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ARCHIVE: SWU / VIP / eVIP Systemwide Upgrade questions

Old Dec 4, 2012, 5:40 pm
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ARCHIVE: SWU / VIP / eVIP Systemwide Upgrade questions

Old Dec 6, 2012, 4:30 pm
  #1501  
brp
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Originally Posted by Hyperacusis
Any other folks have experiences with expiring SWUs?
Originally Posted by logicalrealist
I've not succeeded (despite trying a couple of times) at getting SWUs applied for post-28 February travel this year, even when C is wide open. Dunno if my rating has done down or if it's just the way things are this year.
The belief (and this is based on the way things had worked in the past, and may still....but I can't confirm) is that it doesn't matter which SWUs you attach to the reservation. As long as it confirms the SWU use prior to the expiration, the "system" will pull the old ones automatically.

Cheers.
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Old Dec 6, 2012, 4:47 pm
  #1502  
 
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Originally Posted by brp
The belief (and this is based on the way things had worked in the past, and may still....but I can't confirm) is that it doesn't matter which SWUs you attach to the reservation. As long as it confirms the SWU use prior to the expiration, the "system" will pull the old ones automatically.

Cheers.
This was my impression as well, based on prior experiences. However, on a recent call to change a December 16 flight to March 1, the EXP agent told me that the rate desk (who needed to price the change) actually caught that I had used an expiring (by a single day, no less) eVIP and that they wouldn't be able to process the change without "removing the certificate number and putting the new one in" (her words).

This was a different situation than the one I described above. In that previous situation, I called back, and the EXP agent actually spoke to a supervisor at customer service who made a one-time exception for me and processed the upgrade. The upshot was that this time around, I requested an exception again and they saw that one had already been previously granted and refused to it. Apparently word has been sent down from "AAdvantage HQ" that there will be no exceptions at all this year for anybody (even "21-22 million milers", according to the agent).

So, good luck to those who do manage to get their upgrades done. If you do, please post how you accomplish it (even if it took no extra effort on your part). And if you think you got lucky and the agent went ahead and processed your ticket, be sure to confirm that you got ticketed. This was where things blew up for me first time around.

For what it's worth, over the past few years I have been qualifying on points (paid J international flights, all discounted I-class). My internal revenue/"eagle" rating can't be that high, but I'm sure it's higher than all the super-discounted EQM qualifiers.
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Old Dec 7, 2012, 3:28 am
  #1503  
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Thread title updated to more accurately describe the question at hand.

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Old Dec 7, 2012, 7:19 am
  #1504  
 
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Originally Posted by Hyperacusis
Apparently word has been sent down from "AAdvantage HQ" that there will be no exceptions at all this year for anybody (even "21-22 million milers", according to the agent).
I'm guessing this is because of the 1k->EXP match going on earlier this year. Apparently if you got in early, it was possible to earn 16 SWUs while flying way less than 100k miles (see here and here). As they were handing these out like candy I think they are trying to expire as many as possible.
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Old Dec 7, 2012, 5:23 pm
  #1505  
 
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Originally Posted by norf9
I'm guessing this is because of the 1k->EXP match going on earlier this year. Apparently if you got in early, it was possible to earn 16 SWUs while flying way less than 100k miles (see here and here). As they were handing these out like candy I think they are trying to expire as many as possible.
Oh, I am more than aware. In fact, I did make it pretty clear to the CS agent that I was unhappy that I would likely not be able to use all my eVIPs despite being a high-revenue EQP-based passenger, while a crapload of UA flyers got a free ride to EXP, sometimes with up to 16 SWUs. The agent was sympathetic of course, but had very limited power to deal with it. I'm not the type of person to take a single negative event and start saying I will never fly AA again, but this inflexibility (along with a few unrelated issues that impact EQP qualifiers like me) is beginning to rub me the wrong way.
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Old Dec 9, 2012, 11:16 pm
  #1506  
 
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AA eVIP upgrade priority

If an EXP with four family members (general member) booked on the same itinerary, and applied eVIP/SWU for all passengers, how does this work?

1. Will all passengers have the same priority as EXP? or EXP will be downgraded to the level of the rest 4 passengers?

2. If there are 1 or 2 upgrade seats open, will AA upgrade a portion of the itinerary? or skip this itinerary to look for the next party of 1 or 2 in the queue?
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Old Dec 9, 2012, 11:52 pm
  #1507  
 
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1. Yes - same priority
2. Unfortunately, the group of 4 will get skipped.

I have this same issue on an upcoming flight on Sunday. My gf and I are on the same PNR and awaiting SWU upgrades. I also have my friend on the same flight upgraded on the waitlist with an SWU. If only one seat opens up, he'll likely get it. Although, in this case, if this happens, my friend and my gf can sit in economy and I'll take the biz class seat since they're my SWUs.
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Old Dec 10, 2012, 4:02 am
  #1508  
 
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Originally Posted by brp
The belief (and this is based on the way things had worked in the past, and may still....but I can't confirm) is that it doesn't matter which SWUs you attach to the reservation. As long as it confirms the SWU use prior to the expiration, the "system" will pull the old ones automatically.
Thanks. I called back the day I crossed 100k and they applied the upgrades without any issue; the system (or people) pulled the ones expiring this year.
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Old Dec 10, 2012, 7:15 pm
  #1509  
 
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Can you spilt the PNR and won't they be able to use your EVips if the upgrade becomes available?
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Old Dec 10, 2012, 8:10 pm
  #1510  
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Originally Posted by krazieman
1. Yes - same priority
2. Unfortunately, the group of 4 will get skipped.

I have this same issue on an upcoming flight on Sunday. My gf and I are on the same PNR and awaiting SWU upgrades. I also have my friend on the same flight upgraded on the waitlist with an SWU. If only one seat opens up, he'll likely get it. Although, in this case, if this happens, my friend and my gf can sit in economy and I'll take the biz class seat since they're my SWUs.
May be your soon to be ex-girlfriend if you slide her to the back of the plane and sit up front....
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Old Dec 10, 2012, 8:29 pm
  #1511  
 
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Originally Posted by danville 1K
May be your soon to be ex-girlfriend if you slide her to the back of the plane and sit up front....
Yup. And your friend might gain a girlfriend.
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Old Dec 11, 2012, 3:35 am
  #1512  
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Originally Posted by epicurus
If an EXP with four family members (general member) booked on the same itinerary, and applied eVIP/SWU for all passengers, how does this work?
As one of the busier fora on FlyerTalk, there are some questions that do come up with regularity, so we maintain consolidated threads for some of these more common topics. I've gone ahead and merged your question into the consolidated thread on this topic.

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Old Dec 11, 2012, 6:44 pm
  #1513  
 
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Okay, need to complain about IM on an upcoming flight:

12/15/12 BCN-JFK

About 80 hours out at the moment of posting.

Revenue availability:

J7 R7 D7 I7 Y7 B7 H7 K7 M7 L7 V7 G3 S0 N0 O0 Q0

Seat map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjl1n1ygap...aa_bcn_jfk.png

The seat map in business has not moved at all for the past week and a half +. Been C0 consistently though. EXP agents tell me it looks "really good", but I would prefer a bird in the hand at this point!!
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Old Dec 12, 2012, 9:41 am
  #1514  
 
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Reservation Details (seats & flights) no longer visible with SWU pending

Hi,

*UPDATE*

***I'm leaving my post up just in case anyone has this happen to them in the future, but about 30 minutes after checking in, I checked my reservation again and the entire trip is upgraded. I wonder if there was some glitch in the processing of the upgrades that caused the reservation details to disappear for at least 6 hours??*** Original post follows.


I searched through the old thread and this one, perhaps I missed my answer, but I'm flying tomorrow on a domestic leg followed by a transatlantic leg. I am on the waitlist for a SWU. EF shows no J seats for sale (there were at least 5 available yesterday, I suspect they got snapped up or perhaps there is something else going on that only revenue management can explain - coach is showing 7's across the board so it's not an overbooking situation) and C is naturally currently 0. There are at least 7 J seats available on the seatmap but I know that is not an accurate predictor of availability. I also set an EF alert to let me know if C inventory ever became C1 or more, and never received an alert.

My SWU request is for both the outbound and inbound transatlantic legs, both are on the waitlist, and both have requests for upgrades on the domestic attached segments currently contingent upon the transatlantic portions of the trip being upgraded. The return leg is from CDG and has also required authorization from me for AA to charge me for the French upgrade tax, contingent upon the upgrade actually happening. So there are a number of working parts to this upgrade request.

Sometime within a few minutes to an hour after I made the upgrade request I played around with my seats on AA.com -- had no problem accessing the reservation or the seating choices. When checking out EF this morning, I noticed a more desirable coach (MCE) seat became available and I wanted to change seats; I went to AA.com and while the reservation showed up in my list of reservations, I can't see the flights or subsequently the seating choices. I called reservations and they said there's nothing wrong with my reservation and that the upgrade is pending but has not gone through and they referred me to web services who said that this kind of thing is normal when waiting for a SWU. They also said I would not be able to check in on the web and I'd have to do it at the airport, unless I wanted to be transferred to another agent to have the SWU waitlist request removed from my reservation. Naturally I did not want the waitlist request removed.

It is now just under 24 hours in advance of my first flight and I went ahead and checked in, even though the web services agent said I wouldn't be able to do so.

Questions:
1) Is it normal for all the details of the reservation to disappear when using a SWU? In the past when I've been on the waitlist for mileage+copay upgrades, this never happened.

2) Did I screw anything up by checking in? Could I have inadvertently removed myself from the waitlist by doing so? The web services guy seemed to think I wouldn't be able to check in, but he was wrong. Or did I misunderstand him and perhaps he actually meant that if I checked in I would be removed from the waitlist? I've never heard that before so I don't think that's what he meant.

3) is there a possibility that the system actually tried to upgrade me but it's hung up somewhere? I would normally just trust the system but in the past (at least 3 times) I've noticed EF showing C1 but my waitlisted miles+$ upgrade didn't automatically happen, requiring that I call in to ask for it to be manually processed. It doesn't appear that this is the case in this instance but I wonder if something else is going on given the invisibility of my trip details. I also tried to email myself my itinerary and AA.com also spit out an error when I tried to do that.

I don't really want to call again and waste another agents time so I figured I'd see if anyone had experienced these issues before and see if anyone has advice about what exactly I should ask for if I do call again.

Thanks
-z

Last edited by zski1; Dec 12, 2012 at 10:01 am Reason: Upgrades cleared
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Old Dec 19, 2012, 1:24 pm
  #1515  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
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Wink Red Eye on Feb. 28th - which bucket of SWUs will they pull from?

I am taking the SFO-MIA red eye on Feb. 28th (arriving MIA March 1st). I applied a SWU for that flight, which was confirmed. I have 4 SWUs expiring on Feb. 28th, 2013 and all 8 that expire on Feb. 28th, 2014. Which lot will they pull from? I checked my balance after confirming the SWU and it has not changed for either bucket yet.

Note this language from the aa.com SWU FAQs:
Q: How long are my systemwide upgrades valid?
A: Upgrades that were earned based on your 2011 flight activity are valid through February 28, 2013. Upgrades earned based on your 2012 flight activity are valid through February 28, 2014. So, the earlier in the year that you qualify or requalify for Executive Platinum membership, the longer you will have to use your systemwide upgrades. All travel using a systemwide upgrade must be completed by the expiration date. Upgrades will expire at 12:00 midnight (CT) on the date shown.

Based on the last two sentances, they could pull it from my new SWUs since my travel is technically not complete until March 1st.

Any experience with this? I would hate to be using a new one, when I have plenty of SWUs that are valid through Feb. 28th, 2013.
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