I don't know about "regularly", but I did get an unrequested at-gate upgrade from PE to Biz on CX. I was Plat on AA, nothing on CX. HKG-AKL, so it was quite a welcome surprise.

I had booked the trip through CX, which may have made a difference, come to think of it.

Same day change for Platinum
 

I'm "regular" Platinum. As recently as a few months ago, I was able to make a confirmed same day change for free. I was flying DFW to DCA and my meeting finished early. Walked up to the priority ticket counter and asked for an earlier flight and they handed me a new boarding pass, no questions asked.

I tried to do the same thing again last week and discovered that I could only stand by for an earlier flight.

Did the policy change on this? I thought Platinum used to get free same day changes.

A similar thing (?) happened to me recently on BA LHR-IAD. Turned out that there was an equipment change with a different seating configuration. The row I was in (first row of PE) didn't exist on the new equipment, so they moved some people from PE to business.

So I got lucky, but it probably had nothing to do with status. Just an op up? I suppose it's possible they could have moved first-row PE to business across the board, or they could have moved elites to business to free up the smaller PE cabin for non-elites, but I suspect the GA did the simplest thing and just moved anyone in the PE bullhead row.

No policy change, PLT has always received free same day standby but not free same day confirmed flight change.

Because you asked at the airport you lucked out and got a good agent that was willing to help you out and confirm you straight onto the earlier flight. I've had this happen a few times over the years, YMMV depending on the agent, flight load, etc.

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...s-benefits.jsp

I went back and checked. My original seat was 33A, changed to 19A, but I didn't keep a record of either original or replacement (if any) plane. This was CX113 2018-01-25; that currently uses a A359, in which 33 is the last row of PE. I also chose PE last row for JFK-HKG, so I'm sure last row was a deliberate choice.

So, who knows. Maybe it was a new craft where 33 was not PE, and either my status made me a winner for the op-up or Biz was not full. I need to start paying more attention to these things, but after a poor night on JFK-HKG I was not exactly alert.

I'm starting to doubt myself for some reason.

BKK-HKG (business class)//(overnight 10 hour layover)//HKG-HND (first class) on CX can be booked as one award for 40,000 miles, correct?

And if both BA and JL show availability, it should be bookable right?

What's the best way to get this ticketed on the phone, as I've been having trouble having the agents see the same availability that I do.

It shouldn't confuse them. I'd ask them to search BKK-HND on Cathay, and if they can't find the flights then tell them the specific flight numbers. As a last resort, I'd confirm that they are searching for the segments together and not individually, since the segments are married.

I don't know if this will work for award tickets via a partner that isn't bookable online, but I've found recently that technical/web support is often more knowledgable—particularly when it comes to booking a ticket that is more complex or not run-of-the-mill—than the agents at Reservations (or on the elite/EXP desks). You might also try calling Reservations in a different country (like Japan). It could be a point-of-sale issue.

I'm not really a newbie, but I do have what may be a newbie question - is there a place to find the current YOY EQDs? I have this year's (currently just past $25k) but I presume I need to go back to 17 July 2018 to get an accurate count. Is that correct? Is this published anywhere?

Thanks!

Thanks for the help. I just got off the phone with Reservations in Japan, and the agent claimed that he couldn't see the availability, and only saw space for a JL nonstop in J.
QF, BA, and JL were all showing a number of options involving J/F on CX for BKK-HND, but the agent was insistent that there was no availability.

Could all 3 airlines be seeing phantom availability/does AA not get the same partner availability as other OW partners? I'd HUCA but it's been the same result for the 4 calls I've made over the past few days with both the EXP desk in the US, and reservations in Japan.

I have a hold on the JL nonstop for now, but I was really hoping to catch up with an old friend during that HKG layover...

I really hope the agent isn't somehow just searching the AA website for awards (now that JL awards are available online) /s

Yeah, he even repeated my request. So I don't think there was any misunderstanding there.
I'm stumped at this point...

Hopefully this is the right place for this question. I'm looking to change my loyalty from SWA to AA due to a change in travel habits. I've had SWA companion pass for the past 5 years and have become used to getting BOGO free flights. I know that both Citi and Barclay offer companion tickets associated with various amounts of spend on the cards. Does anyone have any experience with using those certificates? I have both Citi and Barclays and thinking about MSing to get the certificate, are they easy to use?

Also, is there any credit card that allows you to short cut to status by putting spend on a specific card? I know the Barclay business card has the $3,000 MQD waiver after 30,000 in spend, are there any others out there?