vrbaba

This is true as of few months ago, but with the new process, the opposite is true.

First case is the anomaly, the second is how its suppose to function currently.

I think the first case may be the result of the agent doing some proactive work on her behalf and specifically made sure that the stickers will come out of EXP's account. If this had been done the normal way (over the phone before any upgrades cleared), I am positive the outcome would be stickers pulled out of the PLT's account.

brp

Sure is an echo in here

Cheers.

vrbaba

From previous posts, its unclear as to what exactly happens in the case of non-elite upgrade companion. Do you have any stickers in your account? If not, just let it be and try to check-in the day before. If it lets you both check in, it is safe to assume that stickers will come out of her account. If it does not, stickers are coming out of yours. You can go to the check-in agent at the airport and request she pulls the stickers out of her account.

If you do have stickers in your account, I would make sure to check with the agent at the airport.

dstan

In the days prior to this policy change, the answer was that non-status pax were allowed to use their own stickers when, and only when, traveling on full-fare tix. Now, though, we may need to wait for you to report back to find out for sure, so please report back!

Danwriter

Actually, in the interests of brevity I'd left out the fact that the first agent at the front desk asked another agent, also working the first-class counter, to come over and assist her. Neither could get the stickers moved from my account. I'm a big user of the FT "try again" rule, but this situation could have turned into the Woody Allen "can you read this bank robber note" scenario. Based on what I'm reading here the matter remains rather murky.

brp

I don't think so. The actual policy seems pretty straightforward (from each account), and this seems pretty consistent when handled by the automatic system. Seems only to get murky when agents (who may not be as familiar with the rules as the automated system) get involved. So, I'd say that the policy is clear and (almost-)universally applied. When agents get involved, though, anything can be made to happen, as always.

Cheers.

stcroixscuba

I know this has been discussed here before but a search came up with only some older information.

My wife (GLD) and I (EXP) are on a weekend getaway. Separate PNRs, linked to not separate on UGs. UGs came thru well in advance for the trip and and already have for return tomorrow. I thought because of the linking that the coupons would come out of my account but it looks like it came out of hers. She now has none and I still have 7 which is more than needed. I called the EXP line to ask it we could have them taken out of my account when we check-in tomorrow and was told that they do come from my account.....well they didn't.

My question: Can I just ask the TA on C/I to use my coupons or should I go ahead and purchase them for her?

vrbaba

See this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-2009-a.html

Many agents are still not familiar with (now not so) recent change. So most think they will come out of the EXP account, but that is not the case.

Yes, you can ask the TA to use your stickers instead of hers. Let us know what you find out.

ugorightigoleft

Flew out of PUJ yesterday with Mr. ugorightigoleft, who is a PLT. We cleared the u/g at 100 hours, and he bought segments for my account (which we always do for the u/g's when travelling together, and had just done on the flight down last week). We get to the counter, and TA refuses to take the segments from my account. I explain to her the process multiple times, but she continues to press me that she cannot clear us because my hubby didn't have enough stickers in HIS account (which is totally wrong, given what we have done in the past). Hubby then told her he was happy to buy them on the spot if that would ease the process, as we know we will use them either way. The TA instead says absolutely nothing, takes her sweet time to tag our bags, then hands us BPs with economy seats on them without saying a word. Basically she had taken us out of business class, and rebooked us into economy, then put us on the airport u/g list (I would assume...who knows). I immediately asked for a supervisor, who took care of the situation very quickly and we were back into our original upgraded seats. The TA clearly did not know what she was doing, and was too lazy to ask for help or otherwise deal with our situation. No apologies from either the TA or the supervisor either. Did not leave a very good taste in our mouths, to say the least!

If in PUJ, be warned...

JDiver

In my opinion, you'd do us all a favor - including the PUJ staff - by going to aa.com and sending them an e-mail detailing what happened. Some folks need some retraining... and it sounds like the supervisor may not be the person to provide it or direction to employees under his/her supervision.

ugorightigoleft

Already on it--I'm drafting an email as we speak. AA should also handle the passive-aggressive way she dealt with the situation...completely unacceptable to act like that.

stcroixscuba

Well my conclusion to my portion of this is that it seems that the TA can do pretty much anything. Checking in for the return, with all the coupons in my (EXP) account and none left in wife's (GLD) the TA just asked if I was upgrading her and everything was taken care of.

fbnewyork

Spent most of the past 5 years traveling as a GLD with Plat Spouse. We ran into many variations of the sticker problem over the years. My understand became that the agent had to remove the upgrade from one passenger (which would redeposit the stickers), then try to upgrade on the spot, IF THERE WAS STILL AVAILABILITY AND NO ONE ELSE MOVED AHEAD ON THE LIST! Occasionally we were told that to use my stickers, we would only have gold priority (Not true per AA, but never put to the test), or a variety of other stories. Now, both being PLAT, and with the rules changing, Can't help you out. But perhaps old reservations will still go by old rules, if there is an occasional outlier in the next few months in these results.

dstan

The rules changed last fall - please check the beginning this thread (into which another mod has merged your thread) - stickers are now pulled separately from each elite pax's account by default. The downgrade issue is a different problem that should definitely be addressed.

abk

For the last several years I have traveled fairly often with my assistant. In the beginning, I would book our tickets on 1 pnr, request upgrades, and buy 500 mile stickers for my account. All worked fine until she made gold last year.

I continued to put upgrades in my account and then learned that I could not check her in online unless she had upgrades in her account. My guess was that even though she upgraded based on my status, the check in program wanted to take upgrades from her account because she was gold. This meant I had to check in at the counter and have them pull the upgrades from my account. No problem.

In preparation for our last trip, I went ahead and bought upgrades for the entire trip in her account. We did not clear in advance and went on the airport list. The Angel at the Stl AC said that it would be a problem for her to clear at the gate unless the upgrades were in my account because she was upgrading based on my status. I questioned her for a while and finally bought upgrades for my account. Now I had them in both accounts. Then,even though we had requested do not separate, they upgraded me and left her in coach but that is for another thread.

When I got home, I talked with an Advantage supervisor and she told me the upgrades had to be in my account since she was upgrading based on my status. She also said the airport agents may take them from either account but did not have to as they technically should come from my account. To her credit she did offer to move the upgrades around.

We have two trips coming up in November and I am curious if anyone has any insight or experience dealing with this. It seems to me that advantage has one rule and aa.com online check in has another.