US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Mileage Calculation For NAUs

I've always thought the number of miles used to calculate distances for NAUs was the non-stop distance between your origin and destination. For example, DEN-PHL-RDU is 1436 miles, so I'd use 2 800-mile certificates to upgrade although DEN-PHL is 1569 miles and PHL-RDU is 339 miles (making the total segment-based distance >1600 miles).

Today, the gate agent at DFW gave me a hard time and made me give up 2 certificates for my return DFW-CLT-ATL, even though I was able to upgrade to DFW with one NAU on my outbound (ALT-CLT-DFW) AND the phone agent who upgraded my ticket 3 days earlier confirmed that it would only take one NAU. [DFW-CLT is 930 miles, CLT-ATL is 228 miles, and DFW-ATL is 732 miles.] After about 5 minutes of discussion (and even talking with the other agent at the ticket counter), I finally gave in and decided it wasn't worth one NAU. Has there been a policy change, or did these gate agents not know the rules? Or have I simply gotten lucky in the past? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Based on my experience and that of the others here; the gate agent was wrong. It is supposed to be based on the airmiles between originating city and final destination for that day.

You might want to call the DM Preferred desk to confirm this.

Is there any type of "grace" for mileage over 800 miles? PHL-STL is 813 miles, do they allow use of only one NAU?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by BillMorrow:
Based on my experience and that of the others here; the gate agent was wrong. It is supposed to be based on the airmiles between originating city and final destination for that day.</font>BillMorrow is dead on... on both points! The gate agents and how it's calculated.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tfjim:
Is there any type of "grace" for mileage over 800 miles? PHL-STL is 813 miles, do they allow use of only one NAU?

</font>

Based on countless trips TPA-DCA (814 mi.), no.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by BillMorrow:
You might want to call the DM Preferred desk to confirm this.</font>

Which raises another question--if you fly out of an Express city (one class of service), do they count from that city or from the hub you reach?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TPA us ff:
Based on countless trips TPA-DCA (814 mi.), no.</font>

How true.

When I lived in MIA and used to commute between DCA (hometown) and MIA/FLL this was always the case.

And, it should be the distance between the departure and arrival city for calculation - not with connections. Also, I have never had Express (non-FC) flights count.

silverpie: they count mileage based on the upgradeable portions of your itinerary.

For example (and I don't even know if this exists...it's just a hypothetical example):

BOS to MCO via RIC.
BOS to RIC is on an Express regional jet.
RIC to MCO is mainline.

You would need ONE upgrade coupon based on RIC to MCO, not BOS to MCO, since BOS to RIC isn't upgradable.

I hope that made sense.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ThisFlightNoFuel:
silverpie: they count mileage based on the upgradeable portions of your itinerary.

For example (and I don't even know if this exists...it's just a hypothetical example):

BOS to MCO via RIC.
BOS to RIC is on an Express regional jet.
RIC to MCO is mainline.

You would need ONE upgrade coupon based on RIC to MCO, not BOS to MCO, since BOS to RIC isn't upgradable.

I hope that made sense.</font>

I kind of figured that http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif (in my case, that's usually a disadvantage, since most of my flights are to points closer to Chattanooga than to Charlotte).