I have a colleague who managed to get comped to EXP. He had been EXP, but only made Platinum last year because his consulting project for most of the year was in his hometown. After two letters to AA and two form-letter responses, he was finally able to talk to a supervisor at AAdvantage Customer Service. She reinstated his EXP status on the spot. Even he was surprised at how accomodating she was. Of course, I'm sure it didn't hurt that he'd already flown 50K miles in Jan and Feb this year.