You must call. C availability has to be there.

I book online and immediately call to confirm the upgrade -- that way if the C space disappears before the phone agent locks it in, I'm still within the 24-hour grace period to cancel & refund the tickets. (This works fine, of course, unless I happen to be looking for airfares when the Meeting Services desk is closed.)

You can also do 24-hour hold, and then immediately telephone Meeting Services. Many times, they can get the ticket price even cheaper.

I tried using upgrade certificates for tickets from PHL to DFW but when I called reservations, the difference between the upfared economy ticket and the first-class ticket was only $30, which doesn't seem worth it. Should I expect more of a difference than that when calling Meeting Services?

I had a flight booked in S through work. When I called to upfare it to an upgradeable fare so I could use my BXP1 the agent told me that first was even cheaper (I class). $62 to upfare straight into F vs. $120+ to upfare to an upgradeable economy ticket. Go figure.

I tend to scope out the fares on Google Flights and/or use ITA Matrix before using a BXP1. On flights where the delta between discount first and discount economy is the standard $60ish per 500-mile increment, I would never burn a BXP1. It's where the difference is hundreds (or a transcon -- I tend to use these on JFK--SFO/LAX, etc.) that these are useful. Or I suppose in cases where I have to buy a short-notice high-dollar coach ticket, odds are it's going to be in V/G/L or higher so I'll burn a BXP1 on those.

In some cases, yes, the V/G/L fare is going to be substantially higher than the cheap N/O/Q/S fare, and perhaps higher than discount first. So obviously I wouldn't burn a BXP1 there.

I have never used business extra before: first redemption :)

I got a BXP1 certificate by mail. Domestic upgrade certificate. I purchased a ticket that happens to be an acceptable fare class, rarely happens for me.

I called business services there was no space on my flight. Can they waitlist me? Additionally i am also platinum, so should i request the 500 mile upgrade and they try to use that if it clears? Flight is in a few days (thursday) in case that makes a difference.

Yes, Meeting Services can waitlist you for C (the bucket for instrument upgrades), but the waitlist is known to be a clunky process that doesn't necessarily clear you automatically once C space opens. You can also request a 500-mile upgrade, which clears into R. C space (visible on EF) is typically released ahead of R space (not visible on EF; you'll only know it's released if you or others clear 500-mile upgrades), but you never know. If you have an EF subscription, set an alert for C space on your flight and be ready to call Meeting Services to manually clear the waitlist if and when the alert fires.

There's also J to F upgrades possible with BXP1, just saying. Any J ticket works, even I. For trans cons.

Quick point of clarification here - I can call the EXP line to apply a BXP1 right? Not just meeting services?

Searching for biz extra inventory
 

I'm sure this is a duplicate question but I couldn't find a post related to this. Is there any way to search an entire month for U inventory? On ExpertFlyer I have to go day by day...which is quite annoying.

Also, I first searched the AA website for mile saver business from LAX > SYD. I found Feb 4 and Feb 27 (return). I searched ExpertFlyer for those dates and it returns zero U inventory. How is this possible?

PS: I'm trying to redeem the BX9B or BX9C biz extra certificate. Thank you for the help!

No, has to be meeting services in my experience.

You can use the 30-day [Power Search] function in the KVS Tool.

When I am requesting credit for a past flight of one of my employees, are the 'Request Date From’ and the ‘Request Date To’ the flight dates? In other words, if I have a flight to credit that left 10JAN and returned 17JAN, I would enter 10Jan as the first date and 17Jan as the second date? And a one way would get the same date?

Is it possible to use 2 BXP1 certificates to go from coach-business and business to first on a JFK-LAX transcon, if there is C and A space available?