Originally Posted by
ryanbriar
100% To be fair to the chat agent, I was transferred so they were not the typical front-line agent that quotes you a set of flights totally different from what you requested.
The X team was helpful in confirming this morning that this surcharge was in fact accurate and there is no way around it when converting to a prime flight (no way to break out the short haul from long haul). They confirmed that it was not due to the instant upgrade.
I honestly think a big part of this is the opaqueness of how SWUs work on BA in terms of the fees as it seems like it has been all over the map based on this thread. I’ve only used them to go from J to F on BA where those surcharges are already the same.
For sure, that's sort of what I was getting at above, even the rate desk agents that process these upgrades seem to have no clear set process or rules and just go with whatever they think or with what little training they've had; Sometimes they try to charge the YQ increase for the whole journey, sometimes just the upgraded segment, sometimes nothing at all, etc. etc. Complete crapshoot.
And I wouldn't even trust the X team in this instance as converting the BA shorthaul flight to the BA prime flight number has never mattered. Going back to 2022 they have always had to convert the BA segment to the BA prime flight number to apply a SWU on BA, and this is the first instance I've seen where they're trying to charge
any surcharge for a shorthaul upgrade (not to mention the entire $1k YQ amount which is ludicrous).
Basically either no one at AA knows what they're talking about but are trying to act authoritative on the subject, or this is something very new that makes SWU upgrades on BA completely worthless.
I'd try just calling and not mentioning anything about any of these exchanges, tell them you have an upcoming trip where you already applied a SWU but it looks like now space is open on the BA connecting flight and ask them to upgrade that segment too. See what they say, fingers crossed.