American Airlines has joined Continental Airlines in its recent decision to offer a 500-mile minimum accrual for base miles and elite qualifying miles/points to elite members only. Effective Jan. 1, 2009, non-elite American AAdvantage members will earn the actual miles flown or the applicable percentage of base miles flown on all flights on American Airlines, American Eagle, AmericanConnection, oneworld member airlines, AAdvantage participating airlines, as well as rail service and codeshare service booked under an AA flight number.

Flights flown on or before Dec. 31, 2008 will continue to earn the 500-mile minimum, so if you have any mileage runs planned between now and the end of the year, you will earn miles based on the current policy.

Also following Continental’s lead, United Airlines announced that Mileage Plus would retroactively give back their elite members 500-minimum miles on qualifying flights and continue to offer the minimum mileage for elite members from Jan. 1, 2009. (See related story: Mileage Plus Changes in this issue.)

Among the legacy carriers, only Delta and Northwest continue to offer a minimum of 500 miles on all eligible flights–at least for now, while US Airways is the sole holdout to not give a 500-mile minimum for any member of their program.