I meant the flight qualification for the bonus points.

Yeah that doesn't surprise me though.

I bought a non-refundable J ticket, then upgraded J->F using a BXP certificate immediately after booking. A few months later, I was involuntarily downgraded back to J due to an equipment swap (over a month before the flight). There are no other options available that week to fly in F.

Would I be entitled to a refund of the ticket, or just the BXP? The schedule change / refunds policy doesn't specify, leading me to believe it encompasses BXP and SWU confirmed upgrades: https://saleslink.aa.com/en-US/docum...40_Refunds.pdf

I would not have booked with AA in the first place if three-cabin F wasn't offered on the route.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...23916c368b.png

I think the equipment swap should be enough for a refund.

If intertantional, then yes. Spelled out somewhere in the rules, and posted somewhere in a Flyertalk thread.

If not international, I've still been sucessful in the past when 77W went to 757 (Nice P/E Y to crap Y)

Unfortunately this isn't international. It's transcontinental 3-cabin F (32B) to 2-cabin J (772).

Did you just file for your refund on prefunds.aa.com, or did you have to escalate? I was already turned down after submitting a request online.

I would have just called prior to canceling the ticket. International or not, AA phone reps *tend* to be pretty good, even these days, about refunds when involuntary changes occur that are not satisfactory to the passenger. YMMV.

Has AA done anything about extending expiration on Business Extra flight awards? Or is there a clever way to bump out the expiration date? I have a flight award that's scheduled to expire in a couple of months, and no plans to fly anytime soon, so I'd love to have that expiration date extended. If I can't get it extended, then I suppose I could book a flight way out into the future and then change that flight later. Any other suggestions?

I'd just cancel it and get a new one when you are ready. They already extended the expiration dates of points, and I don't think they stopped allowing free redeposits of awards yet.

<This works. You can also book other online awards and cancel much sooner as in 24hrs.

I hadn't seen that they were allowing free redeposits of awards. That'd be a perfect solution for my problem. Thanks for suggesting it.

Edit to add: Just called, and they redeposited the points without any fee and with zero hassle. Thanks again for the suggestion.

I received an email from AA last night they are extending expiration of Business Extra points by one year.

A few weeks ago, AA announced that points set to expire on 12.31.20 will now expire on 12.31.21.

Also, if you log into your business extra account, this will be reflected directly under the word "Messages" on your Account Activity screen.

Glad you got your notice....they started notifying many of us in September....post 1194 has first mention of it. Good move by AA.

Is it possible to use Business Extra points to u/g from W (paid premium economy) to C?

BXP2 using 1200 points?

Routing is SFO-DFW-PVG

Thanks

W is considered full-fare premium economy, though the T&C on AA's website say "The International One-Way Upgrade on a full fare is valid on Y and J inventory bookings only and must be confirmed after the ticket is issued." It can't hurt to call and ask though.

If you have normal AA miles, it's 15,000 RDMs to upgrade from full fare economy or premium economy to business, and that explicitly calls out Y and W fares.

Thanks for that. Yep, I have to decide if I'd rather spend 1200 BE points or 15,000 AA miles. Will probably go with miles since they're quicker to get and easier to use for u/g...wont have to go through BE desk.

To apply two BXP1 certificates on a two segment itinerary, eg: IAD-DFW-DEN - will the agent use married segment logic to find the space, or do they have to search segment by segment?

Upgrades are always segment by segment.

I have a BXP1 cert which expires next month. Today, I attempted to redeem the cert on a flight I have booked for February. Unlike SWUs, I was advised that BXP certs cannot be applied to flights past the expiration date. This was news to me.

Fortunately, the agent informed me that I could redeposit the unredeemed award online for no penalty which I successfully completed. 650 additional points are back in my account. :tu:

Sharing in case anyone else is in a similar predicament. My travels have been curtailed this year due to the pandemic so no way was I going to be able to redeem and utilize the award by the expiration date next month.

Is this page flame free? Wondering I can sign up the company I work for (top interior designer) and can I then include our company number on personal flights? Especially since I work from home and travel now? Are there any current promos or codes or referrals I should know about before signing us up? Sometimes the boss sends me to showrooms across the country and she flies to design client houses. We have anywhere from 2-20 flights a year really dependent on schedule. She ONLY flies first class.

Yes, you should sign your company up. You will receive a Business Extra number that all employees who fly should put in their AA profile.

hmmm I have 3900 points and im trying to decide which benefit to use my points on. International Upgrade or the AAdirmals Lounge.

How many are expiring this year?
You might be able to extend the expiring ones until next year, when you might earn enough for something better

everything is expanded to next year. Admirals is just something id considered paying for a few times and I use miles to upgrade internationally sometimes with copay. What would be better to save up for?

Unfortunately I wasn't able to sign up for Business Extra back in June when they were offering 2,000 points. The last three months the emails have been for 650 points again. Does everyone feel the 2,000 point offer was a freak one-off to try and get bookings during covid, or do offers more generous than 650 periodically pop up?

What offers?

American emails me every month offering complementary business extra points for opening an account and booking a flight. Back in June it was 2,000 points, advertised as enough to take a free flight. Now it is "only" 650 points, enough for an upgrade cert.

Should've taken AAdvantage of that 2000 point offer though. It's the max I've ever seen it. YMMV.

agreed. 600 or so sign up bonus points is typical. anything higher is rare so you should grab it next time you see one

The 2,000 point offer comes and goes although the terms vary. Never seen higher than 2,000 so next time jump on it.

I knew that was an exceptional offer, unfortunately back in June it wasn't as clear how low risk flying was so I wasn't going to be planning to fly in time to secure the free points.

I think I'll hold off for a bit and see if it comes back, 2,000 is a lot more than 650 and I still don't see myself doing a ton of flying in early 2021. Recently I have been booking through AAvacations, since first class flights are so inexpensive now, to get better EQD returns, and I understand special fares won't credit to Business Extra anyway.

IIRC though the 650 offer is easy and really no strings attached. You just get it signing up. The higher offers i thought require a certain amount of flying to happen in a time period and takes longer to get them. I don't think the 650 offer is bad, less risk in these times. I always find BE to be too generous a program i am afraid changes have to be coming soon. Hope im wrong

Options for Unused Award Segment
 

Last December, I redeemed a Plan Ahead Business Flight Award US-Europe (BX6B) for 7200 points and booked CDG-JFK/LGA-PHL-LHR

That same month, I flew the first segment CDG-JFK.

The return, LHR-PHL-LHR was ticketed for May 2020.

Prior to May, AA , rerouted my flight to LGA-MIA-LHR.

That flight with the new routing actually flew. But given all the country quarantines, my trip was now in vain.

Before the scheduled flight date , I called BusinessExtrAA and the agent offered to make a 1 time change.

Deciding not to waste that 1 change on uncertain plans, the agent offered to cancel my flight and hold the ticket value open. The agent said I needed to fly that remaining segment before 12/31/20.

Since nothings really changed quarantine-wise and current travel to Europe is not an option, before I call BusinessExtrAA again to deal with my unused return segment, I was hoping for any info on possible options or similar experiences?

Thanks

Are they still refunding awards with a subsequent 2 year extension on the points?

As a one-off, yes. Had a 2020 BE ticket from a 2019 award. Cancelled, then months later submitted it for refund at prefunds. Emailed asking for either the points or the certificate back, and got the points added manually, with a two year expiry. All this after I called and was told nope, you have to fly it or lose it.

People here had been reporting being able to cancel certificates (I believe that hadn't been redeemed for flights yet) online with no fuss and getting the points back. I'm trying to figure out if that's still possible.

My case was only exceptional because I got a refund on a ticket from a certificate from points expiring 2018. I suspect returning an unexpired certificate is no big deal.

Cool, thanks. I'm hoping someone else will come along with a recent DP.

Are you on a 1099 basis? If so, I would sign yourself up and then use YOUR BE number for everyone's flights. Better that you receive the points.

we have a small family company and all the extended family put the BE number on the AA flights. In return I gift them Gold or AC membership, typically. It works out.