Complete guide to the AAdvantage Business program

American Airlines recently retired its Business Extra program and launched the new AAdvantage Business program.

This new program rewards businesses and employees when they book revenue flights through American-owned channels. In this guide, we'll discuss what you should know about the AAdvantage Business program.

What is the AAdvantage Business program?

The AAdvantage Business program is designed to encourage businesses and their travelers to book eligible flights through the American website or app. Businesses can earn American miles, and employees can earn Loyalty Points on eligible flights — both of which are on top of what the business and employee would normally earn through the American AAdvantage program.

Related: Last-minute strategies for earning American AAdvantage elite status

Who is eligible for the AAdvantage Business program?

If you own or work for a business, you may wonder whether your business is eligible for the AAdvantage Business program. In short, there are two ways a business can become eligible for the AAdvantage Business program:

• Provide a primary physical address in the U.S. or Canada and a valid verifiable federal employer identification number or business number
• Have an authorized representative who is a cardholder of an eligible AAdvantage Business card

Travel agencies, wholesalers, consolidators and other sellers or re-sellers of travel aren't eligible to participate in AAdvantage Business. Likewise, individuals cannot use AAdvantage Business when traveling for leisure.

It's beneficial to have an eligible AAdvantage Business card tied to your AAdvantage Business account. If you don't, you won't be able to use your business' miles (and business travelers won't earn Loyalty Points through AAdvantage Business) unless your business has at least five unique travelers who have taken at least one flight within the past 12 months and has spent at least $5,000 with American on eligible flights within the past 12 months.

Benefits will be added on April 14 for Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard® (see rates and fees) cardholders who signed up for their card before Oct. 16, 2023. Until then, these cardholders won't be able to transfer miles from their Business Extra account unless their account meets the standard requirements for active travelers and travel spend.

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How to enroll your business in AAdvantage Business

You can register your business for AAdvantage Business here. However, if you have an eligible AAdvantage Business card, you likely received an email entitled "Welcome to the AAdvantage Business program" and can click through the link from that email to get started.

Suppose you don't have an eligible AAdvantage Business card but are interested in getting one to avoid the business traveler and spending requirements for AAdvantage Business. In that case, I recommend getting the Citi AAdvantage Business World Elite Mastercard.

I have a Citi AAdvantage Business World Elite Mastercard that I signed up for before Oct. 16, 2023, but when I clicked through the link from my "Welcome to the AAdvantage Business program" email, I still needed to validate my business email and enter various company details, including my business name, previous Business Extra number, country, federal tax ID or EIN, phone number and address. I also had the opportunity to answer questions about my company size and add a website and an invite code — although these fields weren't required. On the next page, I got a message that my registration was successful.

Once you enroll your business in AAdvantage Business, you'll automatically become its travel manager. However, you can designate one or more other travel managers. The travel managers must be AAdvantage members who are at least 18 years old, reside in the U.S. or Canada and are employees of the business. Travel managers can invite business travelers to participate in your business' AAdvantage Business account, manage your business' AAdvantage miles balance and book flights on behalf of business travelers.

How to enroll business travelers in AAdvantage Business

Travel managers for a business that has enrolled in AAdvantage Business can invite employees and contractors — who must be are least 18 years old, AAdvantage members and residents of the U.S. or Canada — to become business travelers for that business' AAdvantage Business account.

If you have a lot of travelers to invite, you can upload a CSV file or share a registration link instead of manually entering each traveler's email. But if you have an eligible AAdvantage Business credit card with authorized users, you may see a pop-up message the first time you log in to your AAdvantage Business account inviting you to send an invite to these members.

The business traveler must accept the invitation and register with the AAdvantage Business program (which includes agreeing to the terms and privacy policy). Note that enrolling as a business traveler through the AAdvantage Business program won't affect your ability to earn miles and Loyalty Points through the AAdvantage program; instead, the rewards you earn through AAdvantage Business are in addition to what you'd otherwise earn.

A business traveler can only join one business account at any given time, even if they are an employee or contractor of multiple businesses.

Related: What hotel loyalty program is best for business travelers?

How does the AAdvantage Business program work?

In addition to rewarding businesses with miles, the AAdvantage Business program also rewards employees with Loyalty Points if the business is currently eligible to transfer AAdvantage miles. As a reminder, these rewards are on top of what travelers already earn from the American AAdvantage program.

For a flight to be eligible for earnings through the AAdvantage Business program, the traveler or travel manager must provide the business' account number and the traveler's AAdvantage number during booking. If the traveler logs into their AAdvantage account to book, they can select "Business travel" from the "Travel type" menu. By doing so, the traveler will only be able to book a flight for one passenger and won't be able to redeem American miles.

Now, let's look at how you can earn miles and Loyalty Points through the AAdvantage Business program.

AAdvantage miles

Within the AAdvantage Business program, individual AAdvantage members don't earn miles. Instead, AAdvantage Business accounts can earn miles from:

• Eligible business flights booked through American-owned channels and taken by enrolled travelers
• Spending on eligible AAdvantage Business credit cards

Specifically, businesses will earn 1 AAdvantage mile per dollar of flown revenue through the AAdvantage Business program when a flight is booked for business purposes through an American-owned channel. Travelers will still earn miles as they typically would through the AAdvantage program and consumer AAdvantage credit cards.

Spending on the Citi AAdvantage Business World Elite Mastercard earns miles toward an AAdvantage Business account, not a personal AAdvantage account. Whether you are a primary or authorized user of the account, miles from purchases made with your card will go into the AAdvantage Business account for your business. Existing cardholders who applied before Oct. 16, 2023, will see their account updated with this change on April 14.

AAdvantage Business accounts can earn and hold miles but cannot redeem miles. Instead, AAdvantage Business accounts can transfer miles to AAdvantage accounts of enrolled business travelers or travel managers. Miles can only be transferred if the business has an eligible AAdvantage Business credit card or meets the standard requirements for active travelers and travel spending across the last 12 months. If a business cannot transfer AAdvantage miles for 24 consecutive months, the miles within that business' AAdvantage Business account expire.

Related: Best uses of American Airlines miles

Loyalty Points

Within the AAdvantage Business program, individual members can earn Loyalty Points. These Loyalty Points are in addition to what you'd typically earn through the AAdvantage program.

Specifically, business travelers can earn 1 Loyalty Point per dollar through the AAdvantage Business program when a flight is booked for business purposes through an American-owned channel. Business travelers also earn Loyalty Points through spending on AAdvantage Business credit cards.

However, note that authorized cardholders will earn Loyalty Points toward their AAdvantage account instead of toward the primary cardholder's account (again, existing cardholders who applied before Oct. 16, 2023, will see their account updated with this change on April 14). If your business isn't currently eligible to transfer AAdvantage miles, you won't earn Loyalty Points through the AAdvantage Business program.

Related: American Airlines elite status: What it is and how to earn it

Benefits of the AAdvantage Business program

The AAdvantage Business program's primary benefit is that it lets businesses and business travelers earn more rewards on flights booked through American-owned channels. Travelers can earn more Loyalty Points, and businesses can earn more miles on these flights. Best of all, travelers aren't forfeiting any earnings they'd typically get through the AAdvantage program by participating in AAdvantage Business.

Small businesses that may have been excluded from the previous Business Extra program due to having too few travelers or too little flight revenue with American Airlines can now access the AAdvantage Business program if they have an eligible AAdvantage Business card. An eligible AAdvantage Business card is essential for participation in the AAdvantage Business program if your business doesn't have at least $5,000 in flown revenue booked through American-owned channels and five unique business travelers during every rolling 12 months.

However, some business owners with the Citi AAdvantage Business World Elite Mastercard may not appreciate the changes coming on April 14. In particular, they may not be happy that miles from their purchases will go into an AAdvantage Business account and Loyalty Points earned from purchases on authorized user cards will go to the authorized users. However, it should be easy to move miles from AAdvantage Business accounts to individual AAdvantage accounts. Additionally, these card changes will let authorized users earn American Airlines elite status via earning Loyalty Points on their purchases.

Related: How American Airlines sucked me back into AAdvantage with Loyalty Points

Bottom line

The new AAdvantage Business program is simpler but less lucrative than the previous Business Extra program. Now, businesses and business travelers earn currencies they're already familiar with — miles and Loyalty Points — that fit into the existing AAdvantage program.

However, some business travelers will find it frustrating that they can only book travel for themselves, as this means they'll need to book travel for companions separately and then call to link the reservations. Likewise, some AAdvantage Business cardholders may not appreciate that the business earns miles while credit card-authorized users earn Loyalty Points under the new program.