CoPay for AA Miles Upgrade to Increase 3/1/07
 

I haven't seen this mentioned yet but there are increases in the international copay and the addition of a domestic copay. It says if you have booked and upgraded before March 1st you will be grandfathered in.

Hawaii Domestic Upgrade was 15,000 now 15,000 plus $150
International was 25,000 plus $250 now 25,000 plus $300

here

Edited: I misread the Hawaii part at first as well

OK, I had a totally different message here and have now edited it.

Before we all freak out too much, re-read the OP's link carefully. The $300 round-trip co-pay appears to only affect travel to/from Hawaii. If I'm reading the AA page correctly, non-Hawaii domestic upgrades still do not require a co-pay.

Yes, this is bad, as is the increase of the international co-pay to $600 round-trip, but it's not quite as bad as I had originally thought.

Well they gotta pay for the metal utensils and cloth wash clothes somehow!

AA . WRONG WAY! CoPay should have gone DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!

A COPAY FOR DOMESTIC MILES UPGRADES IS RIDICULOUS!!!!

As far as the co-pay for international upgrades, I agree.. However, it sure has solved a lot of problems for me. There are more seats to upgrade. I don't sit next to the traveler who paid $248 rt from LAX-LHR used their entire bank of miles to get upgraded to business class and then sits there the entire time with a sense of entitlement.

And, if someone really wants to upgrade then the additional money is worth it. It has sifted out the travelers who get it for free verses those who really value the cabin and will pay for it.

It's a mixed bag.

I didn't and don't like the co-pay for the upgrades but I'm happy that they did it.

I still haven't seen a single metal utensil yet!

This is CRAZY! Why would I EVER pay $150 each way for a domestic upgrade??

Let's see here: Upgrading a roundtrip domestic ticket: 15,000 miles plus $150 each way. That comes out to 30,000 miles and $300. If you value miles at 2.5 cents per miles, that comes out to a cost of about $1050 to upgrade the ticket, plus the fare that you paid for the ticket! No thanks!

Everyone needs to write AA and flood them with complaints about this new program.

Not at all a fan of this, but I think it's obvious that this opens up some upgrade inventory for those on eVIPs and stickers.

That said, a flat-out fee increase--with no accompanying enhancement of benefits--is never good. Would have been nice to see AA augment things somewhere along the line...

What next? $100 co-pay to use your stickers?

I would not put that past them at all. I can say that I have never used a mileage upgrade award in my life and prefer to use my miles for big time trips in J or F and use stickers to upgrade domestically.

This certainly is a slap in the face to the very frequent fliers who use this method to dispose of their miles though.

--DD73

I am hopeful that everyone responding to this post is taking note of the edited post #2, which clarifies that these so-called "domestic co-pays" only apply to upgrades to/from Hawaii.

Perhaps the OP would like to edit her post to reflect this.

Mike

This is bad.
I've just flown over 30K in international J in the last few weeks. The food enhancements are certainly a welcome change. But, the mediocre in-flight service hasn't gotten any better. It hasn't been uncommon at all for seats to not work, the cabin to be a mess, etc. I could not imagine paying another $600 roundtrip for what I usually found to be pretty average-to-poor inflight service. I was OK with it since I was using eVIPs...unacceptable with this co-pay thing. If AA were also raising the bar with their inflight service, then they MAY have a leg to stand on with raising the price of it...but how they raise the price & lower the service at the same time is just wierd.

I know, I know..there's tons of arguments to be made about the cost of a coach+co/pay ticket vs. a paid business one.

I suppose it's now a HUGE incentive for near-EXP plats to finish those end-of-year MRs they're on the fence about.

If I drop out of EXP at some point, it would just be a huge incentive for me to nail a Row31 seat.

Hmmm...

$800 HNL r/t plus 30000 miles and another $300 for guaranteed F -or-

$1330 YUP for guaranteed F -or-

$800 HNL r/t and free sticker upgrades as EXP for probable upgrade to F


Actually the decision is real easy for Plat and Gold elites: YUP

Much more difficult for EXP as 8-10 hours is a long time to be stuck in the back if in the off chance the ug doesn't come through. Although this policy shodul mean more availability for sticker upgrades.

hmmm...

For international, glad I got those EVIPs this year. Also, B w/10K ug or I fares seem like a better deal once they run out, or for those that aren't EXP.

NGBC seats (yes not March 1 rollout but ..)

Duvets

Pre-order meals on Asia flights

Metal Utensils

Cloth towels

Upgraded menus (and 'location specialties')

Chocolates and fizzy water

Gourmet breads


OK I am talking International .. but they HAVE improved things .. onboard things. Not sure what other 'benefits' you are looking for?

This is annoying (though truth be told I never use the domestic upgrades). the increased availability should be nice. At least that they are not charging for EXP 500-mile comp upgrades to Hawaii.

Thank God for VIPs. This is not good. We should all send AA a nice little letter. If it doesn't stop here we will probably have to start paying to use our VIPs in the future.