Originally Posted by
egarcia9330
Hi all:
I am planning to travel weekly from DC to SFO and I'm trying to figure out how to make this work. Unfortunately, there are not many options coming out of DC for AA. My initial thought was to book DCA->JFK->SFO->JFK->DCA to be able to hop on the 321T(32B), which appears to offer the most comfort. My question here is how feasible is it to get an upgrade from Economy to Business if you're AAdvantage Platinum? I am assuming Business and First class are probably in high demand, and I can't fathom the idea to be stuck in an economy seat for 6hrs twice a week. Should I consider instead the non-stop service on United IAD-SFO? Problem is I don't have status on United, but I do have Gold Medallion on Delta, so what about Delta?
Please help...
With regards to UA:
If you really want to be a masochist, UA is currently offering some status matches. They don't list AA, but they list US & I'm sure if you email them, they'd probably accept you [EDIT: Plus, you said you had Gold on Delta which they do match to Premier Gold]. Bear in mind, this is a really, really elite heavy route, so the likelihood of getting an upgrade as Gold (what you would transfer over as) is still pretty low.
For instance, this morning's 7am UA (A320) flight from IAD to SFO this morning has ~30 people on the upgrade list currently with a fully checked in F.
The 6am: 757 - 34 people on waiting list, fully checked in F (24 seats).
8:09am: 737 -
48 PEOPLE on the upgrade waiting list with 13/15 checked in for F.
etc- etc-
You'll be competing with GS, 1k, Plat, and other golds on higher fare classes, so it'll be pretty tough.
You can check more here on the timetable:
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...umFlight=&FLN=
Just check the status and then hit "First Upgrade Standby List" to see the numbers.
Status match offer & details:
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...omoCode=TB8230
Second edit: Do you know what fare class you would be purchasing? If it's Y/B & you're Gold, then you get instant upgrade to First (depending on availability of course), which would make it a lot easier to secure a seat in First. If you end up at 1k, then that becomes Y/B/M. + You'll get Regional Premier Upgrades (RPUs) once you hit Plat and then again at 1k, which can also help. I would say it could be worth it to take UA just because it's a direct flight and if you're doing it twice a week, the last thing you're going to want to do is sit in a connecting airport for an extra hour every flight. That being said, there are a lot of tradeoffs with regards to UA's service levels and it's on-time performance (though, since you're not connecting, this will generally be better than it would be if you were going through ORD/IAH or something on UA).