The Best Airline Elite Status for 2023

Champagne. Extra legroom. Human decency. These are the perks that come from airline elite status. Yet whether you’ve enjoyed it in the past or are pursuing it for the first time, you might wonder which airline offers the most valuable elite status program.

Achieving status can cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in-flight, so if you’re going after it, you’ll want to try to pick the program that offers the most value. So, who runs the best airline status program? Simply put, Alaska Airlines offers the best overall elite status option for frequent flyers.

To determine this, we ran a comprehensive analysis of every major U.S. airline’s elite status program and determined an “elite earning rate” for each tier within each program.

This “elite earning rate” is the dollar value of the perks offered by a given elite status tier divided by the cost of achieving this tier. For example, if Nerdy Airlines Gold Status provides $100 in value but costs $1,000 to earn, it has an elite earning rate of 10% ($100 / $1,000). The higher the rate, the more value this elite status offers.

Beyond an overall winner, we’ve broken these ratings into four elite status tiers:

• Entry-level.

• Mid-level.

• High-level.

• Ultra-level.

Every airline has an entry-level tier, though only a few have the highest ultra level. Those dipping their toes in the elite waters should pay special attention to the former, while savvy business travelers should compare the higher tiers.

We’ve provided a detailed explanation of the methodology and assumptions we used to determine these values at the end of this article. For some, the value of a given program will differ significantly from our estimates based on individual travel needs and preferences. For example, those who rarely check bags or have an airline credit card that offsets bag fees will get little value from elite bag perks. So make sure to check our assumptions before deciding your own airline loyalty.

Winner: Alaska Airlines

Alaska wins again in 2023, thanks to strong performance across all of its MVP levels. Whether you’re an ultra-frequent flyer or not, you can’t go wrong with earning MVP status on Alaska.

United and American take a close second and third spot, and Delta drops this year to the 6th spot. Southwest rounds out the bottom, which is unsurprising for a budget airline that puts less emphasis on high-end elite perks.

Since much of the value for other programs comes from first-class upgrades, budget airlines such as Southwest, Spirit and Frontier are at a natural disadvantage in these ratings, as they lack a first-class cabin.

Winner: Alaska MVP

Alaska Airlines is popular among West Coast flyers for its high-value rewards program, and our analysis places its MVP elite status at the top of the entry-level heap.

Note: JetBlue and Southwest do not appear in this comparison, as we consider these airlines’ entry-level elite status to be comparable with other airlines’ mid-tier status. See below.

The middle of the pack are close calls, with American, Hawaiian and United all within three percentage points of each other.

Winner: Alaska MVP Gold

Alaska takes this category as well with its mid-tier MVP Gold status, followed closely by Hawaiian Pualani Platinum status.

Winner: Alaska MVP Gold 75K

The crowd thins here since Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest and Spirit offer two or fewer elite tiers each. Yet Alaska still dominates with its second-highest tier, MVP Gold 75K status, which offers significantly more bang for your elite-traveling buck than others.

The gap between first and second place for this elite status tier is startling — nearly 30% points.

Winner: Alaska 100K and United Premier 1K (tie)

Alaska recently introduced its ultra-tier MVP Gold 100K status level, and it’s a good one, tying United Premier 1K for the top value. In fact, all these ultra-premium status tiers offer a similar value-to-cost ratio.

Value of each tier

To determine the value of each elite status tier, we considered those perks that carry a clear value, and we omitted luxury benefits (like dedicated phone lines) that do not. Specifically, we considered:

• Bonus miles earned.

• Bag fee offsets.

• Premium seating upgrades.

• First class upgrades.

• Upgrade certificates.

• Fee waivers.

• Other individual program perks with clear value.

The table below explains these benefits as well as the assumptions we made in calculating their value.

Here are the raw estimated values for each program tier:

Cost of earning each tier

Airlines offer different thresholds for achieving each status tier, which can be broken into two categories:

1. Number of miles flown.

2. Other combination of factors, including elite qualifying dollars spent.

For No. 1, we will estimate the cost of achieving each tier as:

Number of miles needed to achieve tier multiplied by the median cost of flown mile (12 cents, per a separate analysis we conducted). For example, Hawaiian requires 20,000 flown miles for Gold status, so the cost of achieving this tier is 20,000 x $0.12 = $2,400.

For No. 2, we will estimate the cost of achieving each tier as:

Number of elite qualifying dollars divided by the fare-to-cost ratio. The fare-to-cost ratio is a percentage value that represents the average “base fare” to “total cost” of airfare (83% per our separate analysis). For example, AAdvantage Gold status requires $3,000 EQDs, so the cost of achieving this tier is $3,000 / $0.83 = $3,614.

If an airline requires a combination of Nos. 1 and 2, we used No. 2 as the cost of earning because this is usually more difficult to achieve. In other words, it's rare to hit a minimum spending requirement without hitting the mileage requirement.

Here is the estimated cost to earn each status tier:

How to maximize your rewards

You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2022, including those best for:

• Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

• No annual fee: Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card

• Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card 

• Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®

• Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express

• Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card