Originally Posted by
teemuflyer
But that could change, with Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce telling Australian Business Traveller at a join Qantas/American Airlines briefing that he is “absolutely looking at that (upgrades on American Airlines flights)”.
Qantas International CEO Gareth Evans had more to say: “We’ll continue to investigate all of these opportunities to better align the product offering (between Qantas and American), so when American Airlines passengers travel on Qantas and vice versa, they'll have the same experience.”
American’s own Senior Vice President for International Strategic Alliances, Kurt Stache, continued by highlighting that “these policies evolve over time, so we'll start with this one (being no reciprocal frequent flyer upgrades), and go from there.”
I'm pretty sure you're misreading the quotation. I don't think Stache is saying that there wold be no reiprocal upgrades if/when QF institutes points upgrades on AA metal; he's saying that the status quo is no upgrades with AA miles on QF metal and no upgrades with QF miles on AA metal, and they'll "go from there".
The QF people acknowledged that they're looking at reciprocal upgrades, but the AA people didn't.
ETA: I see I'm a little late to the party.