JetAirways77W

Asked the chat agent, fare basis code is MH7AUEY5. Seems like no extra EQM/RDM. Oh well.

Flying for Fun

Well, at least the M fare class earns 100% EQM. 😀

Enjoy the flight. My last A321T flight was very good, the meal memorable in a good way and the eagerness of a new FA trainee provided excellent in-flight service under the watchful eye of a seasoned mentor.

I hope I didn't jinx you....

James

JetAirways77W

Haha, this will be the 6th time I step foot on an A321T, all in the last 8 months. My first two legs were in F booked on a 38.5k web special award, and then a couple of times in the J section of MCE on the short BOS/JFK sector, and then once in Y on JFK-SNA. The F meal SFO-JFK was great (as were the crew), and I had to make sure I didn't eat too much so I could have a full meal in FFD.

First time I'll be flying J on an actual transcon leg, so that's why I wanted to get people's opinion on whether that would be worth the cost.

VegasGambler

You are probably better off asking on the AA forum. My understanding from reading the forum is that some people prefer the J seats (apparently the F seats are prone to wobble or something) although the F seats are larger and more private.

As for the meal, my understanding is that it's identical, except, F gets soup and J doesn't (hence the "no soup for you" meme.). But then I've never flown it so I might be confused. The general consensus seems to be that unless you can get FFD, the difference between F and J is small, with some people preferring J due to the seat wobble issue. But of course J is a huge upgrade over E/MCE.

DeltaFlyingProf

Not true at all. I have had more than one FF number in a book many times. Including the one I discuss below. The problem is getting someone who is knowledgeable enough to do it correctly. Sometimes if you put a FF# in from the start, it can become *sticky* and difficult to update.
I flew the same type of ticket. I had AA put my BA number for the AA flights and for the G3 flights had initially no FQTV. My spouse had AS for the AA flights and nothing for G3. After flying the first segment, we had looked up where to put G3 and asked the AA agent to put in our AA numbers just for the G3 flights.

Everything posted perfectly, spread between the airlines, including status bonus on AA for the G3 flights. If you are flying another such ticket, try to get the AA number put in before flying G3.

VegasGambler

This is not the same thing. You flew the AA segment and then changed your FF number at the connection point. This works, sometimes. But people who have tried this before the first segment credited have sometimes reported that the whole thing credited to the program that they changed to.

In other words, you are talking about changing it mid-trip, which is different from having two numbers there simultaneously.

Flying for Fun

My last flight was a complimentary upgrade. The time before that was a 27.5K AS partner J award LIR-MIA-LAX(77W)/stopover/LAX-JFK(A321T). The LIR-MIA (equivalent to SEA-PHX) in MCE was insignificant in the grand scheme.

The value of a paid upgrade is a personal thing. Personally, not of value for me on the flight in question. I have flown many long-haul flights in revenue J with per segment fares in the $225-$375 range, a little over $400 with F TATL segments.

I have always said I wouldn't fly a partner if earning less than 100% EQM. However, the closer ties with AA, cross-carrier benefits, AA's larger network, frequency & often much cheaper fares, the lesser earnings are justifiable for the times I fly AA greater than 500 miles where the earnings aren't commensurate. Cost of aquisition is certainly a factor. Extra RDM is nice, but at what cost?

James

DeltaFlyingProf

I gave the info about one particular ticket to @ezak. My comment to you was not for this ticket in particular. I have flown MANY tickets where from the start I had more than one number in with different segments going to AA and to BA. Sometimes there's a screwup and though everything looks correct on the BPs, the credit can still go to the wrong program. The most likely case is what I call 'sticky' number that AA/BA can have. It tends to go the other way than what you describe, trying to change on a connection point. In my experience, it is the number that was in at the time of the original check in that is receiving all the miles.

Get a good agent at one of the Admirals' club to do it properly and you should have your miles post on the different tickets correctly. Unfortunately some of the most competent AC agents I've worked with have retired during the pandemic, so I am going to have to go very patiently with the new agents until they know how to do it correctly.

JetAirways77W

In my experience having flown F on the longer SFO-JFK sector and J on a few BOS-JFK/JFK-BOS, I think it might be bulkhead J > F > non-bulkhead J. J row 6 seems to have a much wider footwell than even the F seats, and J window seats are much closer to the window which I like. However I didn't experience the seat wobbling in F thankfully, even on the oldest frame (N101NN).

ezak

Thanks for the info. I'm aware of such practices but I'm always afraid that an agent would overwrite all segments with my AA number. I even thought about doing it at the connection point, by asking a G3 agent to add my AA number, but was still afraid that it'd overwrite my return flights. And when a late arrival made it a super tight connection, naturally I just dropped it. After all, the G3 credits are minor compared to the AA flights, so I'd rather take the chance of asking for retroactive credit. If you don't mind me asking, when you had more than onr FF number on a reservation, how did you communicate that to the agent? Is there a specific way to instruct them, and is there a way to verify that it's done correctly?

DeltaFlyingProf

You have to tell the agent that you do want to put FF# on a per segment basis. If you don't know the agent, you ask: "Can you do that?" and observe the reaction on their face If they look puzzled, you know they'll need help, so you go slowly and nudge them to ask some of their colleague for help on how to do it. If they seem to know, say "Segments 1,2,3, the AA flights, I want my AS number <give number here>." Let them input that, then say "Segments 4 and 5, the GOL ones, I want my AA number <give number here>" and so on and so forth.
Good luck. Fortunately, AA is not that difficult to have them remove credit if they screw up. They used to sometime refuse, but not recently.