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AA offers TOD “tens of dollars” First Class & Upgrades

AA offers TOD “tens of dollars” First Class & Upgrades

Old Apr 28, 2019, 9:17 pm
  #61  
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: DCA
Programs: UA LT 1K, AA EXP, Bonvoy LT Titan, Avis PC, Hilton Gold
Posts: 9,644
All this with the shrinking F pitch. Once all the 321's AA version get converted to the US 321 density - F is not worth it. No sapce. I will take an exit row over the US F pitch.

AA has also reduced the number of MCE seats of all aircraft, including all the international wide bodies. UA still has a large number of E+ seats and UA enforces E+ / MCE and charges violators for it. AA does not.

Plus AA is reducing the number of international J seats, UA is increasing.

I am phasing down to Plat or Plat Pro for this year - using up all my miles - then I will just switch back to UA. At least I will be able to get E+ / MCE seats all the time on UA.

Last edited by cova; Apr 28, 2019 at 9:24 pm
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 4:47 am
  #62  
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: IAD, DCA
Programs: AA Platinum, Marriott Gold
Posts: 1,531
Originally Posted by cova
All this with the shrinking F pitch. Once all the 321's AA version get converted to the US 321 density - F is not worth it. No sapce. I will take an exit row over the US F pitch.

AA has also reduced the number of MCE seats of all aircraft, including all the international wide bodies. UA still has a large number of E+ seats and UA enforces E+ / MCE and charges violators for it. AA does not.

Plus AA is reducing the number of international J seats, UA is increasing.

I am phasing down to Plat or Plat Pro for this year - using up all my miles - then I will just switch back to UA. At least I will be able to get E+ / MCE seats all the time on UA.
Im in the DC area and switched to UA at IAD from AA at DCA for about 9 months. It was awful. Shoddy service, bad gates, delays and cancellations, paid-for E+ seats that magically became regular seats. I have happily moved back. The grass is not always greener.
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 4:59 am
  #63  
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: DCA/IAD/WAS
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Posts: 2,133
Originally Posted by chazas


Im in the DC area and switched to UA at IAD from AA at DCA for about 9 months. It was awful. Shoddy service, bad gates, delays and cancellations, paid-for E+ seats that magically became regular seats. I have happily moved back. The grass is not always greener.
No one would have suggested you do that haha. Once you fly out of DCA, you just don't go to IAD.
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 6:16 am
  #64  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: London
Programs: US Gold
Posts: 627
Originally Posted by USFlyerUS
It will be based on the purchased fare class and amount of the original ticket. What the kiosk offers is an "upgrade", not a sell up to a higher fare.
Thanks.

wg
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 7:22 am
  #65  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: DCA
Posts: 7,761
Originally Posted by DeepUnderground
It's damn near impossible to buy 4 first class tickets for my family at the last minute these days....
Even going beyond that, it's near impossible to buy a single first class ticket to anywhere inside of 24 hours anymore.

That's the flip side of the cabin shrinking and FCM is that it locks out the "traditional" FC customers - including last-minute, cost-no-object business travelers. I've seen it a lot with colleagues of mine; big meeting or schedule change and they need to be from A to B as soon as possible, cost as an afterthought. Yet not only is there nothing in F, there's often nothing in Y...

At some point, I'd speculate that capacity is going to have to start coming online again as people realize that 100% load factors leave money on the table (though from where the capacity would come, I do not know).
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 10:20 am
  #66  
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: IAD, DCA
Programs: AA Platinum, Marriott Gold
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Originally Posted by iadisgreat
No one would have suggested you do that haha. Once you fly out of DCA, you just don't go to IAD.
I'm a lot closer to IAD, and I've flown out of it occasionally for years (decades, really) but between that and the cluster**** that is UA it completely wasn't worth it.
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Old Apr 29, 2019, 11:33 am
  #67  
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EXP, LT Gold
Posts: 3,143
As an EXP who flies 95% of my annual in-air miles on INTL longhauls, I really do not care about the domestic upgrade game. A 2-3 hour flight in MCE is fine with me. That's "short" compared to most of the flights I am taking.

However, I actually like the sound of AA TOD upgrades... if they can execute it right. If I buy a PE R/T to Europe for $1400, then AA offers me $400-$600 to upgrade to J without playing the SWU waiting game, I would probably jump on it every day and twice on Sundays.
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Old Apr 30, 2019, 8:34 am
  #68  
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: MCI
Programs: AA LT Gold; BA Silver; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 3,081
I've been flying Business Class on long hauls for years- still do even though I'm retired. While I welcome slightly more reasonable pricing in Business Class, I'm seeing the product degrade. Is it my imagination or did we used to have Lounge access for all paid Business Class flights? Now it's just international and not all international (turned away at DFW before a flight to Cabo San Lucas last month). Food service dwindling; was upgraded between CLT and MCI last month and, according to the Web site, should have had "Light bites"; instead it was the "snack basket". Flight from DFW to Cabo left at 8 PM and was nearly 3 hours; "food" was a dish of warmed mixed nuts and- a cookie. I am learning to travel with a stash of protein bars.

So, they're lowering fares to get more paid pax into the pointy end of the plane but the degradation of the experience shows it.
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Old Apr 30, 2019, 9:04 am
  #69  
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I'm conflicted.....

While I am happy to see the ease of up-faring a ticket increase - less time I have to spend on the phone with AA after booking a ticket on their website.... It does mean that travelers who previously had no idea what up-faring was are now "in the game" via seeing a link on their reservation page and potentially taking up F space via actual purchase - which hurts from the forward looking fare cost as well as upgrade lottery perspective (not that us lowly PLT's had a fighting chance for an upgrade on a mainline flight to begin with).

But - I think overall a net positive: for those who are willing to shell out the cash, you can confirm into F and not be in the gate lottery wondering if MCE is your home for the next 2-4 hours. Hopefully the tool is flight segment specific - this could offer some good value depending on load factors and routes.

I do wonder if it will be just a straight up-fare calculation (total fare difference), or a discounted formula based on status and/or as you get closer to departure day and F seats remain unsold, or something similar to the LFBU and Kiosk upgrades of yester-year. Obviously, you'd stand the best chance at securing an paid upgrade F seat before the CK/EXP complimentary upgrade rolls happen.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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Old Apr 30, 2019, 9:34 am
  #70  
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
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Originally Posted by Athena53
I've been flying Business Class on long hauls for years- still do even though I'm retired. While I welcome slightly more reasonable pricing in Business Class, I'm seeing the product degrade. Is it my imagination or did we used to have Lounge access for all paid Business Class flights? Now it's just international and not all international (turned away at DFW before a flight to Cabo San Lucas last month). Food service dwindling; was upgraded between CLT and MCI last month and, according to the Web site, should have had "Light bites"; instead it was the "snack basket". Flight from DFW to Cabo left at 8 PM and was nearly 3 hours; "food" was a dish of warmed mixed nuts and- a cookie. I am learning to travel with a stash of protein bars.

So, they're lowering fares to get more paid pax into the pointy end of the plane but the degradation of the experience shows it.
Mexico, Canada, and Caribbean flights _except_ MEX Mexico City are considered domestic business class. No lounge access, same meal rules as domestic. Refreshments only (nuts and cookie) after 8pm (I agree this is too early). This has been in place for years.

CLT-MCI does qualify for the light-bites aka cheese plate, as long as it is scheduled within the meal windows. The late evening CLT-MCI departs after the dinner window, so it gets the Refreshments (nuts and cookie). Both stations have catering so this was possibly a Flight Attendant error. Light-bites have been in place since the meal changes September 1, 2014. I have noticed that the FAs will incorrectly substitute the snack basket for the nuts-cookie combo from time to time. But I believe all flights over 700 miles are catered with the nuts, both full meal flights (1000+ miles) and light-bite flights (700-999 miles), and also flights outside the meal window (after 8pm).

Sometimes at outstations without catering, in the case of IRROPS with the schedule, the double-catered food for the return flight sits too long to be served and is discarded. Happens rarely, but I've experienced it twice in the past couple of years PBI-DFW, which is a meal flight. I always ask for and receive 7500 miles for a missing meal in domestic business.
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Old May 1, 2019, 8:06 am
  #71  
 
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Originally Posted by fastflyer
CLT-MCI does qualify for the light-bites aka cheese plate, as long as it is scheduled within the meal windows. The late evening CLT-MCI departs after the dinner window, so it gets the Refreshments (nuts and cookie). Both stations have catering so this was possibly a Flight Attendant error. Light-bites have been in place since the meal changes September 1, 2014. I have noticed that the FAs will incorrectly substitute the snack basket for the nuts-cookie combo from time to time. But I believe all flights over 700 miles are catered with the nuts, both full meal flights (1000+ miles) and light-bite flights (700-999 miles), and also flights outside the meal window (after 8pm).
Thanks for this; my paid Business flights had been mostly to Europe, India and Central America up to now, with the occasional freebie upgrade on short hauls such as MCI-ORD or MCI-DFW, where I didn't expect much except a free adult beverage (if the sun was past the yardarm) and some
premium snack mix". Now that I'm exploring other destinations, it's clear that I need to do more careful research on what Business Class provides and doesn't provide.

It's good to be a "free agent" at this point; I'm Lifetime Gold on AA but when I'm willing to pay for Business Class I'm free to choose the airline with the best schedules and pricing and know I'll get about the same "love" regardless of loyalty status.
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Old May 1, 2019, 8:17 am
  #72  
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AA would do well to hold UG's to closer to departure. As others note, especially on business-heavy routes, there is a market for walk up FC, if not F. AA can still upgrade on elite status, but it can be really frustrating not to find availability in the FC cabin several days out. Particularly for people who are connecting to international F/J.
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Old May 1, 2019, 8:26 am
  #73  
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 382
Originally Posted by Often1
AA would do well to hold UG's to closer to departure. As others note, especially on business-heavy routes, there is a market for walk up FC, if not F. AA can still upgrade on elite status, but it can be really frustrating not to find availability in the FC cabin several days out. Particularly for people who are connecting to international F/J.
Of course, AA's decision to shrink the domestic FC cabins increases the chances of the cabins just straight selling out before the last few days, even in the absence of upgrades. Combined with reduced upgrade chances, cheaper FC tickets, the new ease of upfaring allowing coach reimbursement people access to first, etc. etc., one can certainly imagine that the small FC cabins are selling out more than ever before, even well before day of flight.

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Old May 1, 2019, 8:40 am
  #74  
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
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As part of my travel expense policy, I have a slush fund to pay for these types of upgrades. However, as an EXP, if they only go to not elites, that's not a great solution. To those who think that there should be gate upgrades both for booking availability and for IRROPS, I 100% agree. I suspect that they are trying to reduce the amount of work the GA has to do in order to get the plane loaded.
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Old May 1, 2019, 9:47 pm
  #75  
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Originally Posted by chazas


I’m in the DC area and switched to UA at IAD from AA at DCA for about 9 months. It was awful. Shoddy service, bad gates, delays and cancellations, paid-for E+ seats that magically became regular seats. I have happily moved back. The grass is not always greener.
I switched to AA from UA about 6-7 years ago (have been EXP on AA for that time) and have LT 1K on UA. I don't travel for business, so all travel is personal. With the EQD change to $15K and the reduction of Barclay Silver card from $6K EQD to just $3K EQD, I have to spend $6K more. Some of which is mileage runs.

If I eliminate the mileage runs, I could probably just buy F. I have LT Gold on AA (was hoping to get LT Plat) but likely not worth it now.

I agree DCA is my go to airport (can be there in 7 minutes by cab). But I much prefer IAD for international. I had been flying on AA to JFK for international but that has issues and delays. If I don't get upgraded, I would rather be on UA in E+ where UA has a large number of E+ seats which they enforce.

AA has eliminated most of it MCE seats on the wide bodies. Just exit row and bulk head. And I am concerned about AA SWU only going to Premium Economy at some point in the future.

I was a Continental Flyer and always few out of DCA and connected in IAH or EWR. Of course EWR has issues. But now with UA and IAD that is the go to airport for international. I did have an issue on a European flight last summer on UA - flight had mechanical so they had to bring in another 763, which left about 5 hours late.

So my plan is Fly AA out of DCA (as Gold or maybe Plat) going up and down the East coast. Fly UA out of DCA to fly West - connecting in IAH, ORD, DEN (likely not EWR except some international). Most destinations I fly from DCA on AA are with a connection, except LAX. So not much impact to fly UA out of DCA and connect - say to PSP, PDX, SEA, etc. And then for SEA there is a nonstop option out of IAD.

Chasing status just doesn't seem worth it anymore. Just buy discounted F or fly UA E+. Only seats I like on new AA configurations is Y Exit Rows. Don't like F seat spacing and Bulk head is real bad on new AA (old US arrangement).

UA reward charts are starting to get bad - but expect AA to do the same. With AA going TOD - might as well fly UA.

But most travel will be out of DCA - just on UA. But still flying AA this year until I use up my miles (and have status).
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