timdolan

Hi FTers,
I am currently doing an AA Plat challenge and was granted Gold status for the 90 days. I have a IAD-LAX flight tomorrow (booked on Q) and requested an upgrade via the AA site (and have sufficient number of 500-mile upgrades in my account). It is now a bit less than 24 hours before departure and my upgrade has not cleared yet. I do see availability (through ExpertFlyer) and spoke to AA agent over the phone twice. They say that they can see upgrade request, availability, but that my request has not yet cleared. I am somewhat confused - if there is availability - 2 seats according to agent and ExpertFlyer, and I am within the correct timeframe (24 hours for Gold), why am I still waiting? One agent said that they might be waiting to sell the seat (though I don't understand this logic if the upgrade is available - code A - right?) She also mentioned that she had been seeing the system behave this way more and more recently. Is this standard? Am I misunderstanding the process? Many thanks for your help!

P.S. Many thanks to FT for all the invaluable information - which has already helped make my flights more pleasant!

brp

Since upgrade availability can no longer be seen on ExpertFlyer, you are not seeing that. You need X availability- not just seats. It seems that there is no X, and no way to check that.

If you plan to fly AA much following your challenge, you should probably read the FAQ (where is says "Please check here first") as basic information, such as how the u[grade process works, is well-covered there.

Cheers.

timdolan

Thanks! That explains it. I take it that kvs tool doesn't have info on such upgrade availability either.

brp

Nope. No one does. EF used to be the only one. Now that is cut-off. You can make inferences from seats and other buckets, but that's less exact.

Cheers.