alphaod

So I booked my girlfriend on CX paid business HKG-JFK in December 2014. Then I used my mileage to upgrade her to first. I'm not sure how AA redemption upgrades, but CX reissues a new ticket with the upgrade, so the new ticket now shows up as a redemption fare. Apparently the system doesn't automatically reference the old ticket number (I think I recall before if you change flights in AA it shows something like exchanged coupon or whatever)--I don't think CX does this.

We tried repeated to get AA to get these miles, but they insist the ticket is redemption when the original ticket is not. I have of course called CX, and they said I should just submit the request with the original ticket number (before the upgrade), but when we submit the original ticket, we're told the booking class (business), does not match the flown class on the boarding pass (first). They keep giving us the run-around.

We've hit about three months, so in another three months I think they'll just tell my girlfriend it's past the retro-crediting period.

My girlfriend says I should just ignore it since she can't get the EQM/EQP for this ticket anymore (and it wouldn't bring her up to higher tier anyways). Perhaps it's time for that or there is something else we can do?