Suggestion to AA: Upgrade elites on AAnytime awards or allow mixed awards...
 

I just booked an AAnytime award SAN-ORD-YUL. The SAN-ORD leg was available in F using a saaver award (25,000). The ORD-YUL leg had only one cabin and 15 seats available but no saaver awards so I was going to have to use an AAnytime award.

Since I'm spending 25,000 anyway, why not allow for a combined award at 25,000 or upgrade me if the F cabin is available when I check in? Could be a good elite perk.

Why would they do that? there are other ways then can make money off those F seats. If you want the F seat pay for it with your miles. Don't expect it for free.

Delta allows upgrading awards, but you are placed at the bottom of the list within your elite group.

And we all know how good DL's program is these day getting anything for free..lol

+1. You can always change award types if inventory changes or cough up the extra 25,000 miles to fly F.

I knew that would be the typical response, but you asked "why would they do that", and I provided evidence that at least someone thinks it is a good idea. That is all.

UA also allows elites to upgrade on award tickets if they hold a UA credit card.

I suppose I wouldn't mind it if they had lower priority than people on paid tickets. It's not a bad idea, but it is what it is.

I have been in this situation a few times and have had pretty good luck (probably 60%) calling in and asking the agent to request that revenue management release a saver seat. Sometimes it happens immediately, other times in a day or two.

An agent explained to me that they can do a computer request; if that fails there is an email address that they can send the request to and explain any extenuating circumstances; and then after that there is a phone number that they can call to beg. So, it pays to be nice to phone agents. :)

The process is a bit more complicated than that.

Ironically, when I boarded the san-ord leg to go to my seat in row 14, I found one of my former flight instructors sitting in F... (it had not turned into a revenue seat for AA).

I believe that upgrade award tkt should be an EXP benefit.

I know EXP phone agents can request that RM open up SAAVER seats and I have had helpful EXP agents do that for me in the past. I do not know if the regular AA phone agents are able to do this for non-EXP customers. The flights that the EXP agent opened up award space were flights that were wide open on the seat map at the time of request, many months in advance.

I know UA higher-level elites (1K/PLT) have access to additional award inventory at the saver level, so this is a nice perk for higher level elites.

This is one of the only ways in which UA beats AA these days. If you have one of a few Chase CC's you'll clear if there's space after all revenue classes within your elite group. I've been redeeming more miles on UA because of this for the past yr. I didn't know DL does it too, so AA better get on the ball!! ^

Umm, well that and decent award availability which in my book is the most important measure of all.

I've never understood the rationale behind disallowing upgrades on award tickets. I think it should be allowed for all, not just elites. It's interesting to hear that both UA and DL now do it to some degree.

Upgrading on award tickets is a separate issue, but I agree it would be fair to let you combine award types. It used to be that you couldn't fly F one way and Y on the return; IIRC, you also couldn't fly Saver one way and Anytime the other. These restrictions went away when they added one-way awards.

So allowing you to combine F saaver and Y anytime on separate segments within a single one way is really just an extension of that. A simple rule would be that you could book any segment/award type that prices at or below the total award mileage.

Of course, while it would be fair, AA doesn't have a whole lot of incentive to do this. Most award redeemers only see a lack of available saver awards on their desired trip and don't even realize that it may only be one segment that's missing. It'd be a big cost to implement the IT, and they're certainly worrying about bigger issues these days (blame bankruptcy! blame the merger!).