metafor

I have 2 Y tickets since the seats were available. I booked using Asia Miles and they're confirmed. Is it possible to request an upgrade using miles to business or first?

I'd be waitlisted as the seats aren't available and/or haven't been released yet. But this way I'd have a guaranteed seat plus the chance of getting an upgraded seat.

LchChester

You can only upgrade by cancelling the original ticket (costing US$100) and issuing in the new booking class (miles for original ticket will be refunded and miles required for new booking class will be charged).
One point to note is that this is possible only when the ticket is wholly unused.

caimaster

Are you confirmed or ticketed? If you are ticketed then you would have to pay cancellation charges. If you are confirmed but have not ticketed yet, then you can waitlist for J or F. If that opens up you get will get it assuming you have enough miles. If not you can still ticket your Y confirmation.

Some agents will let you hold your confirmation longer than others. YMMV so HUACA

metafor

On the website it says confirmed. I'll admit, I'm rather ignorant about the difference between confirmed and ticketed.

So I call Asia miles to put myself on the wait list for a J or F ticket? And will I still be guaranteed a flight for my Y ticket if nothing comes up?

cxfan1960

Asia Miles sometimes uses confirmed interchangeably. It will still say "confirmed" after ticketed. You should ask them, or you can check on your e-ticket under "Manage My Bookings". If confirmed but not ticketed, please note that there is a ticketing deadline after which your booking will expire.

I suggest you call them on J/F waitlist anyway and check on your ticket status/deadline for Y.

QRC3288

This is the most important detail, and the thing that has MPC/AM members like myself ticked off at the program.

"Confirmed" = you have a seat until the ticketing deadline. You do not have to pay for a confirmed ticket it is basically like a hold.

"Ticketed" = you are confirmed for the flight. And you are locked in to the terms and conditions of the ticket. And you've paid for it (whether cash or miles). Because of the relatively restrictive Asia Miles terms, once you "ticket" your ticket, you're locked in unless you want to pay a fee in miles or cash to redeposit the miles to your account.

MPC agents will give a ticketing deadline for every confirmation you make without ticketing (aka, for every ticket you simply "confirm" or "book", but don't "ticket"). There is some flexibility to this ticketing deadline - they'll extend it a few times usually - but there is usually a red line they will not go past and they simply force you to ticket, or lose the reservation. It is usually an earlier-in red line for lower tier members.

This is why AA EXPs (and perhaps other partners) effectively have a "superior" waiting list to MPC/AM's own system on CX, because some elite partners are allowed changes free of charge to their award tickets. If you go on the AA forum and even here, you'll see of guys booking 4 or 5 different flights for their family and then cancelling most of those tickets a few days before the flight. Whereas with AM, you are effectively forced to ticket the booking and lock into the restrictive ticketing terms, even if you're still wait listing for a higher class award ticket. If you were to book 5 separate flights for 4 people each, that'd be 20 seats when you only intend to use 4. Which would mean 16 separate redeposit charges of $100 each ($1600 total), or 16,000 miles (I think the charge is 1,000 each). Either way, high charges most folks on award tix won't want to pay.