MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

It's all going to depend upon the day of the week, time of day, route of travel. Saturday afternoons and evening are the best chances, particularly a wide body domestic flight.

chazas

Lucky you. I fly out of DCA/IAD mostly and my sticker upgrade percentage as a platinum has gone to -0- post merger. I occasionally get a "free" upgrade on the LGA shuttle. Better than nothing, but not by much. I've moved to buying first up front on personal travel if the additional cost isn't too much, but that doesn't help with business trips.

enpremiere

For one thing they don't expire, they don't cost you anything extra to accrue in the natural course of flying, and you can accrue them rather quickly as a high-flying GL or PL. Everything else has already been said.

Reetmafreen

robofski

I accumulated 79 500 mile upgrade stickers on my way to EXP and in the last 4 years have only managed to spend 2! I rarely travel with anybody so don't get a chance to spend them. Used to fly from the UK to ORD and then on to STL so earned lots but had very little chance to spend any, if an upgrade cleared it only ever took one and for the longest time I didn't even understand what they were for and was never ticking the request upgrade box :-)

ralphs

Gosh, I've bought 4 stickers in the last 3 months. My wife is Gold and requires more stickers than she accumulates.

dc10forlife

I'm in the same boat. I've probably had to buy 15 or so 500 mile stickers over the last two years as platinum/gold for me and my family. Almost always get upgraded ex-CVG, ex-DAY, or ex-CMH. Even received two op-ups on award tickets ex-CVG when travelling with my family (who have no status).

What helps, I think, is that in SW Ohio just about everyone is still completely and 100% loyal to Delta, like CVG was still a hub or something. Its almost comical, but the few times I have been on Delta ex-CVG or ex-DAY, the upgrade list is 40 or 50 names long. Took a recent miserable flight from LAX-CVG a DL red eye on what might have been the oldest Delta 737 in the fleet. Spent the extra money to purchase comfort+ so it could have been worse -- but there were alot of disappointed DL elites stuck in economy. The upgrade list was easily 60 names long.

GTITAN

Hey DAArksiders!

Having an old issue with AA and going round and round and round with it and wanted some guidance., forgive long post I am EP and my wife or daughter often fly with me (just talking about a total of 2 folks in the PNR here). Each one of them is a PLT. When we fly, I want the 500-mile upgrades to come out of my account and not the account of my wife or daughter (whomever is flying with me). The 500-mile upgrades always pull from the other lower tier and not mine. I know that this is a flaw in the AA system that has existed forever and a day.

Now, in the old days prior to merger, there was one of two ways to fix this, either (A) have a Gate Agent/Ticketing Agent do it at the airport if the upgrade confirmed prior, or (B) have the EP desk prior to the upgrade being confirmed tinker with the reservation to assure that they pull from the elite with the higher tier account.

At CLT this weekend, I was told by the Ticketing Agent at the Priority Checkin Desk and by an AC AAngel that they could not help me without stripping the frequent flyer no. out for my wife and having her request credit for the flight later. They went on to tell me I needed to call the EP desk prior to upgrade confirmation and have the EP Agent tinker with the reservation as set forth in (B). EP desk while on the phone at the airport insisted that the Ticketing Desk could do it, the Ticketing Agent said no they could not talked to their help desk and was adamant and rude.

Ok, I have a reservation this weekend coming up with my daughter and called the EP desk to tinker with the reservation since we have not cleared yet as described in (B). The EP Agent said she could not do (B) and I would need to do (A) notwithstanding that CLT Ticketing Agent insisted it could not be done. So neither (A) nor (B) seems to work.

Stripping the frequent flyer no and asking for credit after the flight seems silly and stupid. Would love some guidance from y'all on how to proceed so I can get around this issue this weekend and in the future.

TIA and Safe Travels

JJeffrey

I'm EXP and my girlfriend is PLT and we run into these issues all the time. Like everything AA these days it comes down to getting a well trained agent (either over the phone or at the airport) that knows what they're doing and is willing to help to set up the upgrade requests how you want. It's ridiculous that both agents at CLT would not remove her number in the instance above.

My understanding is that the companion's AA # doesn't need to be removed completely, just at the time of the upgrade request, so that its set up that they will inherit your status and pull stickers from your account.

My girlfriend has plenty of stickers, however when the waitlist goes to airport control each pax is sorted based on their own status (even on same PNR), so I will be #1 and she will be #10. In order to fix it a (good) agent has to essentially remove her AA #, re-request the upgrade as if she was a no-status companion (she inherits my EXP status on the waitlist and stickers are pulled my account), then add back her AA #. This can be accomplished all at once, you don't need to leave their AA # until after the flight then request retro credit.

In all of the instances where we've been through this gyration she goes from #10 to #2 on the waitlist, and if we do clear the stickers are pulled from my account.

For future reference, when speaking with agents, rather than tell them you want the stickers pulled from your account, tell them you'd like to set up the request so that your companion will inherit your EXP status if it goes to airport control (pulling stickers from your account is an automatic byproduct of setting it up this way). You can also just leave out their AA # till the very last minute. Once your upgrades clear and you're checked in and have boarding passes, then ask an airport agent to add her number back.

michaelr

My wife lost her elite status but has 10 500-Mile certs remaining in her account. I am a current Gold with zero certs. We are both flying with our kids on the same itin and I am wondering if there is a way to use the certs between both of our accounts. I suspect the answer is no. I tried to call AA but we are currently in Mexico and for some reason I cannot call 800 numbers. If anyone knows the non toll free number, I'd appreciate that as well.

fotographer

Gringa

ricktoronto

Install Skype and make free North American 800/866/877/888 calls to your heart's content. But they will say no.

I have 87 500 milers that I will never use and which they don't swap for points any more.

michaelr

Thank you for confirming. I appreciate that.

michaelr

Thanks. I had found out in the meantime how to dial from Mexico to the US on a Samsung S8 with Sprint. I needed to dial +1 800. I had only tried 1 800 and when I test called other numbers, they had been stored in the address book with the + sign already.