akarneboge

Hi-
I did do a quick search of the forum but could not find a specific answer to my questions about the BXP1 upgrade:

1.) I understand that it requires certain inventory (No N, O, Q, or S for North America). I have a few segments, namely two DFW/ANC r/t that I booked only a month out and are showing F7, booked into G and V.

2.) Has anyone ever used one of these to book an upgrade? Do you just call the BusinessExtrAA desk as if you were calling the EXP desk to use a SWU or miles+copay upgrade? Is it the same type of process?

3.) What fare class do these awards book into for domestic F? I am assuming A? And more importantly, can these upgrades be confirmed if there is sufficient inventory and your itinerary is ALREADY ticketed?

Thanks

djibouti

1) Is there a question?

2) I haven't but I believe that's the process. There's a physical certificate they need to mail to you and you relinquish it at the airport, if I understand the process correctly.

3) I believe that it books into A (or C for 3-class coach to business) like a SWU/miles+copay. Again, based on reading comprehension from past threads, not personal experience. I've read nothing to indicate that it can't be confirmed in advance and can't imagine why a ticketed itinerary would prevent their use.

Please do update with your results.

incognitoMD

These book into A inventory for dfw-anc, and can be used after your itinerary is ticketed. While I have never upgraded this way, I believe you redeem a BXP1 from the BusinessExtraa website, and you will receive a paper certificate mailed to you. You need to call reservations to get upgraded, and then you must give the paper certificate to the agent when you arrive at the airport.

akarneboge

Thanks for the information. No real question on #1, just pre-empting those points for anyone's benefit.

cphurley

I can confirm above and have used about a dozen BXP1s in the past 2 years... including one on ANC-DFW flight. You need to redeem on the website - they send you physical paper certificates in the mail. When you are ready to upgrade - call the meeting services number (800-433-1790) and tell them you want to upgrade existing flight with BXP1. Give them your locator or flight number and they'll confirm (into A on 2-class and C on 3-class domestics -- same as SWU). You need to BRING the certificate and you'll have to check-in with an agent at the airport... you will not be able to check-in online or at a kiosk at the airport.

Enjoy.

diver858

It can be difficult to book a non-N, O, Q, or S ticket on aa.com, so put a preferred itinerary on hold, call AA to ask for a W or V fare bucket (typically lowest that qualify), will likely change the fare by $100 or so - ask them to leave on hold, but not ticket. THEN call meeting services to determine if upgradeable A fare bucket seats are available (will be necessary to log out of the online record). If yes, book the ticket, then call meeting services back, ask them to reserve the upgrade.

On one occasion, I was flying SAN-LAX-MIA using such an upgrade, SAN-LAX leg was on AE. None of the AE agents (including the manager) were able to issue the upgraded LAX-MIA boarding pass. It was after hours, meeting services was closed, 2 different AA PLT phone agents were complete useless. When I arrived in LAX, I went straight to the Admiral's Club, where one of the Aangels issued a boarding pass - without collecting the paper certificate. As it was issued after the reservation was made, it was not in my record, will try to use it again next month (ordered another - just in case).

BlissWorld

I have a related question. The BXP1 awards expire 1 year from the date of issuance (the date you request the award online), is that correct? So, the expiration date of the award does not depend on the expiration date of your points?

Do you need to issue the award before you call to request the upgrade? Or, can you request the upgrade first, and then wait to issue the award so that you get the longest validity possible, in case you need to cancel the trip and no longer will use the awards.

ckpeter

My understanding is that the BXP1 awards expire either June 30 or Dec 31, so you have at least one year, possibly up to 18 months, of validity, depending on when you request it and when they run out of the old ones / start sending out newer ones.

You can just call to request the upgrade without the cert in hand. They do ask for the expiration date and the code (BXP1), but I don't think they actually check, so technically you should be able to wait to request the cert later, if you want to prolong the expiration (but keeping in mind that with only two possible expiration dates, unless you are requesting at the end of June or December, your wait would not necessarily get you a longer cert).

diver858

Expiration dates are either June 30 or Dec 31 of the following year.

I have made 2 BXP1 reservations, second flight is coming up shortly. In both cases, Meeting Services did not ask for the cert number when making the reservation.

dmp614

I've upgraded dozens of segments this way. I never request the cert until Meeting Services clears the upgrade. I use ExpertFlyer to confirm availability before I even ticket, but still wait to redeem the cert just in case.

The process to upgrade is usually very smooth, but the airport process can be painful as these are rarely seen by agents and they typically are confused.

It's very easy to put an itinerary on hold (that includes O, Q, S, or N inventory) and then call reservations to have them upfare to G (or the lowest available if there's no G in the market). The change in fare varies greatly.

Occasionally there has not been inventory for the upgrade and the loads looked tight, so I've bought a O/Q/S/N fare. Then the inventory opened. In those cases I've never failed to have EXP upfare the already ticketed itinerary without charging a change fee (i.e. just the fare difference). Meeting Services will also do this, but they will not waive the fee.

These are great upgrade instruments for certain situations. But they're also a pain and BusinessExtraa/Meeting Services can be quite challenging.

Best improvement in these recently was the change to allow the upgrade to process any time after ticketing. They used to only work 30 days prior to each segment. In those cases the fee-free "change" to upfare was key.

akarneboge

So has anyone ever waitlisted one of these (A not being available)? Looks like the process is much like a SWU or miles+co-pay, but I wonder what I'm going to do when I get to the airport. It is a 752 and F is sold out, so unless something opens up between now and the date of travel (not at all unheard of on the ANC -> DFW route), my best shot is that they fly a 24F CIP 752 in which case there are suddenly two additional F seats. Are these going to clear before sticker upgrades as would happen with a SWU? And is anyone at the airport going to know how to handle these, considering the contract employees in ANC.

djibouti

My understanding is that they would clear when A becomes available, which might happen before or after X, which is when stickers clear. SWUs don't always clear before stickers, although they tend to.

travelsg

I remember reading it somewhere BXP1 can be used on award ticket, but obviously it's no longer the case.. did I just have a bad memory or the policy has changed at some point?

HNL

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B350 Safari/8536.25)

I'll go with bad memory.

akarneboge

Well this ended up turning out great for both segments. A few points FWIW for everyone's edification:

- When you clear the waitlist, much like with a SWU, your record becomes un-viewable online until you call up and you have them finish the upgrade process.

- When I checked in at LAX for LAX -> DFW, they were unable to print the boarding pass for the DFW -> ANC segment. I had to have an AAngel at DFW force the printing. DFW GA did want the paper certificate for the segment.

- At ANC they were completely oblivious to the fact that I had upgraded with a certificate. They were able to print the BP (as I had to go through security), and never asked for the certificate, thus I have one to use on another segment at some point.

- I would not use these in any situation where I couldn't confirm the upgrade at time of use, as the entire waitlist process, while like a SWU, is completely unclear as to how it would work with an airport upgrade list. You can also not check-in online or on your phone, making it very sketchy as to how these affect your record.