kebosabi

I understand SWUs expire every February.

But let's say I call that I want to use my expiring SWUs in January for a March flight. But there are no upgrade seats available at the time of the call but I get upgraded at the airport on the day of the flight in March, do they "un-expire" the SWUs and back track them as being pulled from January?

brp

They have to be used by the expiration date, not just booked/confirmed, so the situation you propose is not relevant.

(Some have reported being able to apply now for travel after the expiration date, but that's an exception to the rule. In that case, I'd be quite sure that they'd not "un-expire" them since even being able to apply them is in contravention of the rules.)

Cheers.

Mark_T

This question has come up before and although in the past there was some flexibility it seems that has now gone.

A SWU must be valid on the day of the flight for it to be used so in your case, no, you cannot use an expiring SWU for a March 2010 flight regardless of when it is actually pulled, even if the availability was there right now you still couldn't use it.

Occasionally you may get an AAgent willing to apply it when you waitlist, but don't be surprised if the system spots the error and pulls from the correct batch of SWU's or fails the upgrade if you have no unexpired SWU's for that date.

FWAAA

Agree with the others. In 2009, eVIPs expired on 2/28/09 and officially, no extensions were possible. This is different from years prior to 2009, when expiring eVIPs could be attached to reservations by 2/28 even if the flight was flown after 2/28.

brp

There were two years (2006 & 2007, I think) where the "attach by expiration" was an official deviation from the rules- memos were sent to the agents specifically authorizing this. It is not presently the case.

Cheers.

Nick90274

As long as the fare class is upgradeable she'll be okay. All the tickets I've ever upgraded with the EVIP's were purchased through american express travel with membership rewards points so where it's purchased shouldn't be an issue.

kebosabi

Thanks for the fast response. Guess I'll have to hurry up and use those in January and February then. Waiting for those FRA MR fares to pop up

sukn

As others have stated, this year SWUs must be ticketed and travel completed prior to their expiration date.

However, to answer the OP's specific question, SWU's expiration date cannot be extended. So, if you had an SWU that expired on 2-28-10, but was wait-listed for March travel and did not clear prior to 2-28-10, come March 1st, that SWU would have expired. As such, the system would pull a SWU from your account with a 2-28-11 expiration date, assuming you had some of those.

However, if the rules allowed it, and the SWU did clear prior to 2-28-10 for March travel, then you could have used that SWU.

Efrem

It also had to be confirmed (on at least one segment of the trip) by the expiration date, not waitlisted, though it could be waitlisted on the others if it was confirmed on at least one.

One unintended side effect of this was a huge crush of calls to the EXP desk on the last day of February to find routes on which at least one segment could be confirmed, with travelers asking agents to try a bazillion possibilities until one worked. Longer waits that evening than during the worst weather at ORD.

sukn

Just to be clear, in past years, the SWU had to clear by Feb 28th, it could not be attached or wait listed, otherwise it would expire.

EDITED TO ADD: Efrem beat me to it.

brp

Sorry for not being clear. Yes, this is what I meant. I don't believe that SWUs are attached (an actual certificate number associated) until it clears. When looking at SWU balances, it shows those "confirmed for future use," but I don't believe is includes those that are waitlisted as they're not "attached."

Cheers.

FWAAA

My recollection is that the rules were not quite that set in stone. In 2008, I called the EXP number on 2/27 or 2/28 and call volume was so heavy that I got a recording telling me that if I was calling about expiring eVIPs, I should call back on March 1 or 2 and that an extension had been granted. When I called back, the agent was familiar with that extension.

sukn

I recall this scenario but have no experience with it. My question to you is, when you called on March 1st or 2nd, how was the situation handled? Did they let the expiring SWU expire and deposit a new one into your account or did they run some sort of a batch process whereby all expiring SWUs were extended?

The reason I ask is because there have been times when I have been allowed to use SWUs well after the expiration date, even though they weren't ticketed or cleared by the expiration date. For obvious reasons I have not posted about that experience here on FT, but in each of those instances, they let the expiring SWU expire, and redeposited an equal amount with a new expiration date.

On of the unintended benefits of this scenario was that the redeposited SWUs had an expiration date that was nearly two years away, since they were credited to the account as if they were earned during that specific qualifying year.

AGuyAndADogInDFW

Has anyone had success in getting a SWU put back when your confirmed (for over a month) J seats were taken back and you had to fly in Y? GF and I were both upgraded to J for a DFW-GRU-GIG trip. All segments upgraded at the initial day of ticketing (7 months before departure) except for DFW-GIG, which upgrade cleared a little over a month before departure.

We get to the airport and check in and agent says our J seats for DFW-GRU are not confirmed (even though when I looked at the reservation online after we got to the AC, we still had our two seats in J). Turns out J was oversold by 2 AND a seat in F was broken and, supposedly, we were he last two people to get upgrades. We ended up doing DFW-GRU in Y (sucky seats! - we lost our exist row seats when the upgrade cleared initially).

Snapish ol' gate agent did manage to tell me that my SWUs would be credited back, even though the GRU-GIG portion was still in J.

Wrote AA just to confirm and it seems like they need to do some investigating. I'm getting the feeling that the GA just told me what I wanted to hear so that she could get us on the plane and be done with us.

oklAAhoma

I am confident your eVIPs will be returned after AA looks into the matter.

Fwiw - I think it's understandable that they do want to investigate first. It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that someone (not you) might try to play the system.