brp

I'm not- haven't really been looking recently. I was quoting GTITAN who appears to be finding these.

Cheers.

hillrider

Not true: the change was made late last year--see post 11 in this very thread--that's when those fares started appearing internationally. North American O/Q fares appeared earlier, but AFIK they're upgradeable so that was a change that did not have any impact.

brp

Not at all. I had a Q fare SJC-NRT-SJC in 2006 that was not upgradeable according to the rules in effect at the time (same rules as now). More O/Q appearing now, but the rules are the same.

Cheers.

Madison Guy

I and O are never upgradeable - domestic or international, AFAIK. ('O' would be my concern here, for the most part, as they pop up quite a bit on my routes.)

brp

'O' are upgradeable with stickers. I don't think with miles (domestically) though.

Cheers.

Madison Guy

Of course -all published domestic fares still are, thankfully. I just 'A**-umed' this discussion as about mileage/eVIPS - without reading all the posts - based on the thread title. I, O and TATL Q still are (technically) not upgradeable via miles+co-pay or eVIP/SWU.

GTITAN

Yes, that has been my experience out of CLT at least. Over for the winter with DUB Fares for instance, DUB got dropped precipitously to sub $400 a/i from CLT. Such fares were "O" or "Q". The "N" fare was between $400-500 a/i. That was what "N" fares that had run pretty much throughout the winter even when AA.COM was only returning "N" as the lowest fare. Only difference was that "N" did not show up anymore on AA, as it was no longer the cheapest, but "N" had not increased in price. I just had to search it out.

Now, I was tracking EZE fares just recently, but as of a few days ago, $335 o/w in Q was CLT. "N" was only about $50-80 more one way. Note. this sale appears to be over now, but while there, an upgradeable o/w fare of $385 was certainly much less than UA, CO or DL.

Again, it could be the market I am in or the routes that I was looking at, but brp did reflect my experience. Again as I said, YMMV.

Safe Travels

timfountain

Yes, er, ok. Not going to argue with you.

I don't see it like that, but I'm looking through the other end of the telescope.

PandT

Not sure I'm following these most recent posts correctly but I'll throw my 2 cents in with the disappointed crowd. This feeling was reinforced when I attempted to make use of the UK Buy one get one free award. The lowest fare was $630 (O) and yet the free companion ticket rules required certain fare codes, of which M was the lowest - at $1,100 so that was no great deal. Looking further for an upgradable (by EVIP) fare I found a fare of $958 (and of course that would be for each of us! Rules are rules but the fare difference was shocking. It sure feels like a "co-pay" in order to use the EVIP.)

A side note - we were in the UK at least 3x in 2008 and never paid anything close to $800 apiece to use the EVIPs.

schriste

deleted

anabolism

The trick to adding German rail segments is to specify the code for the train station, not the airport (e.g., ZMU instead of BER). Also, calling AA helps.

onobond

This works fine for France too. Check AA timetable, where "flights" from CDG mainly consists of 18 train destinations.

Adding a short connecting flight can also help changing fare bucket, and/or changing airport of origin. I did 2 MRs to EZE in April/May. The first started in Europe, where suddenly all low-priced tickets from FRA were in Q. Starting in BRU, roughly the same price, ticketed in N; SWU'd all segments.

bniu

the one exception is if your secondary segments are booked in a non-upgradeable fare class (ie, domestic part of an International itinerary is booked in O), as long as your primary segment is upgradeable, then ALL segments will be upgraded (room permitting) automatically when the primary segment upgrade clears.

Example:

AUS-ORD O class
ORD-PVG B class

if I apply an evip or the mileage upgrade, when ORD-PVG upgrade clears, the AUS-ORD upgrade will also clear (space permitting) since the system considers the whole trip to be in B class for upgrade purposes.

onobond

That's good news. Thought that all segments must be upgradeble fare bucket, happy to have been enlightened.

EXPflyerRTW

Hi folks,

Just wanted to give you the heads up about a new trend I am seeing and I am not liking. In my experience the O and Q fares used to show up fairly frequently on Latin America flights. As of late I started to notice them showing up a lot on flights to India, China and even LHR or CDG. So now it is becoming more and more expensive to upgrade. For example, a recent flight to CDG from JFK was about $550 for off peak travel, which is normal, but the fare was Q. For an S fare (which used to be widely used on European routes) the price went up to $777.

Anybody else noticing this trend?