Originally Posted by
huge
Well, I called AA and was told that we would definitely have to spend MY 500-mile upgrades to upgrade Mrs Huge. I just learned that we have been upgraded for the first segment (STT-MIA) which will cost 3 of my 4 stickers. I also just learned that we will be flying on "Oasis" retrofitted aircraft for the first segment (and probably for the second MIA-SAN as well). With all the complaints about Oasis first class seating, it's possible we might want to just reject the upgrade and move Mrs Huge (or maybe even both of us) back to Row 17 - 2nd exit row. I assume that's doable if we make that decision (I posted in
the Oasis thread to get opinions there) but I don't know how or when to do it - should I call AA and tell them to shove their upgrade? Or should I wait until we're at the airport and tell them that if we can't spend Mrs Huge's stickers on the upgrade(s) we don't want them?
Thanks for all the replies - I thought I should report back on the bizarre and lucky way the story played out...
We got to STT and told the check-in agent that we wanted Mrs Huge's upgrade to be paid for out of her stickers (not really expecting it to work). She was very nice and helpful, just not super knowledgeable about upgrades - she called twice to the "help desk" and basically told them that something had gone wrong and that they needed to transfer 3 upgrades from Mrs Huge's account to mine, and they told her they would do it - no muss, no fuss. I was not all that confident that it would happen, but within an hour I could see on our accounts that it had been done (a few hours later the transfer had been reversed, but then in another couple hours it was un-reversed). So it's like a little Caribbean Christmas Miracle. I doubt we could repeat the process - it was a perfect storm of ignorance and helpfulness, and we benefited.
On the second leg I was upgraded but Mrs Huge was not, so the sticker issue did not come up, but we got another dumb-luck windfall. We got on the plane (I let her have my F seat because I'm a giver) and sat there for half an hour, not sure what the delay was. They announced that they needed two volunteers to get off the plane and fly the next (yesterday) morning and that they would pay us $675 each and give us a hotel room (Miami). Mrs Huge stood up and looked back at me and I gave her the thumbs up and she told the F attendant we would take it - someone else in F told her "you should get more than that" and the attendant said she probably could get us more. We got off the plane and listened as the attendant called whoever and told them she wanted to give us more money, got off the phone and said she was giving us $1200 each in vouchers (plus hotel room, plus $12 each in food credit for airport or hotel). We tried to get them to book one or both of us in F, but all they could do was put us on the upgrade list for MIA-DFW-SAN. We missed the upgrade for MIA-DFW (sad since it was lie-flat 777) but our bulkhead seats were quite nice, and then DFW-SAN again I got the last upgrade (and gave it away AGAIN) so we didn't have to spend any more stickers or try to weasel them out of Mrs Huge's stash.
All in all a pretty lucky outcome - now we just need to figure out how to spend $2400 in AA credit