Originally Posted by
mikegeig
Here's my 2 cents:
I fly a good amount (end of the year will be ~96k having started early May). I don't really know what Y tickets are and the like. I just used my credit cards travel booking, booked flights, and flew. I have Global Entry. I fly to Canada, Mex, and UK often. I don't really care about food on planes (anything is good when you're starving).
Here is what I do know. I liked simply booking flights and getting notices that I was upgraded. It was cool. It was automatic. I didn't have to think about it. I fly cross country from CLT a lot. Upgrades were great from CLT to SEA because I could get work done easier (I'm fat and have a big laptop). I also was planning on buying up to 100k near the end of the year but they've removed that feature. So I will be downgraded to 50k, and get stickers which I will have to figure out how to use.
I don't care to figure the system out. I just want to fly with occasional magical upgrades (happening more frequently the more I fly). I hate forms, paperwork, and tracking. I have Adult ADD (not using as a crunch, mind you) and I'd rather spend my "focus points" on my job and family.
Honestly, work pays for my flights and I spend a lot on flying. I am looking into United and Delta to see if they will suite me better for the future. I just feel like I've lost some ease of use.
And I don't like change much. Grumble.
First of all, until the airlines have a single operating certificate, it will continue to work exactly as you described (automatic unlimited upgrades) on US operated flights. It's only on AA-operated flights of longer than 500 miles where you will need to have some kind of upgrade instrument. But even there, it's not much of a hassle.
You will earn 500-mile upgrades, aka "stickers", automatically. That is, as you fly, they will be deposited into your account, which you can view on AA.com. You don't have to do anything to get them. When you book a flight you will request an upgrade automatically (I think, it's been some time since I was an AA elite; if I recall there is a checkbox to request upgrade, which is automatically checked if you are signed in to your account), and when you are upgraded, the stickers will be deducted automatically. If you do not have enough stickers, the system will prompt you at check-in to buy more. You can do it online or at a kiosk by swiping your credit card. If you don't care to keep track of it, you don't have to... the system will let you know how many stickers you need to buy. If a large % of your flying is international, you'll likely always have enough stickers to upgrade your domestic segments (since you earn stickers at the same rate on int'l travel but, just like US, you can't upgrade int'l flights the same way you can upgrade domestic flights). It's really more like "if you upgrade frequently enough on domestic you will eventually have to pay a small amount of $$ for the privilege".
ETA: if you're a US flyer, you can game the system a little bit as you will (presumably) earn stickers while flying US in 2015, even though you won't need to use them (since upgrades on US will not require stickers to upgrade).