US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-2005 America West merger) - No mercy at 812 miles......

As a GP, I usually find it pretty easy to upgrade out of MCI through PIT or CLT. The problem I have with CLT is that it is 812 miles from MCI, therefore requiring two (800 mi) coupons. I understand and respect the rules, but if I have to make a connection to another flight with no First (RJ, etc) I find it not very feasible to burn 2 NAU's for an extra 12 miles. Until about 6 months ago, a nice smile and mentioning I have only (1) cert left usually did the trick and got me up front. The agents are now making sure you have the two certs and are showing no mercy. One agent I spoke with on my last trip agreed it somewhat ridiculous and suggested I contact the Gold prefered center and file a request to have the 12 miles waved from the MCI/CLT upgrade requirement. Has anybody had a similiar experience or had any success with such a situation? Any other suggestions? It looks like I may try to book through PIT from now on.....

What really upsets me on that one is that I have to start from CHA on that trip, and CHA-MCI would easily be less than 800 miles. But because we're now an Express-only city, I actually have to pay more for less service!

I can relate, living in MCO I am 850 or so miles from both PIT and PHL and run into this situation. For the most part, I haven't found much mercy for the 1.05 coupon trips either. It seems that the agents that are willing to cut some slack will do it no matter what the trip length is. I have had a few times where they only took one coupon for 850 miles, but I have also had agents do things like take only 2 coupons for an MCO to LAX transcon just about as often.

Overall, it seems to me that the ticket counter agents seem more accomodating than the gate agents in this regard, and with upgrades in general.

Waiting in line, you don't have much choice which agent you end up with, but just by watching the agents and gauging how they rate on the friendliness/surliness scale with the pax ahead seems to be a good indicator of how my luck will run.

Guys, be happy we don't fly United where you have to fork out 1 cert for every 500 miles (and they're now more expensive). It takes SIX certificates to upgrade coast-to-coast.

A group of us ff'rs had an AA marketing rep that spoke to us at our company in Research Triangle Park (RTP). I complained that RDU -> DFW was 1062 miles and flying that on AA, I was always asked for 3 500 mile stickers while DFW -> RDU the agents would typically accept two stickers. You can guess what happened.

PHL-STL was a tad more than 800 miles, I burned two NAU's more than once. Then it degraded into RJ service.....

I thought there was a 25 or 50 mile "grace" when usiong NAUs? Guess not http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I've had gate agents refer to the 50 mile "grace" buffer, too. It wouldn't hurt to ask.

Incidentally, when did the NAU's change from 799 miles to 800 miles? More importantly, why?

Actually United does have a "grace" of 65 miles or something...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by kv99:
Actually United does have a "grace" of 65 miles or something...</font>

Big whoop, they're still only 500 miles + 65 miles then and they only give four every 10k miles to all elites.

I'll take the no grace miles and tons of 800-milers over any other airlines program on a whole. None of them are perfect. If they stretched them to 812, next thing someone flying 820 miles would say "why not me too" and so on ... you have to draw the line somewhere unfortunately.

Unfortunately, bright lines are bright lines and somebody is saying, "Whew, just made it." Others are not happy.

So, what else can I say.

I have to agree with Beckles. 800 miles is a good line to draw. We all know the rules and we should be happy with the way it is structured. Many times my flights are way under 800 miles, and I have to forfeit a coupon for those.

I can tell you with total certainty that UA's grace is 50 miles.

So on UA, a 550 mile trip takes 1 cert. A 1050 mile cert takes 2 certs. A 1051 mile trip takes 3 certs.

Yes, some agents are a little forgiving on the rules.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
Big whoop, they're still only 500 miles + 65 miles then and they only give four every 10k miles to all elites.

I'll take the no grace miles and tons of 800-milers over any other airlines program on a whole. None of them are perfect. If they stretched them to 812, next thing someone flying 820 miles would say "why not me too" and so on ... you have to draw the line somewhere unfortunately.</font>

I agree -- just pointing out the facts as I've heard them, though I guess it's only 50 miles grace.

USAirways' program is considerably more generous w/NAUs than almost anyone else.