I purchased a coach ticket that I've subsequently changed twice due to business needs. The total change fee for this was $475 and ticket change fee of $44. So, according to USAir calculus - I'm still short of the $1,400 upgrade threshold since $1200 + $44 is less than $1,400. Come on! The extra $475 is surely profit for USAir. The call center cost cannot possibly be that high. Now, I've been a member of Dividend Miles since '91 and have had preferred status with them for 5 or 6 years. I've called twice and sent an email via the website. Each time I was told no - wait for the 24 hr $500 upgrade. I don't think they get it - I want to utilize the 30K mile upgrade and was hoping that my USAir flight loiyalty would mean something! NOT!
Its gotten to be the principal of the thing now - can anyone identify a manager type or anyone else that I can plead my case to? Flight is 12/20/08
Location: Stuck Between the Moon and PHL or EWR, Riding the Rail from ZFV, Your local Taco Bell
Programs: AA EXP, CO Plat, SPG Plat, Marriott Silver
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A couple of thoughts - if your original ticket was $1200 then you may be able to get a supervisor to apply the rules in place when you purchased your ticket. (ie when I bought this, the fare was more than the requirement, so please honor that). You'd probably have to get two levels up for that.
If your ticket was <$1200 to start with, and remains less than the total required today ($1400), then you're SOL. Calling up and screaming "but I'm loyal so the rules don't apply to me" is not going to get you anywhere. Nor should it.
Also, not sure how you get to a $475 change fee either - how many times did you change? Do you have a breakdown of each time's cost? You may have the figures backwards/confused.
*Any ticket with a total fare (including taxes, facility surcharges and US Airways fees) of $1,400 roundtrip or higher is eligible for upgrade. For one way ticket purchases, the total fare must be a minimum of $700.
So, according to their own terms and conditions, US Airways fees DO count. They have not specifically excluded anything from the category of "fees", so you should be able to upgrade. If not, I'll borrow a page from PineyBob's book and encourage you to file a complaint with the DOT, AZ Attorney General, and the Attorney General in your home state. That ought to get their attention.
Last edited by McFlyPHL; Dec 17, 08 at 3:51 pm.
Reason: added T&Cs.
So, you've paid a total of $1244 to date in fare and fees. No, they shouldn't budge for you. The rules are very clearly spelled out. How would you feel if you had actually gone out of your way to purchase a ticket that cost over $1400 and they broke the rules for someone else who didn't???
Simple solution - make another change that involves a fee/fare increase to take you over the $1400 threshhold.
But as said here - you won't be able to use miles to upgrade that unless there is "upgradable" inventory. This means there could be 23 seats (out of 23) to sell in Envoy and they still don't have to flag any as upgradeable, so good luck.
You can check to see if it's even worth your time. Try to do a mock AWARD booking on usairways.com. If you see Envoy availability at 40,000 points EACH WAY, then you can use miles to upgrade a paid ticket.
You say you're traveling 12/20 FCO-PHL. Well, guess what - there are no awards available. Not even at the 'standard' level. Checking expertflyer.com, there are only 5 seats left to sell. Looks like that cabin is pretty full. So even with 5 seats left, they have removed "J" inventory all together to stop anyone from even booking an 80,000 point (one way) award seat. That's how sure those brainiacs in Tempe are that they will sell those seats (probably at the $500 GoEnvoy level).
I purchased a coach ticket that I've subsequently changed twice due to business needs. The total change fee for this was $475 and ticket change fee of $44. So, according to USAir calculus - I'm still short of the $1,400 upgrade threshold since $1200 + $44 is less than $1,400. Come on! The extra $475 is surely profit for USAir. The call center cost cannot possibly be that high. Now, I've been a member of Dividend Miles since '91 and have had preferred status with them for 5 or 6 years. I've called twice and sent an email via the website. Each time I was told no - wait for the 24 hr $500 upgrade. I don't think they get it - I want to utilize the 30K mile upgrade and was hoping that my USAir flight loiyalty would mean something! NOT!
Its gotten to be the principal of the thing now - can anyone identify a manager type or anyone else that I can plead my case to? Flight is 12/20/08
Signed: why the h*ll do I keep flying Scary-Air?
there are no award seats available on your flight at the moment
Actually there are "award" seats available for this flight, however, whether there are any miles u/g seats (which are capacity controlled) at this late date is very doubtful. Call DM and they could tell you if there is any "J" inventory - if not, then the rest of your requests are moot.
Actually there are "award" seats available for this flight, however, whether there are any miles u/g seats (which are capacity controlled) at this late date is very doubtful. Call DM and they could tell you if there is any "J" inventory - if not, then the rest of your requests are moot.
There are no award seats of any kind available for Envoy on 12/20 FCO-PHL. Not even 'standard' level of 80,000 one way. Yet, there are 5 seats to sell in the C/D/Z buckets. There is no J bucket even listed for this flight, which is the underhanded, sneaky way Tempe makes it impossible to use miles of any kind for a seat on this flight.
12/22, 23, 24 all have availability at the 40,000 level (one way) so presumably one could upgrade with miles on those days (assuming their ticket is $1400 RT or more)
There are no award seats of any kind available for Envoy on 12/20 FCO-PHL. Not even 'standard' level of 80,000 one way.
Not sure why you say this, when I logged in to USAirways.com and did a trial booking, it presented me with an 80,000 mile award seat.
With respect to J inventory, for some reason US is not listing in on most CRS systems, although it was there earlier this year. But typically there were only a handful of seats available for any one flight - often just 2 or 3.
