Originally Posted by The Man in Seat 9A

Thanks for the quick response.My clients pay for it and I don't like to play games with their money, so I usually book the lowest main economy fare (varies by airline). Not Basic/Saver. I do often book within a week of flying, though so sometimes that's a higher fare bucket. My company (I own part of it) then pays for an upgrade or a refund/rebuy in first, if it's not too pricey (my threshold as I mentioned is about $100/hour, particularly above two hours). On United I knew I would never clear a complimentary, but if that were happening I would buy up less. Also on United the buy-ups counted towards elite qualification, not sure if that's true on AS or AA. I can easily put all the airfare spend on a particular credit card and on United that helped significantly with the qualification.