successfully complete the challenge by June 12, 2018, you'll retain the status through the end of January 2019.

These are the same earning levels as the public AA status challenge offer. However, a status challenge through FoundersCard has no additional cost. If you sign up for the public status challenge through AA, it'll cost you $200 plus an additional $300 if you want Platinum status while you're completing the challenge — for a total of $500. The major benefit with this FoundersCard challenge is that there's no fee to sign up and you get complimentary Platinum status while you're completing the challenge — easily covering your first-year FoundersCard fee of $495.

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Note that American only allows members to receive elite status through a challenge once every five years. But, if you're eligible for the challenge and do meet the requirements, you could be getting tremendous value. We value AA Platinum status at $2,460, so depending on how often you fly American or other Oneworld airlines, there could be a lot of value for you here.

This is a pretty favorable offer from FoundersCard and American Airlines — and it has great timing. Now that American Airlines status expires on January 31, for AAdvantage members who didn't re-qualify for elite status, this could be a great offer to take advantage of in order to re-qualify via a challenge. The complimentary three months of Platinum status while you're completing the challenge really sets this promotion apart. And, if you're able to successfully complete the challenge, you should get more than enough value out of the status to offset the cost of membership, and that's not taking into consideration all of the other FoundersCard benefits.

If you're not yet a FoundersCard member, you can take advantage of an exclusive offer just for TPG readers. If you sign up as a new member, you'll get a preferred annual membership fee of $495 as well as a waived initiation fee when you apply using this link. The standard annual membership fee is $595 with an initiation fee of $95 — so you're saving $195 right away.