PaxALotl

Hi all -

I got a nice fare on a good flight from the Bay Area to Peru in May, and paid with it using Chase Sapphire points. The long-haul is overnight and there are lay-flat seats up front - I've love to get up there but I usually fly Untied and have literally zero miles on AA.

My question is: does anyone have any ideas about how I might upgrade myself using either Chase Sapphire points (I have about 250k) or United miles (also about 250k). I know my way around the UA world pretty well and there are a lots of ways to transfer miles to other Star Alliance partners, then upgrade, etc.

Anyone have any advice for this one? thank you

donotblink

What are your travel dates and flight numbers? If there's C inventory, you could use your chase points to offset the cost of buying AA miles to do a miles and co-pay upgrade. You could also upfare and use chase points to offset the cost of your upfare. Contact AA to find out the cost to upfare.
You can't use United miles to upgrade on AA.

grrizzli

The best thing about your booking is that you paid cash for it--that you used Chase Sapphire points to offset the cash price is irrelevant for AA. However, you booked it through a third-party: Chase--that's a problem. You can use a miles and co-pay upgrade to business--if there's an availability, which is non-trivial. And the miles mean AA miles only. Without AA miles you can do nothing other than cancelling your reservation and booking from scratch. Even if you had AA miles and there was an upgrade availability, I'm not sure if you can upgrade a reservation booked through a third-party online travel agency.

whimike

Why is booking through Chase a problem? As long as the flight is marketed and operated by AA, it is upgradeable using miles (as long as it isn't basic economy).

A321T

Booking through Chase's travel portal is nearly as good as booking the flight with cash. Unless it's Basic Economy you could upgrade with AA miles. But Chase doesn't have AA as a transfer partner so you're kind of out of luck unless you want to spend money to buy up (upfare) or you have another way to get AA points (e.g. you have Marriott points you can transfer, you open a credit card). Chase points can transfer to BA Avios but OW isn't as great as Star with allowing you to use miles to upgrade on alliance partners.

PaxALotl

Hi. Thanks for this info! Below is the itinerary. It was a crazy cheap fare, so I'm not expecting this to be easy but it never hurts to ask!

AMERICAN AIRLINES OPERATED BY COMPASS AIRLINES AS AMERICAN EAGLE 6071 STS Santa Rosa May 15, 2020
01:48 PM LAX Los Angeles May 15, 2020
03:15 PM H N/A

LATAM AIRLINES GROUP OPERATED BY LATAM AIRLINES PERU 2469 LAX Los Angeles May 15, 2020
09:35 PM LIM Lima May 16, 2020
08:15 AM H N/A

LATAM AIRLINES GROUP OPERATED BY LATAM AIRLINES PERU 2240 LIM Lima May 16, 2020
09:55 AM IQT Iquitos May 16, 2020
11:49 AM B N/A

LATAM AIRLINES GROUP OPERATED BY LATAM AIRLINES PERU 2550 CUZ Cuzco May 31, 2020
08:14 PM LIM Lima May 31, 2020
09:40 PM B N/A

LATAM AIRLINES GROUP OPERATED BY LATAM AIRLINES PERU 2476 LIM Lima Jun 01, 2020
01:50 AM LAX Los Angeles Jun 01, 2020
08:40 AM L N/A

AMERICAN AIRLINES OPERATED BY COMPASS AIRLINES AS AMERICAN EAGLE 6071 LAX Los Angeles Jun 01, 2020
11:33 AM STS Santa Rosa Jun 01, 2020
01:14 PM L N/A
Your Itinerary

donotblink

Disregard some of our comments above, you can't use AA miles to upgrade a LATAM flight. You should know LATAM is leaving OneWorld on May 1st and will be without any alliance.

AAExecPlatFlier

I think u have a basic economy fare so no upgrades. Did u look at the fare rules?.