American Airlines operates a small business incentive scheme called BusinessExtra. The scheme allows companies to earn points for their staff flights on American, British Airways, Iberia and Japan Airlines.

The points build up and can be used for free tickets, upgrades, Admirals Club passes and more.

Yesterday, AA announced some changes to the scheme, some good and some bad.

Companies will have to have three travellers earning on their account and spend at least $5,000 per annum on air fare in order to remain members. New companies are required to do this immediately, whilst existing members are covered by the rules from 1 January 2023.

American however, have added some new rewards immediately:

• Platinum AAdvantage status for a staff member for 6,600 (Gold remains at 3,200) points for a year
• The ability to convert BusinessExtra points to AAdvantage miles at a ratio of 1 point = 6 miles. You can convert to any AAdvantage members account.
• 300 BusinessExtra points gives a carbon offset of 1 tonne via cooleffect.org

Other rewards remain the same.

One of the most useful ways to use the points is for upgrades from Business Class to First Class on the A321’s that AA operate from JFK to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

If you have a small business you can earn points on spend, before taxes and fees, at a rate of 1 point per $5 spend.