brp

I dunno. Stranger things have happened for people that flew few BIS miles and got very lucky in the new year.

Cheers.

vasantn

I believe that in the case you are referring to, extraordinary extenuating circumstances applied. Let's not encourage people to inundate AA with requests unless a truly convincing case can be made. "I was really close" doesn't qualify by itself IMO.

dstan

Welcome to FlyerTalk, rhdowns! Your thread has now been merged into the main thread on requalification for 2011, so that other members can share their experiences here. Note that there have be automatic exceptions granted in some past years, but until folks like yourself report in here with specifics, we won't know about this year. Hopefully we'll hear some more reports!

/Moderator

rhdowns

I do think that it shouldn't be given unless there are some other factors that play in. Just being close alone is not good enough.

In my case I was close on miles not segments. I was not within a 2% close though. I had 90k miles out of 100k. I called in Oct knowing I would end short and they looked at the amounts that I paid for tickets and said that I should have it reviewed but that they could not initiate reviews until mid December. I called back December 8th and he asked if I had booked all my travel. I said no I have one more big trip to book but I will be booking it within the next day or so. I asked if I should wait and he said no he would put it through and they would consider my bookings. Well there is where I made the mistake I should have just booked enough to put me at 99k and then canceled what I didn't need. I got an email on the 11th (before I took my last trip) and it said sorry but no.

I called back and asked for a supervisor after I had taken that trip which was quite a bit of miles (coast to coast with stops in ORD). They told me they had to have considered my booked travel because I booked it the 9th and the email came on the 11th. I posed the question that being the case (that they wouldn't wait to see if I actually took the trip) then I should have just booked up to 99k and he said ... I guess you could have.

My arguement for making status was this - I traveled the same as another co-worker (same number of weeks and total trips) but she made status because she had the ability to take a 30 minute hop from tampa->miami to dallas where as the only hop for me is RDU->ORD->DAL or RDU->MIA->DAL. My flights were direct all year so low mileage and no segments. My tickets however averaged $800+ a week. I added up all my flights for the year and I spent $25,000 with American last year more than twice what my friend who took the same number of trips spent. Dollars wise I was twice as valuable of a customer to AA.

I think from a business stand point flipping a switch on my account would be worth keeping 25k for this coming year although I know some will disagree and say you should have to jump through hoops.

The same co-worker I mention above also was offered the year before an EXP challenge which I see from the threads on here is like the mythical unicorn. She had to do 25,000 miles in a 3 month period which she made barely by taking a couple personal trips to cross the finish line. The year before she said she was like me about 10k miles short and she called and they offered that to her because she was close and she said she expected to travel even more in the coming year.

I agree keep EXP rare - keep it away from casual travelers I am not a casual traveler. I spent 213 nights in Marriotts last year and probably another 30 or so Starwood properties. I had 40 Hertz rentals which granted me Presidents Circle for the second year. Aside from occassionally AA fares just being astronomical I flew mostly AA last year and the year before. I just happened to be cursed with all direct flights (RDU->BOS) the year before.

Tried to get the exact numbers from the AA site I had last year but it shows a little higher than I thought I was when I click the summary through the end of the year. The Segments seem right but the miles are a little more - but looking at the flights in the summary they are the ones through the end of 2010 including that last flight so I was 7337 short or 7%:

YTD Elite Qualifying Points 66,313
YTD Elite Qualifying Miles 92,663
YTD Elite Qualifying Segments 68

mikelat

I can understand them not granting you EXP based on the numbers you posted. You're 7K+ miles away and even more points & segments. Thats a good chunk/% when you're targeting 100k miles or points. In looking back, might have been worth a MR or 2 to lock down EXP. Still, sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you.

HNL

I appreciate you are not an infrequent traveler, but those numbers just don't come close. $25K in business travel is easy - and while nothing to shake a stick at - does not qualify you for EXP status. Particularly in a year in which AA offered Double EQM from RDU, not to mention your abysmally low EQP number.

Your options for 2011 are to plan better with AA and/or schedule a mileage run if you're close or switch to an airline that has a 75K level.

rjw242

These numbers seemed very strange to me at first (particularly coming from $25k spending), but I suppose it was mostly full-fare Y or F travel with double EQM from RDU, right? If so, then yeah, it's a bummer to come close. But had they not chanced to offer DEQM from RDU, you would've been a solid Platinum (with the 66k points) anyway. It's annoyingly arbitrary that another $200 or so would've bumped you over, but that's how the game works. Best of luck in 2011.

NotDuncan

+1 Sorry, but you're not even close to arguing for a "bump" comp here. While $25k of (presumably your employers') spending is nothing for AA to sneeze at, you were flying from a DEQM base for a good chunk of the year.

I ended up at ~28k EQP, 51k EQM and 57 EQS last year, all on my dime, all leisure travel. My segments were only so high because I successfully completed the NEWAA bonus; fly to 10 new cities for 100k bonus RDM. "How I Spent My Summer of 2010...Visiting a bunch of crappy cities flying on RJ's!"
None of my flights last year earned DEQM, DEQP, or DE-anything except a throbbing pain in my lower back, and some cheap wine headaches.

Barring the amount of DEQM you got for flying out of RDU, your numbers probably wouldn't look much better than mine, and I was happy to squeak past PLT status again.

gemac

It isn't annoyingly arbitrary, it's extraordinarily poor planning. OP ended up 7337 short, meaning that with DEQM he only needed 3669 of additional flying. He knew in October that he would be short. He had the option to route RDU-MIA-DFW or RDU-ORD-DFW instead of RDU-DFW, but chose not to do so. He flew round trip on average 3 times per month. Had he put the extra connection through MIA in just one trip per month for those last three months, he would now be EXP. Had he done one mileage run to the west coast, he would now be EXP. On December 11, he knew his appeal would be turned down and he would not be EXP unless he flew more. He chose to be Plat.

I'm guessing that AA's analysis showed that he had around 60,000 to 65,000 B-I-S miles for the year, with his points to miles ratio about 1.00. The only reason he got even close in any category was the DEQM promo. I wouldn't have given it to him under these circumstances either.

To the OP - The advice here on FT has always been to fly those last few miles, rather than count on a last-minute grovel to invoke enough mercy to get you there. It is good advice. Enjoy Platinum status. It is still better than 99% of your fellow passengers will experience.

rjw242

I wasn't arguing that the OP should have been bumped up in status, just that from a logical standpoint it doesn't make a lot of sense that $25,000 in revenue gets him PLT, and $25,200 would have earned him EXP. But the rules are very clear so it's nobody's fault but his own.

bhndrxn

I attained EXP in 2009. Traveled extensively (to include a number of LONG MRs) in 2010 to keep my EXP status. I was sitting at 98,050 & waiting for my RDU DEQM to hit to take me over the top. Unfortunately, I just called AAdvantage and had the Supervisor of that program explain to me that the mileage credit I was waiting for wouldn't be coming because it was a one-way flight (RDU-SAN) and I needed to do a RT.

I am very pissed at myself and at AA. Since I paid quite a bit out of pocket to do the MRs, I would have easily done something else to push me over 100K, but I didn't realize I had miscalculated. Anyhow, she WAS NOT inclined at all to adjudicate this favorably.

brp

You're going to get people here saying "oh well, you should have read the rules...your fault." And that is true, and that's why you're pissed at yourself.

At the same time, you are very close, and I would certainly expect AA to be a little more generous in this case. The rules aren't always the most straightforward, and I would think that they'd work with you here. So, I can completely understand being pissed here.

I'd try again, several more times, in fact.

Cheers.

bhndrxn

That's what I think, too. The response I received from the Aadvantage CS rep was that the buck stopped with her. She was the Supervisor and everyone above her was administrative and didn't take calls.

I KNOW that is not true. That is actually one of the reasons I am pissed at AA right now. It was the first time I have had a bad experience with the CS. It wasn't just because she told me something I didn't want to hear, it was the tone and attitude.

Ord Liza

If repeat calls to CS don't work, I would try Customer Relations; sometimes they help when Customer Service won't. As far as I know, you can't call them directly but have to get someone to transfer you to them.

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

+1 on this. I know the gut instinct would be to say, "your fault, too bad." However, I understand how sometimes, we miscalculate, especially when each of the double EQM promos always tend to have some vague wording (which is why it's always discussed ad nauseum here on FT). I am usually also tense about what I can/cannot purchase when a lot of EQM are on the line.

You're already beating yourself up, so there's not really much chastising that needs to happen.

I would suggest, as others have mentioned, to contact AA CS. Try email perhaps so you can explain clearly and they can mull it over, as opposed to having to make a split decision while you're still on the phone. I've always found that the emails I write get better resolutions for some reason.

You can try this, too.