pubsmeister

Advice please- booked a flight from US to Cancun in June for 2 people, M class fare. I'm EP, so we're in Main Cabin Extra, but there are 6 available seats in First, and would like to upgrade into 2 of them. I have two BXP1 upgrade certs, and want to use them. When I try to do so on line I get the message that this upgrade is "not eligible." Any ideas? Was going to call but figured I would ask the gurus here first. Thanks.

JJeffrey

Just because there are seats still available for sale in first class does not mean that AA has made upgrade space available. Far from it.

Also, you don't say your exact routing, but BXP1's are valid for one segment only, so if you're connecting to get to CUN it could be confusing the system.

You can call Meeting Services to waitlist whatever segment you want to upgrade, although I've had mixed success with waitlisting BE upgrades. YMMV but I typically never waitlist BE upgrades any more, I only claim and use them if I can find confirmed upgrade space in advance.

Gunner14

If you booked Basic Economy or B, N, O, Q or S fare class you can't use BXP1.

boerne

This is what happens when you drop to PLT. I called the plt line this pm to add our BE number to our kids reservations. The agent who first answered admitted she had no idea what I was talking about. After 2 re routes I did get someone who answered my question.

ExPlatGSO

I've had several flights on my company's BE account post as "Agency Commission applied" underneath Reason for Disqualification. Why?

OneWorldSapphire

Our company purchased some flights (r/t NCL-LHR-LAX) and paid in GBP on AA's UK website. Mix of BA and AA metal, but on an AA ticket. The BE account number was added when booking the flights on AA's UK website, but none of them automatically tracked. I posted missing points queries for them, but they have all come back as 'fare type ineligible'. I've emailed them to look into it, but no reply. Are AA's own issued tickets, purchased directly from them on their own UK website, now ineligible?

ExPlatGSO

Good question. Let me know the outcome. How long has it been since you emailed BusinessExtra?

OneWorldSapphire

It's been a few days. I'm getting quite annoyed with them as of late. This would be a ridiculous thing to disqualify. I'll report back when I hear more.

Markie

There is a problem with BA passing flight information to AA - AA admit this and their system seem to just reject claims. In addition, the AA flights used to post but that seems to have stopped now.
The BA/AA interface, even with their own tickets is a mess now.
I'll work through a whole series of claims, again, next week.

OneWorldSapphire

how do you get them to award points? I filed missing point queries, which I assumed sent it for manual review, but all came back as “ineligible fare”. All were purchased directly on AA’s UK website.

Markie

I have given up for now. AA said keep raising requests, which they keep denying. I hope it just gets sorted and they post as they used to do.
May be worth dropping them a note to put it on record.

worldiswide

Some data points on redeeming a bxp3 (international discounted upgrade award) and ticketing. It took 4 calls over the last 2 days to find someone at meeting services or res that understood what needed to be done. Saw that there was (presumed) availability for an ORD-LHR upgrade in October and put reservation on hold. First call to reservations. We asked what fare class the the held res was in, and asked can you change the fare class to g. The agent had never heard of business extra and asked if it was an AA program. He changed the fare class, but did not price properly so it was not ticketable or viewable after the call. This morning called Meeting Services and a nice voice said, I am a new hire and I have never heard of this program. I am not trained in this. Could not find someone to assist. Called res again, who could see the res, see that it was ticketable, but also had never heard of Business Extra. She did however, say, I will find someone to help you who knows what to do. and... transferred us back to Meeting services to a wonderful experienced agent who was able to fix and price the needed fare class, ticket, confirm the availability of the upgrade and apply the award within 5 minutes. Redeeming was simple and immediate. It all worked out in the end but was interesting to be told by AA agents that they had never heard of this program. Not sure whether it being a secret/unknown program is good for those of us who use it or not.

Ross0

Sounds about right. Employees outside BE often don’t know squat about the program and in fact can’t do anything to a ticket that has a BE award in it. The BE agents are mostly clueless and often do things wrong. It’s unclear to me if it’s a systemic issue with BE agents themselves or if it’s a program flaw/issue (e.g., is the IT just broke?). Just last week I spent nearly 30 minutes on the phone with a BE agent who just didn’t understand what it meant to apply a BXP1 upgrade. I thought we finally got on the same page and he told me he secured the space and applied the upgrades. Despite me giving him the cert numbers twice and him confirming everything was all set, I got an email the next day from BE dept telling me I failed to provide cert/authorization numbers and my upgrades would soon be cancelled unless I called in immediately to fix.

Markie

Gate agents are no better in terms of knowledge. The number of times I have been asked if they have to charge me for a waitlisted upgrade are too numerous to mention. Recently though, my upgrades on the JFK-LAX/SFO routes tend to clear 24 hours before departure and so the agent doesn't need to do anything.

OneWorldSapphire

I finally received an email reply earlier this week, after I sent several follow ups. As a reminder, I purchased NCL-LHR-LAX r/t for two employees, using AA's UK website. Flights operated by both AA and BA, but an AA ticket and fare. I received 0 points. The agent said the fare was ineligible because it was a 'negotiated fare'. But this is not true because it was purchased directly from AA's website, and the same fare was the one being displayed to the general public. I replied to ask how it could have been so, given I just opened my browser and purchased what they were selling, but no reply for 5 days. This program really is deteriorating. It's so frustrating when they clearly do not know the answer and either a) just give inaccurate information to fob you off, or b) ignore you altogether.