JDiver

This thread is in place to discuss the Participating Airline Upgrade award offered by AA.

~AAdvantage forum moderation team

zski1

I have tried calling AA twice (on two different occasions) and have been unsuccessful; I can usually tell if an agent knows what they are talking about and I am not confident that either person I spoke with knew what they were doing in this case, therefore I present the question to the board:

What I'm trying to do this time is book a round trip on BA in WT+ from FRA-WAS in early October, then upgrade using the (relatively) new award procedure allowing upgrades from WT+ to Club World using AAdvantage miles. I understand from the AA website that to do so, the fare must be booked through AA and upgraded by them; no other booking channel is acceptable. Since you can't book WT+ online with AA, you have to call in.

Both times I researched availability by logging into BA using an Executive Club account that I essentially created just to look for BA availability. Both times I have found itineraries that BA would allow to be booked into WT+ then upgraded instantly. When I present these flights to AA agents, back in August (for the other itinerary that I wanted to upgrade) they offered me a WT+ fare that was more expensive than the fare that BA was offering for a Club World ticket; this time the agent claimed there was no inventory at all for upgrades.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is inventory held back from the AAdvantage program by BA for sole use of BA customers? My alternative is to convert some SPG points that I have into BA miles and upgrading that way; I am a little fearful that the seats will be gone by the time the miles are converted and then I will have orphaned BA miles.

Clearly, based on what the BA website offers I could buy discounted WT+ and still upgrade. The way the AA website is written, I am not certain I could do this on AA. Does anyone have any experience doing what I want to do, and if so, have you done it with a discounted WT+ fare?

sukn

I'm unable to answer all of you questions relating to how BA does things but on AA's end, it must be a full-fare WT+ ticket if you want to upgrade using miles.

zski1

Duh. I knew that for Economy but I overlooked it for WT+. I wonder if this will ever be harmonized (or should I say harmonised) with BA. For all the complaining about BA surcharges, at least BA lets discounted WT+ fares be upgraded with EC miles (or whatever they're going to call them going forward).

The full fare WT+ requirement still doesn't explain why AA agents have such difficulty finding an upgradeable WT+ fare.

Vaze

As far as I know all WT+ fares are considered full fare economy so upgradable

sukn

And your understanding would be incorrect. Sorry.

See here: http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/re...radeAwards.jsp

Vaze

Most likely the AA agents are quoting you a full fare Y price, which will be much more than the WT+ fare you are seeing on BA which is why you are seeing such a price difference.

salut0

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Couldn't you hold a reservation in a different booking class, call the web services people and get them to change it to a W-class WT+ booking? You could then technically "book it on AA.com".

BrewerSEA

Evidently WT+ fares can be booked by AA (albeit only over the phone) as the OP was offered the option to purchase a more expensive WT+ fare. The JBA upgrade scheme does not require purchase on AA.com, you even quoted where it says "Reservations."

AA certainly publishes WT+ fares. Without looking at specific dates, the cheapest o/w WT+ fare I see on FRA-WAS is W2E0 $2,021. The cheapest CW fare is IR5E6J which is only $1,628. My conclusion is the OP should purchase an I fare rather than trying to upgrade, unless there is a business travel policy that only allows purchase of WT+ and not CW.

Vaze

What I'm trying to say, is that it isn't a WT+ fare he is being quoted at AA.

I did the same exercise LAX-DAR, BA shows WT+ roundtrip as $3,300, calling AA the agents give me $5,600 as the lowest upgradable fare available. Digging into it further it turns out this wasn't a WT+ fare but rather a full fare ticket in economy that could be upgraded to business using AA miles plus the co-pay ( I suspect this is because the WT+ fare simply isn't available at AA)

If OP really wants a WT+ fare he is not going to find it at AA.com or via by calling AA

sukn

AA reservations is capable of booking a WT+ fare in the W bucket. Yes, it would be on BA ticket stock but AA phone reps are able to provide this service.

Secondly, the link I provided clearly states AA miles can be used to upgrade on BA and IB flights. Why are you debating this simple point?

I'm sorry you have had difficulty booking your itinerary but only weeks ago I helped a friend upfare an AA codeshare ticket to a WT+ fare booked in W, and then use AA miles to upgrade into CW.

Ambraciot

The problem is that you can get WT+ fares from AA reservations over the phone if you ask for them and get a competent agent. These would not be eligible for an upgrade with a SWU or miles+copay, but they are eligible for an AAdvantage Participating Airlines upgrade.

However as the OP's experience indicates and BrewerSEA's research verifies the fares AA offers for WT+ on BA are impractical and not worth booking.

I would recommend booking either the CW or WT+ tickets through BA.

Vaze

I guess all my posts were long winded ways of saying the same thing ^ I found simply booking the WT+ fare through BA to be much cheaper (I still suspect this is because AA is quoting the full economy fare price rather than the true WT+ fare price available at BA.com)

Microwave

I understand that you're trying to help, but much of the information quoted above is inaccurate, which doesn't help. I'm not trying to be rude or snippy.

• Flights marketed and operated by AA do not have to be purchased at aa.com to qualify to be upgraded. You can buy AA flights on Orbitz, from your travel agent, or elsewhere, as long as they're marketed and operated by AA, you won't be prevented from upgrading for that reason (there are a myriad of other restrictions, but that's not one of them).
• BA.com is not the sole source for BA WT+ tickets. Among many outlets, AA do have access to book WT+ fares on BA-operated flights--call reservations and ask them look for the W bucket. These are unrestricted full-fare premium economy tickets and are therefore quite expensive--as BrewerSEA accurately points out, there are often cheaper deeply discounted business class tickets available, so W is often a very poor deal (just like Y or J).
• You would be able to buy WT+ on BA from LAX-DAR and upgrade to CW with AA miles, if you bought a W ticket as mentioned above, from AA reservations (not online), and there were CW award inventory available on the flight. Again, be prepared for the W fare to be much more than the lowest WT+ fare shown on ba.com.

Azulcactus

Another possibility is AA is quoting a code-share and BA is quoting their code. Before the joint business agreement I had numerous situations where AA code-shares were significantly more expensive than booking on the BA or CX or whatever flight number for the same booking fare. And AA couldn't sell me anything other than the AA code-share.

I'm not sure if this changed with the recent alignment. You may ask the agent the exact flight number and whether it is a code share or not.