Lesliedale

I'm executive platinum with AA. I had 20 of these upgrades between myself and my partner. Every time we tried to book a flight using these VIP upgrades we couldn't and now they are expiring at the end of the month.
Very unhappy with American airlines and barely traveled with them this year because of this.
Anyone have any suggestions on this topic...has anyone ever been able to get them extended?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Lesliedale

ESpen36

Have you ever tried waitlisting them on flights where the eVIPs cannot be confirmed immediately? AA is increasingly holding back upgrade inventory until very close to departure date in order to preserve space in premium cabins for potential full-fare passengers.

My experience has been that most eVIPs will clear before departure, though it might be only a couple of hours beforehand.

FWAAA

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Your experience with AA's systemwide upgrades is certainly less satisfying than mine. I have used over 120 of the capacity-controlled VIPOW, VIP03, eVIP and now eSWU over the past decade and I've had exactly one upgrade request not clear.

Sounds like you refused to book the flight if the upgrade could not be confirmed at booking. By doing that, you wasted 20 SWUs. Too bad. Probably half of my requests have been waitlisted and when that happens, the upgrade is usually confirmed within a few days or weeks, almost always before the day of flight.

Now you want the expiration dates extended? I doubt AA would entertain such a request, especially for someone who "barely traveled with them" over the past year. No harm in asking, however, so be sure to report back to us after you call AA and ask.

Thumper

Welcome to Flyertalk. What an interesting first post.

First, how interesting that you flew over 100,000 miles one year and almost none with American this year. And because eVIPs weren't clearing? How interesting.

Was there any one particular location that you were always going to, or was this many locations. How far in advance do you usually book? These would be the first two factors to come to mind.

I'm sure once we learn more, many of the super experienced travelers will be able to offer some views.

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk. There are essentially two ways to use eVIP / SWUs:

1. Using a tool like ExpertFlyer (or calling AA) with some travel planning flexibility, find where there is inventory and then call, book.

2. Book the flights and waitlist, as waitlisted SWus for ExPlats generally (not invariably) do clear.

N.B. If I search and find bookable, upgradable (at least one segment) flights AFTER 28 Feb, AA will allow me to encumber these expiring SWUs, at least currently (this is an exception, not SOP).

So, all in all, I am quite happy with my AA SWUs, as I have been able to use them well for myself or for others.

If you read the "sticky" thread titled FAQ: American Airlines and AAdvantage - Please check here first!, particularly post #30, you will undoubtedly learn why you feel so frustrated, and how you can use your newfound knowledge to remedy your inability to use SWUs. Also note that AA allows SWUs to be used on virtually any published fare, not at all true on competing airlines.

Also, read the existing thread, entitled What is a SWU / eVIP? How does one work? How long do they last? (consolidated) and I have taken the liberty to retitle the thread for members' convenience, as recommended in the TOS.

Create Descriptive Titles - link to this guideline
Make thread titles as specific and descriptive as possible. Sometimes posters will start a thread with a very general title such as, "Guess what?" or "Strange airline policy". Be as helpful as possible in your thread titles, and if you want to improve or change your thread's title after you create it, ask a moderator in that forum for help.

Good luck with your future use of SWUs - and as I stated, you can STILL use your expiring SWUs if you plan properly. - JDiver, Moderator

MAH4546

I don't think you fully understand how to use eVIPs. They will often not clear when you use them at booking; but they will rarely not clear by the time your flight takes off. What you should have been doing was booking the flight, waitlisting the eVIP, and absent an extremely busy travel period for premium travel or a very short time period between booking and the flight (less than a month), those waitlists would have, in all likelihood, cleared.

At this point it is unlikely that you will be able to extend them. If you have future travel past 2/28/11 that is already booked, call AA and ask them to apply them to that travel (but at least one leg must autoclear at this point). Otherwise, give them to friends flying on American or donate them to charity. That's a far better use then letting them expire.

TheKnife

I'd send an email to AA but I wouldn't hold my breath.

You also have to be realistic... upgrading LAX-LHR or DFW-EZE, etc one week before the flight is not realistic. Consider planning at least 6-9 months ahead for the optimal flights and the same for popular times around national holidays. If you call the EXP desk they can tell you which flights can be upgraded instantly (as opposed to waitlisting). They can even apply the EVIPs to a held reservation.

I've never had a problem when shifting schedule 1 or 2 days booking that far in advance.

arollins

that prompted you and your partner to fly AA 100k+miles, but nothing at all on 2010?. You've had more than a year to figure out how to use EVIPs and now you are posting 8 days before their expiration date that you want to extend them. If you where already "dissatisfied" with AA by not being able to use them, why do you want to extend them, and why you think that AA will make an exception for you? :/

It seems to me that you are mostly at fault by not knowing the basics of the benefits for the EXP status and not doing your homework. At this point my suggestion to you is to apply evips to any future travel and gift evips to others that might be able to use. See if you have some friends and family that have a trip on AA and apply evips to them. They might clear early, but if they are not cleared by 02/28, they are lost.

smilee

I felt similar last year after my first requalification as Ex Plat. AA used to have much more availability for an instant upgrade, but I believe in the fall of 2009, the reduced much more of the instant upgrade space, and as many others have reported, do not upgrade until just a few days brefore the flights.

This may have been in response to the changes that all fares could be upgraded with Evips - but I am not sure.

I have noticed that if you can fly Tues, Weds, sometimes Thursday, you will have a MUCH better prospect of clearing an Evip. I made a calendar a while ago for popular routes (using data from expert flyer) and noticed for example that AA had virtually 0 instant upgrades on DFW-LHR routes for Friday, Saturday, Sunday for the whole year however many many Tuesdays throughout the year did BUT I also noticed that few people on FT were complaining about NOT getting the upgrade, and I usually hear that Ex Plats are hitting 100% with upgrades, so I presume that just about all Evip requests for Ex Plats are coming through.

I think its too bad you failed to use your 20 evips, as they are clearly the biggest benefit for the AA Ex Plat program. I have heard recently that people are having luck getting their own expiring Evips applied on upcoming flights.

However, I can also understand your frustration in finding flights that can be confirmed with Evips, especially if you fly Friday-Sunday.

Lesliedale

Thanks for all the input, just for the record, we did get screwed last week on a flight to India. We did phone AA several times prior to flight to make sure we were on upgrade list and possiblly get status of upgrade. We were told we wouldn't know till we got to the airport gate.
We arrived at gate, and they had no record of us on the upgrade list.
Needless to say, got back to NY called American they apologized and gave us each 10,000 bonus miles.
Which was nice. We still are hoping to travel enough to achieve the ex plat again.

LGAoverJFK

How did you get 20 eVIPs in the first place? I thought you only got 8 for requalifying? Where did the additional 12 come from?

Lesliedale

Did 130,000and got 2 extra plus took them as the bonus
This was for 2 of us.

asya999

Last year was my first year as AA EXP. I booked 8 international legs using eVIPs. Of them 0/8 cleared at the time of booking - all were wait listed.

7/8 cleared during the week before the flight. The closest was one that cleared just barely over 24 hours before the flight, the other six cleared a few days in advance.

One didn't clear at all - in fact I wasn't even close to the top of the list - it was a Friday mid-day flight from LHR to LAX in October. Oh well - in Feb there were empty seats in J in both directions! The other route I used up the eVIPs on were LAX-NRT x 4.

I was bummed not to be able to use the 8th eVIP but I used it to upgrade Mr. 999 on a transcon to sit with me near the end of the year.

Better than my UA SWUs of which I had four expire unused - Mr 999 had 2 more (and that was out of 16 between the two of us). Those *always* cleared at the gate or mere hours before the flight, *and* they required buying a higher fare, so you'll never catch me complaining about AA eVIPs.

mvoight

What about the return flight?
What about all of the other flights you were on since getting them?
Were you never waitlisted on other flights? It sounds like you weren't booking flights unless you were guaranteed the upgrade.
Was the trip to India your only trip?
Are you saying you had no use of 20 SWU's?
How many flights were you waitlisted on?
That would be very unusual.
I have had no problem with using mine, and no problem in the ones given away.

ilovetofly

8 x 2 plus 125K reward perhaps.