Originally Posted by
radonc1
Do not think that all buy ups are as onerous as expressed above. Sometimes they can be a downright bargin.
I fly (unfortunately) a lot of short segments on AA (in the range of 40/year) so making plat is a difficult event. Last year I was short about 9000 miles and $1200.
I use the plat feature for same day change routinely and early boarding.
AA charged me $1200 to buy up at the end of the year. It was a no brainer. I didn't have to time to mileage run 9K miles and I am certain I would not have saved a lot of money if I did have the time (or desire) to do so. I earned far more at work than $1200 during the time I saved by not wasting it on a mileage run.
For me, the buy up made lots of sense, since I am now a plat doing the same puddle jumps with the need for same day change just about every trip I take. (And once in a blue moon they even up-grade me
)
The $1200 you quoted is much more than the approximately $700 that I stated. I was very close to PLT at the end of last year and that was the offer I received. Fortunately, I had a December trip to put me over the top. Of course, for you $1200 was indeed a bargain, as you would have had to spend more than $1200 to make up the EQD and would have had to fly a lot more than the OP. On the other hand, the OP paying $700 to make up 500 EQM only is very expensive compared to one additional short flight.
The pattern of AA offering much better deals to flyers who are pretty far from qualification than to those who are close has been the norm since the formal buy-up program started.