Great news for American Airlines AAdvantage members who use AwardWallet – the loyalty program tracking service can once again access and update your mileage balance in real-time.

American announced the “new†(reinstated, actually) service this morning in a press release:

“American Airlines is continually looking for new ways to enhance the experience for our most valued customers,” said Cory Garner, American’s Managing Director — Sales Operations and Distribution. “We have worked closely with AwardWallet to design an offering that meets our security requirements, while offering our customers a one-stop shop for tracking all of their loyalty affiliations, including AAdvantage.”

According to some tweets I’ve seen this morning from AwardWallet users, American tracking is live and working well, though AwardWallet has yet to update their website [Edited to add: Jeff from AwardWallet commented below that the FAQs are now updated]:

In the early days of AwardWallet, just about every airline was supported. But one by one, airlines began issuing cease and desist orders citing security concerns over accessing members’ accounts. As it stands, Delta, United and Southwest still ban AwardWallet from direct access, though a workaround of sorts is in place for both Delta and United, as View from the Wing explains:

AwardWallet has a workaround for Delta and also for tracking United accounts — you have your account emails sent to them, which they forward to you, and they upgrade your mileage balances based on the emails sent to you by those two programs. You can still use AwardWallet to track your mileage, just not in real time, and also to log into your accounts.

AwardWallet’s move with American might bode well in getting other former airlines back up and running with live updates. It certainly would make the service a bit more useful for me personally, as United (and American) are my primary airline loyalty programs. That said, I’m still very much an old-school kind of mileage and point tracker by updating my various spreadsheets. It’s not the most efficient method to track all of my accounts, but I get a certain satisfaction out of doing it.

– Follow Darren Booth on Twitter, @FrequentlyFlyin, for more airline, hotel and travel industry news, reviews and opinions.

Related:

My United Airlines Mileage Tracking Spreadsheet, Round Two

Rumor: Did American Airlines Leak Its New Elite Status Requirements?

What the New American AAdvantage Program Might Look Like