May 16, 2017, 12:53 pm
Last edit by: Prospero
As of May 20, 2017 upgrade prioritization is:
Elite qualifying dollars* in the past 12 months
- Elite status
- Concierge Key
- Executive Platinum
- Platinum Pro
- Platinum
- Gold
- Upgrade type
- Miles and copay award upgrades and systemwide upgrades, Business Extra? (SWU)
- 500 mile upgrades on purchased tickets (including EXP complimentary UDU)
- 500 mile upgrades on upgrade eligible awards (including EXP complimentary UDU)
- BXP Business Extra upgrades
Elite qualifying dollars* in the past 12 months
- Booking class (in order, J, D, I, W, P, Y, H, K, M, L, V, G, S, N, Q, O, T)
Time of request
*Your 12-month Rolling EQD value is different from your Year-to-Date (YTD) EQDs, which is used to track your progress toward elite status. It includes your EQD earned from reaching qualifying spend thresholds on eligible AAdvantage® AviatorTM MasterCard® cards.
Link to EQD earning Help Desk thread on FlyerTalk.
No- or lower status companion and effect on upgrade position
WAIT LIST, SAME PNR: Prior to upgrade request going to airport list- SWU, Miles & Copay, Business Extra: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status. (BX is unsure, stated as least of priorities, likely to up D-24 only)
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
- Award travel: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
WAIT LIST, SEPARATE PNR: Prior to upgrade request going to airport list- SWU, Miles & Copay: lower status passenger DOES NOT "borrow" higher status under any circumstance
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- Award travel: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
- Award travel: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
AIRPORT LIST, SAME PNR:- SWU, Miles & Copay: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status. (BX is unsure, but is least of priorities, likely to up D-24 only)
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- Award travel: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status
AIRPORT LIST, SEPARATE PNR:- SWU, Miles & Copay: lower status passenger DOES NOT "borrow" higher status under any circumstance
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- Award travel: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
- Business Extra upgrade instruments
- 500 mile / UDU: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status IF PNRs "linked"
NOTES:- Traveling companion 500 mile upgrades (even for those pax using UDU) "stickers" must pull from higher status passenger's account.
- Lower status passenger previously "borrowing" higher status may require human processing at the airport to re-establish "borrowed status" linkage
(Companion information thanks to DW)
- SWU, Miles & Copay, Business Extra: lower status passenger "borrows" higher status. (BX is unsure, stated as least of priorities, likely to up D-24 only)
Upgrade Priority: Status, Upgrade Type, Rolling 12 Month EQD Spend
May 17, 2017, 7:29 am
#91
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
As for the EQD bonuses from Aviator: these also get rolled? So, if I spend $25k by May and get the $3,000 bonus EQD's, then effectively I would have to spend the $25k by May again next year to not have a gap in it counting in my rolling 12 month calculation? I was hoping they would treat this portion as an annual achievement. But it sounds like the timing of when I reach that $25k threshold matters and has to be managed year to year. Is that what you guys think too?
Good question and I'm interested in knowing this as well. I'm already over 12k EQD's and will stop at about 17k by July. So, I'm assuming it's when it posts, so timing my Barclay 3k for later in the year, as I only plan on a couple AA RT's in 2018, one next Feb/March, already ticketed HKG-LAX-JFK, and will have decent rolling EQD's for those flights. Will do another one in June/July to take advantage of a respectable rolling EQD number for these UPG's. Need to burn off the SWU's early as my GF is making EXP this year as well, and won't have the extra Barclay EQD's, so we need to burn 8 (or 10 as I'm close to 150k EQM's.) Otherwise, since I'm BKK based, it's easy to use OW partners in premium cabin to avoid this SWU roulette.
May 17, 2017, 7:31 am
#92
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
Personal attacks and exchanges will continue to get deleted, as will posts not relevant to this specific topic.
/Moderator
/Moderator
Last edited by JDiver; May 17, 2017 at 7:50 am
May 17, 2017, 7:32 am
#93
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
I know Sabre has some functionality that can be used for certain kinds of member "scoring" (which AA uses already)-- I wonder if this isn't already a capability therein?
May 17, 2017, 8:09 am
#94
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 27,239
Mental preparation for delight or dismay! In all seriousness, I figure sharing details of effective date earlier on the margins might have discouraged people from buying as early as possible (which presumably increases avg fare). So assuming they've had this in the works for quite some time they could have announced earlier and had more people take that into account for the last few months. I would imagine it would have ask gottten people who were waiting to accumulate spending on their Aviators to start spending earlier which generates revenue for AA.
I'm sure it came down to not wanting to commit to a date, and pretty much as soon as the system was ready, flipping the switch.
May 17, 2017, 8:52 am
#96
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Chicago
Programs: AA- EXP UA - Silver SPG- PLT Marriott- PLT
Posts: 759
You can calculate your EQDs for Aug-Dec 2016, I just did mine. You can go to Your activity, under My account, select desirable activity date range. Then you divide your base miles (under award miles) by 5 for each trip, and these are your EQDs per trip. Unfortunately for me I did 75% of my 2016 paid travel in the first 6 months of last year.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I had spent since August. I forgot about the super expensive ORD>CMH trips I had in August and September (many of which, due to weather delays, would have been faster for me to have driven).
May 17, 2017, 9:33 am
#97
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: DCA
Programs: UA LT 1K, AA EXP, Bonvoy LT Titan, Avis PC, Hilton Gold
Posts: 9,658
C class is same for free J ticket or upgrade with SWU or miles, so if C opened you would be better to just change the ticket to a C reward ticket and not have to pay the $350.
May 17, 2017, 9:40 am
#98
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: San Antonio
Programs: DL DM, Former AA EXP now AY Plat, AC 75K, NW Plat, Former CO Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 27,047
May 17, 2017, 9:45 am
#99
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: STL/ORD/MCI/SAN
Programs: AA CK MM, AC SE100K, BA Gold, UA 1K, DL Plat, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 1,989
Additionally, 'C' is not used for award tickets. Premium cabin awards in Business book into 'U' for MileSAAver and 'J' for AAnytime, while First uses 'Z' for MileSAAver and 'F' for AAnytime.
Changing to the J cabin on a Y cabin award ticket would therefore require either 'U' or 'J' inventory -- 'C' has nothing to do with this type of change.
May 17, 2017, 9:46 am
#100
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
Though Executive Platinums will be able to upgrade award flights in the future, at present the only way to "Upgrade" an award flight is to pay the miles for the award in your upgraded class of service. AA will allow you to do this with no change or redeposit fees.
May 17, 2017, 9:53 am
#101
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: DCA
Programs: UA LT 1K, AA EXP, Bonvoy LT Titan, Avis PC, Hilton Gold
Posts: 9,658
This is incorrect. Award tickets cannot be upgraded with miles/copay.
Additionally, 'C' is not used for award tickets. Premium cabin awards in Business book into 'U' for MileSAAver and 'J' for AAnytime, while First uses 'Z' for MileSAAver and 'F' for AAnytime.
Changing to the J cabin on a Y cabin award ticket would therefore require either 'U' or 'J' inventory -- 'C' has nothing to do with this type of change.
Additionally, 'C' is not used for award tickets. Premium cabin awards in Business book into 'U' for MileSAAver and 'J' for AAnytime, while First uses 'Z' for MileSAAver and 'F' for AAnytime.
Changing to the J cabin on a Y cabin award ticket would therefore require either 'U' or 'J' inventory -- 'C' has nothing to do with this type of change.
I don't think CK or EXP can upgrade international rewards to long haul destinations.
As pointed out it is rare that a CK or EXP would want International Y reward - and if it opened they would just redeposit and book the U reward.
May 17, 2017, 9:59 am
#102
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: SF + PHX
Programs: AA EXP, UA 1k, Marriott Gold, HH Gold, X Elite+
Posts: 262
I'm sure the trade-offs here were many, but am I the only one who isn't happy with the August 2016 cutoff?
A rolling 12 months should be just that....or they should start with 1/1/17 and say we're 5 months in, and it will eventually roll to 12. With an august start, it's 10 months of rolling spend that you have to hope shows your 'worth'.
I'm mostly complaining because i did all my high spend travel in May, June and July of 2016 -- however I've got plenty of dollars this year that hit Jan-July..so it will be interesting to see how this works as we progress. I definitely benefited from the similar (miles flow in rolling 12) policy on USAirways when it was in effect, so i'm cautiously optimistic that it may all work out how we want.
A rolling 12 months should be just that....or they should start with 1/1/17 and say we're 5 months in, and it will eventually roll to 12. With an august start, it's 10 months of rolling spend that you have to hope shows your 'worth'.
I'm mostly complaining because i did all my high spend travel in May, June and July of 2016 -- however I've got plenty of dollars this year that hit Jan-July..so it will be interesting to see how this works as we progress. I definitely benefited from the similar (miles flow in rolling 12) policy on USAirways when it was in effect, so i'm cautiously optimistic that it may all work out how we want.
May 17, 2017, 10:07 am
#103
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 3,026
Every day I feel my decision to de-emphasize loyalties was the right one at the beginning of the year.
I am am finding it impossible to keep track of all the nuances involved. And, to be honest I just don't have the time or energy to do so.
As a lifetime Plat on AA earning miles, redeeming miles, getting upgrades was a pleasant experience.
Plat use to mean something. Not so much anymore. There seems little reason now for most flyers to bust their butts to attain levels unless they truly can keep up their spend.
Comfort and convenience are now my driving factors.
I am am finding it impossible to keep track of all the nuances involved. And, to be honest I just don't have the time or energy to do so.
As a lifetime Plat on AA earning miles, redeeming miles, getting upgrades was a pleasant experience.
Plat use to mean something. Not so much anymore. There seems little reason now for most flyers to bust their butts to attain levels unless they truly can keep up their spend.
Comfort and convenience are now my driving factors.
May 17, 2017, 10:18 am
#104
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Chicago
Programs: AA- EXP UA - Silver SPG- PLT Marriott- PLT
Posts: 759
In some extreme cases, the list could change dramatically day to day.
May 17, 2017, 10:21 am
#105
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Chicago
Programs: AA- EXP UA - Silver SPG- PLT Marriott- PLT
Posts: 759