I was ready to order $2K in certificates from VolumeBuy but decided to check the bulletin board first and now am a bit concerned. dgordon had problems getting through on the site, this could stop other purchasers and keep the price higher. RichLond had to pay taxes after waiting almost an hour but perhaps because he called the wrong number. Is this typical of a promotion, there are glitches to be ironed out? When I called AA the person couldn't even interpret the rules she was reading and had to contact a "supervisor." For RichLond (or perhaps MileKing)-did you upgrade with the "flight segments?" It is my understanding that you cannot use ff miles to upgrade. Since flight segments are not available on international I am back to the original problem of not being to upgrade international tickets. Is there an interest on this board of buying more certs? I would like to think that if I bought $2K, the price would be down to the 25% discount. That is assuming I can get through. Bottom line is that a savings of 25%+tax is a good deal especially since I want to maintain my "status" on AA. It is an OK deal if (1) it's only 20% off, you have to pay taxes, there are limitations on upgrades, etc. One last question, is it not important that the ticket reflect that a price was paid, not $0, since you would not get ff miles on a free ticket?