Originally Posted by honu
Wow! If you had to purchase a higher discount economy fare (say H) but lower than Y or B, you'd be better off flying UA then. It's 5000 additional miles, but no $$ and better seats... this is a scary thought...
AA should have definitely allowed higher discount Y fares to qualify for miles-only upgrade. Then it would have matched most of the competition. Is this the stingiest upgrade policy among the majors now?
No, CO is still far, far worse, for many reasons. BUT, CO's BusinessFirst seat/cabin is also much, much better than AA's J-seat-- which I'm pretty much just gonna' go ahead and assume AA will be changing very soon as part of this whole process-- they really
have to if they are to remain competitive.
I would also echo the thought that it's nuts for the $250 each-way surcharge to apply to the more expensive "discount" fares. It doesn't make any sense for it to be $500 r/t + 50,000 miles on the higher fares.