Green_eyes

I finishes my Gold Plat travel 3 days ago - when should I expect my account to be upraded and get new card?

SFO777

As soon as the flights post, your new status will automatically appear. 3-4 days seems to be the current lag time, so I would guess tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.

The cards take longer, but usually 2-3 weeks.

oklAAhoma

Your account will be updated when the qualifying flight(s) post, but it may take several weeks for the card to arrive.

Out of curiousity, which did you complete, Gold or Plat?

ETA: Curses! I'm slow. That's what I get for stopping to fix a typo.

Green_eyes

I completed Gold. Not sure it will give me lots of benefits, but even an occasional upgrade will be better than nothing. I often travel with child - what are the chances of upgrading child as well? Probably close to none..

SFO777

With this crowd, I've learned to post then edit later.

Double-A

Hello everyone,

I will be taking a trip to Spain (LAX-BCN MAD-LAX) with my wife in October and since I plan on doing a lot of traveling next year I planned on taking the Platinum Challenge to hopefully achieve stautus by the end of the year.

Right now I have an AA reservation on hold for 2 people for the total price of $1,380. This fare is booked in O, which I believe only yields .50 EQM's. Which should get me 6,000 points.

I also found an IBERIA flight on Kayak for $1,534 total, but this fare shows the MAD-LAX segment is booked in what I believe is Q, which looks likes this on Kayak (Fare code: QKW2X1US). If this is a Q fair, I believe that it should yield 9,000 EQM's

Can anyone confirm for me that the Iberia fare earns 1.00 points per mile and do you think that it is worth paying $154 more to get the extre 3,000 points.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks

jakuda

Challenge flights must be done on flights operated by AA. Iberia wouldn't count.

MODERATOR'S NOTE - see below for a correction on this

dstan

Just to make sure you have the terminology correct, all AA fares earn 100% EQMiles. However, Challenges are based on EQPoints, which are, indeed, awarded at 50% for O fares. As jakuda has noted, however, only AA flights count for the purposes of Challenges.

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As an aside, can someone please clarify for me once and for all the issue of AA codeshares operated by other carriers? Based on what's in the wiki, the letters still say that codeshares count; however, there is a comment about a 15-JUL-08 conversation with an AA rep indicating that codeshares are ineligible. If the latter is true, we should say so more explicitly in the wiki.

miamigrad

The letter that members receive upon challenge sign up, posted in the Wiki, references AA Codeshares... is there evidence that the codeshares DON'T count toward the challenge?

miamigrad

Are you sure that the flight has to be OPERATED by AA? And not just have to be coded as an AA flight? The letter that members have received upon challenge sign-up suggests that it just needs to be AA operated -OR- AA codeshare.

jakuda

oops my bad. AA codeshare is allowed. I just pulled up my old plat challenge email.

larreajoe

As a recent graduate of a PLT challenge, I can tell you with 100% certainty that codeshares DO count towards the EQP for the challenge. Non-AA flight numbers will still accrue EQM and EQP but not towards your challenge threshold.

My MAD-ORD on IB counted towards my challenge but my IB flights in Spain did not (there were no codeshares), even though I earned miles and points for them.

Cheers!

dstan

Thanks very much, larreajoe. ^ I will remove that comment from the wiki page. I was always more inclined to believe the letter rather than "a conversation with an AA rep on 15-July-2008".

Double-A

Thanks for the info larreajoe,

So by booking the Iberia flight through Iberia , none of the EQM's earned would have counted towards the challenge.... So I will go ahead and stick with my AA flight.

Thank You to everyone

miamigrad

Challenges are based on EQP - Elite Qualifying Points. Only EQP from AA-coded flights.