Technically she is using ur status and the stickers should come out of ur account. Plus she didn’t have status so technically she cannot use her stickers

Sigh. Oh, well. I got bad info from a Rez agent by phone then.

related question: what happens if (after we clear, and both check in to F) I split the PNR and change to AN earlier flight, Will the system catch her and downgrade her?

New to this whole thing... skimming through the thread here, seems like a lot of folks have an abundance of these 500 mile upgrades hanging around as they can be difficult to clear. I'm sure everyone's use strategy may vary - but would it be a fair statement that it's not a bad idea to try and use them as frequently as you can? (Maybe barring it being really wasteful like a crappy plane or burning 2 upgrades on a 501 mile flight).

Got my first 2 of these things that I can use on a flight next month. Still 30 days out but all 16 seats in J currently showing open and available. Maybe an opportunity...

I suppose it depends on your priorities. As a gold, I always put in the request unless I don't want to be upgraded. For example, I hate F bulkheads because the legroom is much worse than the exit row in coach. If it's an A319 where 50% of the F seats are bulkhead I'll hold off. Otherwise I'll put in the request. If my upgrades clear often enough that I end up buying a couple stickers from time to time, that is fine with me.

I figured that it took a few days to add the 500-mile upgrades after the counter rolls over, but has anyone experienced the counter not rolling over at the same time the EQM's pass a threshold? All of my EQM's, EQD's, and Segments are posted from my flight on Thursday. I am at 25,866 EQM's, so should receive a second batch of (4) 500's. They have not been added to my account yet, and the counter still says "EQM's needed 763". It's basically as if my last segment hasn't posted to that counter yet. I'm not too worried about it yet, just seems odd that the two counters would be different and wondering if there's any "catch" I'm not aware of.

Unless I am missing something, it seems that on the AA app (Android), you can't use miles to buy stickers? It only gives me the option to buy with cash. On the website it gives the option to use cash or miles. I guess if I'm ever at the airport and need to buy stickers for an upgrade that is going to clear, I can use my mobile browser on aa.com. I just checked and their website is surprisingly mobile-friendly.

Unless you have gobs of miles, it's an AAbysmal "exchange" rate.

I hear you, buying 500 mile UG's equates to $0.80/mile, I did just a couple of flight comparison searches and found miles to be anywhere from $1.75 to $2.25 per mile, so definitely a better value. I don't have "gobs" of miles but I don't do much leisure travel so they've been accumulating. Additionally I have a hard time justifying spending my own $ to upgrade a business trip, but it is nice at the end of a long week to give myself a "free" UG on the last flight. And that last flight being to DSM means UG's are somewhat attainable. Something to think about though, so thanks.

I believe that it’s a set of 8 500 mile stickers at a cost of 40,000 AAdvantage miles but if you can use them then more power to you.

At that rate I'd be on a plane to Tokyo any time I so much as had a craving for sushi ;)

You may want to consider paying the $75 copay and 15K miles for an upgrade. Assuming availability, you can confirm the upgrade as soon as you call in. If wait listed you will be ahead of all elite levels of complimentary upgraders.

I do this any time the outbound or inbound will exceed 4 stickers. I do use the stickers that I've earned for flights where I am fairly confident they will get me the upgrade, but I no longer buy stickers.

curious - anyone ever have a sticker upgrade "break" OLCI? miraculously got day-before upgrades for my wife and I as two lowly Golds. couldn't check-in online - error message. called, was told that this was because she didn't have enough stickers in her account. so, i suggested, take them all out of my account. couldn't be executed over the phone so now i need to visit a ticketing desk when i arrive just to get BP's. seriously? isn't this a common situation given that many companions have no status / no stickers?

Yes, this is very common when 2 pax with status are upgrading like this.

When your companion has no status, then the system knows to pull the stickers from the status pax, so there's no issues.

However, when your companion also has status, then the system tries to pull stickers from their account, and it gets "confused" if they don't have any and will error out at check in, like what you're seeing.

Phone rep is correct in that you just have to check in with an agent at the airport to get it straightened out.

thanks JJeffrey. interesting. i appreciate the reply.

Oddly enough it happened to me recently on one leg where we (me EXP she G) got upgraded and then on the return leg when there was no upgrade (though I later upgraded at the gate). Both legs I had to check in at the airport with an agent...with luck she will earn some stickers on our next trip....

So how long will it be before the 500-milers are going to be eligible — maybe even necessary for some — to go from economy seats to “premium economy” seats on AA planes? Less than 14 months from now? I wouldn’t be surprised by that.

Given UA’s move to their PlusPoints system for upgrading and how it’s priced for upgraded seating, I expect that AA is going to find a way to make the 500-miler system to transition into something that allows AA customers to do much the same kind of thing as what UA has announced and also go from economy to “premium economy” for less than to go from economy to domestic first/business on AA flights.

I had been under the impression that mileage upgrades could only be requested > 21 days before departure, and I usually book between 14-21 days out. But on AA.com it says "$75 for mileage upgrades requested less than 21 days prior to departure". So I assume that means you can request upgrades at any time, but there is an additional $75 fee on top of the co-pay within 21 days. That may be a change but chances are I just didn't read it closely enough before. It also says EXP-Gold are all exempt from this fee.

Apologies for further derailing the 500-mile upgrade thread...

Following up on this in case anyone else was wondering - I didn't realize that while the EQM counter for status is 1/1 through 12/31, the EQM counter for 500-mile upgrades is from 2/1 through 1/31, so that's why I haven't received additional stickers even at 25,866. I'm sure that's common knowledge among the experts but I didn't realize it.

I'd also like to mention I emailed Customer Service with my question, expecting to get an email back within a week or so. I got a phone call the next day, missed the call but she left a voicemail explaining it very well. I was impressed with the prompt and thorough response to a relatively low-importance question!

That must be new. I always though $75 dollar charge only applies to non elites booking award tickets less than 21 days out. 🤔

Nope, not new, a miles/copay upgrade has always been considered just another type of "award". If you don't have status and request one less than 21 days out, then the $75 fee has always applied.

That was my impression too. I’m PPRO and my wife is PLAT and I submitted a miles and copay request about 14 days out as EF showed C2 and J5 with only 1 ideal seat combination available. I had the miles taken from my wife’s account and was surprised to see that when the new tickets were issued, both tickets were charged $150, plus an additional $22 in taxes.

I called back and asked if the close in fee should have been waived and they agreed that it should not have. They had to create a new PNR to refund the close in fees and in the end, they didn’t charge me for the additional taxes.

I have still never ever ever seen any 500 mile upgrades clear. I'm Platinum Pro closing in on Executive Platinum and now have 20 in my account, sitting there, collecting dust, accomplishing precisely nothing. I rarely get any kind of upgrade from status, and even miles upgrades are rarely available, and only once have I seen one clear from the waitlist. From where I sit, AA is the absolute stingiest airline with upgrades. I had more upgrades in a month with delta or United than I have ina year with American. I'm very close to hopping back over to delta and just accepting that nearly every flight will be a two-hopper.

jnofr, unless you are frequently experiencing operational disruptions with AA (which does happen - a lot), it think it would be a mistake to be loyal to any airline that mostly has "two-hoppers" from PHX when AA can fly you non-stop. your time is simply more valuable than the benefit of some first class seats on connecting Delta flights. accept that you won't often sit up front with AA. F is so lousy on the LUS planes out of PHX that you are hardly missing anything anyway. grab the best MCE seat you can and enjoy the other perks that your status accords you. save your time and money for something better than connecting flights. (and if you want, and don't mind parting with $75 per segment, its not impossible to upgrade with miles if you make use of a tracking tool like Expertflyer). get one of the AA credit cards that reimburses food/drink charges (Barclays Silver?), and your free MCE seat and free food/bev is like DIY F. just my two cents. AA is joyless but connecting flights are worse.

New to this whole 500-mile/sticker upgrade thing as I got Gold via promotion and it's expiring in about a month. In the meantime they gave me 10 of these "stickers" and I'm trying to use them before I lose the Gold. Based on what I'm reading should I assume that my chances are close to nil? I'm trying to upgrade JFK-MIA in around 3 weeks. Not sure about the actual flight load but there are only 4 or 5 F seats out of 16 selected thus far (my spouse being one of them because 1 seat was available with points on BA, if there would have been 2 I would have just done that, but there wasn't so I bought an economy seat and requested the upgrade using these stickers during checkout).

Do I need to resign myself that there's no way a lowly Gold that doesn't fly/spend a lot with AA will win the upgrade on such a popular route? I won't cry or die if we sit separately but it would be nice if we can. What are my other options of getting an F seat other than paying the $300+ fare difference?

As with any upgrade chance, a lot depends on the day of the week and time you're flying. But yes, generally speaking, clearing a Gold upgrade on a route like JFK-MIA will be very tough, although not completely unheard of.

Your other options are either pay the fare difference, or try for a miles/copays upgrade (15k miles + $75) which possibly could be available to clear now or at least before normal sticker upgrades start clearing.

Mileage Upgrades (15k miles plus $75) come out of a different inventory than sticker upgrades. They are requested less often than sticker upgrades so are easier to confirm as a Gold, if they become available at all. You probably aren't interested in the technical details beyond that but suffice it to say that if you really want to sit in first, i'd would call now and waitlist for a Mileage Upgrade. If you or anyone you know have Business Extra upgrade certificates or Systemwide Upgrade Certificates lying around (often happens at end of the year), those would get you on the Mileage Award waitlist without owing a dime, as they substitute for the 15k + $75.

The 15k miles for upgrade sounds like an option but I recently redeemed all my miles for an award flown earlier this month. Can I use miles from my husband's account to upgrade my paid ticket or it has to be from mine? Is there a way to publicly see upgrade availability?

Thanks so much!

Yes. Ur husband can use his mikes to upgrade ur reservation.

Yes the miles can come from your husband's account, just have him call in and request the upgrade if you want to go that route.

Upgrade space for SWU or miles/copay is not "public" per se, however it is available with a subscription to ExpertFlyer (paid), as well as it appears at aa.com for those with EXP status.

Given that you're only looking for a single flight that's already been booked, just call AA.

friedablass, you'll want to call immediately if you want to use miles from your husband's account because, if he doesn't have status, the price to upgrade jumps from 15k + $75 to 15k +$150 if you request the upgrade less than 21 days prior to departure. that extra $75 fee is a penalty for "close-in" upgrades and awards (less than 21 days out), and it is assessed if the SOURCE account of the miles does not have status. it is not affected by the status of the person who would actually "use" the upgrade.

if you happen to have a credit card that reimburses airline "incidental" fees (e.g. Amex Plat), that cash portion of the upgrade cost (whether $75 or $150) should be reimbursable, provided you have some reimbursement left to use at the moment.

Thanks everyone for all the responses. It is much appreciated.

I do have an Amex card that I can still use for airline fees reimbursement so this is definitely a good option for me. Will get to work on it ASAP.

What is the cutoff to earn the stickers?

I’ll be 700 miles short of 12,500 by Dec 31, 2019. Assuming they don’t prorate?
Is the cut off 12/31 or 1/31 like the status cutoff?

Or do I have these dates backwards?
stickers can be earned till 1/31and status must be earned by 12/31?

Edit: found my answer.
One quirk is that the 12,500 EQM tally is based on the AAdvantage year — which runs from Feb. 1 to Jan. 31 — instead of a calendar year. So, keep this in mind when you’re getting toward the end of the calendar year; there’s no need to go on a mileage run to hit the next threshold by Dec. 31. Instead, you could consider a January mileage run if the upgrades are valuable enough to you.

For an itinerary with a lower-status companion, is there a way to allow upgrading of just one of us should only one seat become available (without wholly splitting the PNR and severing the companion’s connection to my status)?

In order to waitlist "separate is ok" like this you have to split the PNR as far as I know. There really is almost no benefit for the companion being on the same PNR that can't be accomplished through other means.

So a companion on a separate PNR can still get the benefit of my status for the trip?

Yes.

It will be no problem for them to use priority check-in with you, priority security, and they can board in your group. A simple "they're with me" works 99% of the time.

For seats, you just need to call AA to get them seated in preferred and/or MCE seats next to you for no charge.

In my experience, once control of upgrades goes to the airport, the gate agents will split groups to upgrade. I'm not sure whether that is following AA policy or not, but a lot of the time when I'm travelling with my family/girlfriend/friends on the same PNR, we get upgraded separately.

I'm pretty sure being correctly handled in IRROPS is a good benefit of being on the same PNR.

Complete non-issue. AA is not going to force your companion to take the bus while you're rerouted in First Class just because you're on a separate PNR. It doesn't work like that at all.

Just to update, I took a gamble and decided to see if my upgrade using stickers would clear. Although it looked promising a couple of days out, yesterday morning the app started offering VDB vouchers and they had stopped selling seats for the flight so I knew that 99% I wouldn't get it. And I was right. I was #5 on the upgrade list and only the first person cleared.

I was fine with my MCE seat as the entire flight took only about 2 hrs 45 mins. For longer flights I book straight into J or F but for such relatively short flights E+ suits me fine.