tphuang

Sorry, this is the first year I've gotten SWU so haven't tried applying it yet. I've gotten most of my upgrades in the last 48 hours the past year or even at boarding in the CX flights, so it doesn't bother me they don't get confirmed earlier. I've never had it when things were really great.

beckoa

The good ole' days were different for sure.

TheDudeAbides

I am very strongly considering this also (after 11 consecutive years at EXP) and trying to figure out what this would look like for domestic and international travel.

brp, is your intention to get lounge access based on class-of-service because you're buying J or based on OW Sapphire status? If the latter, how will that work if you're crediting miles to AS; i.e. your AS # is in the record? Based on tom911's remarks (below), I'm under the impression that the Sapphire benefits only apply if the AA (or other OWS) frequent flyer number is in the record. If the AS number is in the record (and therefore Sapphire status does not show on the AA/BA boarding pass), will the AA PLT status card be sufficient for lounge entry?

More generally, I'm wondering about the issue of lounge access based on OW Sapphire status when flying OW with an AS number in the record. e.g. flying Economy on JL metal on a JL flight number with AS frequent flyer number in the record - will the AA PLT card work for lounge access? or does the AA frequent flyer number need to be in the record and on the boarding pass if I want OW J lounge access.

Thanks for this good intel tom911. I'll request a match after 10/1.

ashill

There's a good amount of discussion of this earlier in this thread. No issues accessing oneworld lounges by flashing an AA Platinum card with the AS number in the reservation. Easy enough for lifetime Platinums; more difficult for the rest of us. (And MVP Gold status is good four lounge access in LHR when flying BA -- at least to SEA, maybe to elsewhere -- and when flying QF.)

TheDudeAbides

Thanks for the explicit answer - in other threads, others have occasionally noted difficulty in MAD and other places trying to use AA PLT or EXP card for access if AA# was not in the record and on the boarding pass so I wanted explicit intel.

Indeed, I read every post in this thread prior to posting. I must have missed the posts where the discussion of OWS-based lounge access was used in conjunction with AS FF # in the record. Closest I saw was tom911's post alluding to his plan to use AA number in the record for purpose of lounge access, which is why I specifically inquired about this issue. Your answer helps some -any first hand experience on JL with this situation?

ashill

To be clear, I'm mostly quoting others. But I have had no trouble on a small handful of occasions accessing BA lounges (in LHR and PHL) by showing my now-expired AA Platinum card while crediting to AS. I too have seen some reports of people having trouble, but my impression is that people who post here succeed considerably more often than not.

I haven't gone back and read this thread specifically; it may have been in the thread about the AA-AS partial breakup in the AA a forum or the AS newbie thread since the breakup.

brp

Right now these reservations have my AA number in them- to get seats as EXP (works as PLT, too). MY intention at the time was to credit to AA, but this was before this change.

If I do go with my proposed change, the AA number will stay in there for now...all the way through check-in...yielding a BP with AAdvantage number in there. At the gate, change to AS...just for the outbound. Rinse, lather and repeat on the return.

Might even be possible to leave AA in there through the flight and change it right after returning, but that may be pushing it...

But I still have yet to see anything indicating that status-based lounge access requires crediting the flight to OW.

(I also realized that the current set of flights I'm talking about are in 2018, when I'll still have EXP based on 2017 qualifying year in any event, so the above is for 2019 and beyond).

Cheers.

tom911

I've seen nothing in writing, but I suspect if you e-mail AA and ask them, you'd get a response back that would, in some manner, discourage that.

I recall a discussion this year on the AA forum about upgrading with AA systemwides and then crediting those flights to another carrier. A veteran poster there said that doing that was clearly against the AA rules (something about getting AA elite perks when not flying as an AA elite), but I doubt you'll see that in writing anywhere on the AA systemwide usage page.

My bigger worry, and it may very well be unfounded, is that if AA starts getting lounge charges for flights I'm not crediting to them, or to any One World partner, is that they may react at some point and lock my Advantage account. I don't know what flags they might have in place to recognize that pattern - maybe none at all - and I may be overthinking the whole process - but I have a lot of miles at risk if they want to retaliate.

On a side note, there is some discussion on the Cathay forum about changing the airline you credit to and lounge access that you might find interesting. Very similar to what we're discussing here except with CX accounts in play instead of AA.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...d-anymore.html

JonNYC

It is covered as a catch-all in the main AAdv T&C:

TheDudeAbides

Thanks Jon. This is exactly what I was/am fretting about and just wondering what real world experience had been like with regard to status-based access in this scenario.

In many of my personal cases, I'll be flying paid J and I am an AC member so I'd usually have class-of-service lounge access or use of Admirals Club as a member regardless, but I am still trying to think through various scenarios for international travel while crediting to AS rather than AA.

ps: The lifetime PLT status is a nice little fallback to have in the hip pocket - secured several years back due to much excellent advice from you here (and on the other, now mostly defunct, board).

C17PSGR

I did that the other day. After I had purchased my upgrade on AS because of my EXP status ... at the boarding gate, I asked the AS agent to plug in my AS number. It went off without a hitch. However, I only had a one way. Not sure how it would work if I had a round trip.

brp

Thanks for posting that Jon. While status-based lounge access is not listed explicitly, I can see that they would extend it there.

However, specifically for lounge access, I thought that that *was* OK if ones status was with AA and one were crediting to another OW member. That, in this case, they could still use status to access OW lounges. Or do we think that that's not the case, even if the crediting is still within OW?

Cheers.

brp

In the past I've done this with AS/AA to use AA status to get premium seats, then change to AS at the gate. I've not explicitly asked to change only the outbound, so both get changed. However, we've never lost the premium seats on the return.

With AS, purchasing two OW itineraries is the same price as RT, so doing everything as OW pairs even for RT would assure that returns were not impacted.

Cheers.

JonNYC

I'll have to do some asking around and see if there's any new/modified stance on this in light of this major new change to the AA/AS relationship.

ashill

With respect to systemwides specifically, that makes no sense. Systemwides can be applied to anybody; there's no status requirement for the traveler. So I don't see how AA could say you can't apply it to yourself when crediting to a different airline. If the issue is waitlisting a systemwide and getting EXP priority on the waitlist but then crediting to another airline, I could see the issue (just like no complimentary/sticker upgrades when crediting to another airline).

(This is following a tangent off topic, though.)