Originally Posted by
anabolism
If you do not call, normally what happens is your reservation remains with the confirmed upgraded segment, while your ticket remains with the old unupgraded segment. Thus your reservation and ticket won't match. That prevents doing online checkin. When you get to the airport to checkin, an agent will need to manually reissue your ticket and pull an SWU, or will issue you a BP without reissuing your ticket, using a process as for gate upgrades. That adds extra time to checkin. However, if there is a schedule change or delay, you're much less likely to be protected in the upgraded cabin, because AA normally protects you in your ticketed cabin, not the cabin of your reservation.
This is very useful information. Thank you very much. When I was added in the SWU waitlist, the EXP agent told me (assuming I understood her correctly) that there is no need to call when the waitlist clears. My credit card will be charged automatically for the Luxury tax and the upgrade will work similarly like the domestic EXP automatic upgrades. Clearly, it was a misinformation.
Anyway, here is my strange experience today: I have another trip JFK-CDG-JFK coming-up in August. SWU waitlist cleared for this trip (both legs) as well. So I called the EXP desk to reissue the tickets for both (1) next week's LHR-JFK leg (use 1 SWU), and (2) August's JFK-CDG-JFK trip (use 2 SWU). I felt the EXP agent wasn't well-experienced on the SWU upgrade process (!!!). She put me on hold for about 50+ minutes before charging me $119.20 as the Luxury tax for LHR-JFK leg and $45.40 for the CDG-JFK. She told me that the ticketing department insisted her to charge $119.20 for the CDG-JFK leg as well, but she remembered that Luxury tax of France is much less than UK, and it took about 50 minutes for them to figure out the correct amount, that is, $45.40. I was speechless! I am not sure if either of these amounts are correct.
Anyway, here is the next strange part. My reservations (both) went to the "Ticket Pending" cycle. After a while the tickets were issued. But I have not received the e-ticket e-mail. I see in aa.com (and in AA app) that the upgrades are confirmed, and the trips are ticketed. But, since I haven't received the e-ticket e-mail, I don't have the ticket numbers. I cannot download the receipt with ticket number from the aa.com. That link always disappear from the reservation webpage whenever a SWU is used to re-ticket an upgrade. In fact, that link is replaced by another link which just prints the reservation webpage without the ticket number. I am not sure why I haven't received the e-tickets via e-mail (never happened before). Now I am wondering if the agent made any mistake in upgrade process. Is there a place to find the ticket number in aa.com or in the AA app? Any other feedback on this?
I will call the EXP desk tomorrow. But, in these days, finding a well-trained or well-experienced EXP agent is a matter of luck.