Eleven years. American is still elite.

Best Elite Program — Airlines, Americas · American Airlines AAdvantage

At some point a winning streak stops being a streak and becomes real estate.

American Airlines AAdvantage wins Best Elite Program in the Americas for 2023.

Again.

For the 11th consecutive Freddie Awards.

Eleven.

There are marriages that haven’t lasted that long.

AAdvantage has always occupied an important place in frequent flyer history. American introduced it in 1981, just days after United launched Mileage Plus, during the great realization that computers could be used for something more interesting than printing tickets.

Forty-plus years later, American was reinventing how members earned elite status through Loyalty Points.

Flying remained useful, naturally. But credit-card spending, shopping and other partner activity suddenly helped determine status too.

Traditionalists debated whether that was really “frequent flying.”

Members apparently debated it and then voted American #1 anyway.

The remarkable part isn’t simply winning in 2023. It’s surviving more than a decade of airline mergers, devaluations, revenue requirements, credit-card economics and changing definitions of loyalty while continuing to own this category.

TRIVIA: Eleven consecutive Freddie wins means an AAdvantage member could have entered middle school when the streak began and be graduating college while it was still going.

American remains elite.

Literally.