Paul1976NJ

Quick question about a situation I've never dealt with before. I am EXP, my co-worker has no status, we are both on the same PNR and our upgrade for tomorrow's flight is already confirmed (R inventory - LAX to JFK). Rather than fly to JFK as scheduled, I now need to fly elsewhere because of a family emergency. My co-worker still needs to take the flight. If I split the record after the upgrade is already confirmed, and then cancel mine, will he lose his upgrade? The stickers need to come out of my account, but if I'm not there...? What if we went to LAX today within 24 hours and check in with an agent and get him his boarding pass and tell her then to pull the stickers from my account, and then I split the record and cancel later? Or what if I don't split it and just don't show up for my flight (or call right before boarding, after he's already checked in during normal check-in time)? I'm not worried about the value of my ticket, with the change fee it really has no value. I just would like him not to lose his upgrade, if possible, if I don't end up going with him. Thoughts?

george 3

Your colleague can still be upgraded if you utilize one of your eVIPs.

Paul1976NJ

Yeah I know that, but I travel internationally a lot and don't want to waste it when the complimentary one has already come through under R inventory. What I'm asking is if there's any way to preserve that for him since it's already come through if I'm not on the flight with him. I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize my AAdvantage account, but I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with this in the past and has had success with companion not being downgraded.

Shawn02139

Ethics: You of course should also check the AA terms & conditions, I suspect they require you to be travelling together.

Practically:
Probably if you both check-in on line and you simply no-show, your colleague would be fine. They won't know whether you no-show until after he/she is in his/her seat, so I think it highly unlikely they would evict him/her.

The main problem I could see you having with this is if you book your other ticket on AA in a manner such that you wouldn't possibly take both flights. Then the AA computer system will cancel one or both of your reservations (or call you to find out which one to cancel).

oldpenny16

The companion upgrade will vanish if you cancel your own flight. Period. There is no way to save an upgrade like that without using your own stash of upgrades.

BrianV

I had a situation like this with my wife. I had to no-show a flight DFW-AUS. She boarded, flew First, they even asked her where I was, but no issue, she flew, and took an E500 for it.

To be honest, I didn't no show. I was flying home on vacation DFW-AUS and I had another flight out that night AUS-DFW-TPA, and my AUS-DFW leg was cancelled so I told the Admiral's Club I needed to wait in DFW to catch my TPA flight. They ended up fixing some stuff, but for whatever reason, I guess I wasn't really dropped from my DFW-AUS flight. I did end up catching my DFW-TPA flight without incident.

It was a rare circumstance, and it's definitely not supposed to happen that way.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

...But, if you both check in, she boards flight, occupies seat, calls you from plane and then you cancel? Pretty hard to displace her at that point, wouldn't it?

RogerD408

IRROPs give GAs the keys to the kingdom. So when your AUS-DFW flight canceled they were allowed to do what they did. Technically, missing your first segment would have canceled your entire trip! You were lucky you found someone willing to do the work to get what you wanted.

Years ago I had a DFW-MIA-LIM on AA upgraded with a SWU and then Y for LIM-SCL on LAN. Flight out of DFW was delayed that would have caused a mis-connect in MIA, AA had a DFW-SCL flight and GA was able to switch me to that flight in F!

aamilesslave

The only risk, really, is a crummy seat assignment in Y.

BrianV

Yes I'm aware of how it works. There was mistakes made in my case as they were calling my name on the dfw-AUS flight. So whomever worked on my IRROPs case, didn't do it cleanly. According to my wife, the GA came on shortly before departure and asked where I was, she explained it. Then they pulled someone up from coach to sit with here.

This was an unusual case, but they didn't remove my wife from her seat after they learned I was not on the flight. They could've, but I doubt they wanted to deal with the delay, hassle. They did deduct the sticker for her flight from my account.

mikelat

To the OP: Your companion is not eligible for the upgrade without you. The rules are clear that you need to be flying with them. I'm sure you'd like a freebie and exception, but being deceitful to get it is the wrong way to go about it.

brp

If someone had done this on purpose to try and scam the upgrade, I'd agree with you. In the present case, where the intent was to fly together, and plans changed post-upgrade, this seems harsh. I see nothing "deceitful" here. Are you suggesting that the OP's friend should just relinquish the upgrade, just like we'd all call and give back extra miles that AA gave us by accident?

Cheers.

Apieinthesky

While I think mikelat has a point, I do think OP is trying to be a generous person (he just wants to fly his no status coworker in J, and is even coughing up the stickers for it, though I don't know if be will be reimbursed). Also, I don't think your analogy fits; OP needs to actively keep his companion in J, while simply NOT doing anything will likely let you keep the extra miles AA gave you.

The OP didn't ask us for the morals of it, and to be honest, if I were him, I wouldn't give a hoot what folks on an internet board say about my moral character.

To the OP: My suggestion (not guaranteed to work) would simply be to no show. You don't need to tell the GA anything. The stickers will automatically pull from your account. If someone asks your coworker why you aren't on the plane, he can be honest and say you found out you had a family emergency and couldn't make the trip. The problem might be AA not allowing you to book another ticket on the same day, but you might be able to circumvent that by omitting your FF number.

Dave Noble

It is not the same as accidental extra miles since there was never any intent to get the miles.

If the OP was to cancel the booking and the companion maintained the upgrade, that would be a closer analogy to the extra miles and would be just a bonus upgrade

Checking in , but not showing at the gate should work, but if holding a non-refundable fare. the ticket will have no value and not be able to use the value for another trip, though

I would be surprised if cancelling before the ticketed departure time will not cause the upgrade for the other passenger to be lost and would also be surprised if this is not a situation which has occurred before

Assuming that they are able to pull the electronic upgrades from the account, I would be surprised if just not travelling ( cut not cancelling ) didn't work

UncleDude

Not if its delayed 20 mins