4aks

Odd thing ... I flew DCA-DFW-SAN this weekend, AA.com shows I have 7 500-mile upgrades available, after having earned 4 on Jan 3rd, had a redemption on Jan 9th , and was given 4 tagged as 'Complimentary' ... balance says 7 ... I requested upgrades, and believed I had the 6 needed available

On bag check at DCA, the kiosk workflow asked if I wanted to accept upgrades - I selected yes ... it then said I have 1 500 mile upgrade available, and need to purchase in 4 packs ... it asked me to pay $200 ... I selected 'no' and thought my existing inventory would be applied - it wasn't

Instead it canceled my upgrades ... so, I sat in bulkhead seats, looking at the empty 1st class seat a few in front of me

Did I misread the kiosk at 5:30am in DCA ? Or did they try to pull a fast one and extract $200 , which would have resulted in doubling up my 500-mile inventory unnecessarily ?

JJeffrey

I highly doubt the kiosk was trying to pull a fast one, most likely just some sort of a system glitch and/or you just didn't have as many in your account as you thought. But who knows.

In any event I would have just pulled up my account on my phone, if there was a discrepancy between the kiosk and online then just go see an agent.

4aks

i think what may have happened , they counted up the 12 I would have needed for the full round trip , I had requested prior on the website, with only 7 in my wallet ... assuming if I used six on the outbound flights, I'd buy more prior to the return flights

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Yes from I remember in my PLT days when one requests an upgrade via stickers those stickers are essentially held in reserve pending upgrade or not, and would not be available for use.

mvoight

It looks like the kiosks require you to buy 4 upgrade credits at a time. Can a ticket agent just sell you one?

thunderdeacon

The kiosk offered 4 for $200? That is $50 each. I believe they are $40 each when purchased online.

enviroian

arollins

I'm confused, please clarify for me, as my EXP days are way behind me and I count on stickers. What should have been the proper course of action? 6/500 were needed each way, and OP requested upgrade for outbound and return via website, if successful on outbound he would have been short 5 for return, for which he would have had to purchase, so far so good. Upon kiosk check in, he is offered upgrade, and he declined it, does that essentially takes out the original website request he made, probably when he booked the ticket or latter and applied for the stickies upgrade? That's what it seems to have happened to OP.

If yes, then he should have skipped the upgrade offer and proceeded to print boarding pass, luggage tag and go to the gate, considering that he already made the request. Must likely the upgrade will occur at the gate. However, how would you know if the kiosk upgrade offer would have been a cash upgrade? Say $75 to upgrade DCA-DFW, but still waitlist you on DFW-SAN, how exactly would you know?

On my experience with upgrade request, I've always checked my account several times prior the trip as I've had occasions where the request gets dropped and need to re-request. It seems to me there were many moving parts here, considering this was not a direct trip, but a multi segment, maybe as soon as OP declined the kiosk upgrade, he should have gone right back to his account and re-request, or see a gate agent. Nothing changes with AA, you really need to baby your trip.

4aks

next time I'm only going to request sticker upgrades for outbound , and then see what my balance ends up being ... have some time to arrange for the return upgrade ... e.g I have a business extra upgrade available , just it's not easy to redeem

IADCAflyer

They are $40 each on line. Purchased some to burn up my remaining Amex credit last month...

JJeffrey

The flights you're checking in for are all that matters with regards to your 500 mi. upgrade balance.

Return flights could be months away, unless this is some very new policy AA does not require you to have sufficient upgrades in your account for a return portion when you check in for the outbound.

Again, all signs point to one of two things happening, either A) the OP didn't have as many upgrades in their account as they thought, or B) account balance was sufficient but kiosk had an error/glitch.

Either way this easily solved by double checking on your phone and speaking with an agent if it's the latter scenario.

IADCAflyer

So as others have observed, what AA does (apparently) is to debit your account X number of stickers on the day you fly (or maybe up to 24 hours ahead of time) if you are on the upgrade list. If you successfully, upgrade, the debit is permanent. If you wind up not upgrading or use some other instrument to upgrade, your sticker balance returns to where it was before your flight.