:confused: I never got an email about points rolling over :(

With maybe 5-10 minutes of learning curve, you can fashion a search on ITA Matrix that excludes B/N/O/Q/S fares and gives you the lowest resulting coach fare. (https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ -- but google around for bloggers' tutorials on how to use the routing & extension codes correctly)

You can then use bookwithmatrix.com to copy-paste the full resulting itinerary page and click through to book on AA.com

Also that seems high for coach flights, but I guess that's the price you pay for nonstop on a monopoly route... looks 2-3x the price of nonstops out of JFK.

Can I use a BXP1 on a ticket purchased through Amextravel? Seeing a fare there ~$100 lower than from AA. I would think so (and I’ve confirmed the relevant inventory is available) but wanted to confirm.

Edit: To answer my phone question, the answer is yes, since I just got off the phone with AA to confirm the upgrade. While I got a good deal through Amextravel for whatever reason - ended up saving closer to $200, somehow - I am already hoping that I don't have to deal with trying to change it, lol.

Surprisingly I just confirmed 4 seats both ways nonstop from PHX to MCO in May.

I'll be sad if I don't hit the $5k threshold this year...it will be close. These BXP1's can be real life savers : ).

I was just able to confirm three seats in business BOS-LAX in April, which is my best use ever of BXP1s. Not a single seat had been selected when I upgraded. Still looking for the way back.

I redeemed points for a plan ahead award in 2019 for a 2020 US-EU flight that got cancelled due to covid, moved to mid 2021 and that flight was also cancelled. The flight can be booked up until end of March 2022, but of course there has been very little U space for booking. Agent said that they could deposit the business extra points to my account and I could try and redeem them for plan ahead certificates instead.

If I redeposit the points into Business Extra, will they just be expired or will can I still redeem them for something else?

Points originally expired end of 2019.

Was able to use BXP1's to go from Business to First on LAX-BOS-LAX (321T aircraft), both for end of this month and both were available at time of request.

Anytime you redeposit an award the points should go back with a fresh expiration date

Thanks very helpful!

Guess Im out of luck. Business Extra refuses to redeposit the award as they say the points have expired and meeting services says there is nothing I can use my redeemed ticket for. So their position is that Im just out of luck and my 14400 points and flight will expire in March.

Do you have to complete travel by March or just book a new flight by March?

Complete travel by March. They said I could write in and try to ask to downgrade my flight from PlanAhead Europe to domestic/regional, but even then it would be very hard. Honestly never even knew downgrade was possible.

Edit: Reached a very nice agent who helped me change from Europe to a transcon. Not the most ideal, but at least I the points dont go to waste.

Slightly odd one for me this morning.
Found A space and called to clear an upgrade request. Agent told me that unless the system clears it A space doesn't mean an upgrade is available.
This hasn't been my experience, but she did say that it was a Sub-set of A used for upgrades via Business Extra, which rings a bell.
Could anyone confirm?
Thanks

Are you using EF with connecting flights? If so you likely have to search upgrades segment by segment to show accurate upgrade availability. A and C are used for rev codes now too IIRC.

This is accurate. It used to be that any A inventory would allow upgrades into it. Now, it is a subset of A available for upgrades. If using EF, you will need to make sure you search under the Awards and Upgrades tool, not the Flight Availability tool.

Here's a weird one: ticketed in paid business on a 3-class plane and did an SDC change to a later flight. Looked up the reservation on business.aa.com to try and waitlist a BXP1, but the site says my "reservation is already in highest operating cabin services". Don't care about the upgrade enough to bother with calling meeting services, but anyone else seen this happen?

I looked through posts over the last few months but still not sure of my question:
Can I redeposit BXP1s (well, yes, the site gives me the option) that were used with points set to expire on 12/31/21? I didn't get the targeted email that 2021 expiring points were extended to 12/31/22. I got as far as being able to select them and stopped short of confirming the redeposit because I don't want to lose them to retroactive expiration.

update: question answered in the FAQ on business Extra site. I used the return option in my account and redeposited 4 out of 6 BXP1 awards for no fee. They immediately updated my balance, and their value is now included in my expiring miles for 12/31/24

If you waitlist a business extra upgrade, does it not show up when you look at your reservation on AA.com/the app?

No it does not. I am not sure if it does show on the upgrade list the day of the flight

Just had the most amazingly positive experience from the team at JFK in respect to a JFK-SFO BXP1 award/
For some reason, despite checking, this had not been applied properly. I would say that the agent who had the bad luck to help me, spend an hour on the line to the helpdesk to resolve. It was a success in the end and I enjoyed 4A and got some sleep.
I supplied the little recognition certificates to the various agents involved but safe to say, they went well beyond what I expect these days and made me a very content passenger.

It does highlight the lack of transparency on the certs - it's hard to know whether you have been waitlisted properly for example. The lack of knowledge of AA agents is understandable.

Even better the phone agent cleared my waitlisted JFK-LHR to F, but am still waitlisted for the SFO-JFK!

I have a couple BXP1 I want to use on an upcoming work trip out west. Does it matter at all if I book my flights through a travel portal vs. directly on AA website? Should I still be able to call once ticketed to apply these rewards?

Shouldn't be a problem, but just make sure it is an upgradeable fare. Not all fares (B/N/O/Q/S I think) are upgradeable using a BXP1.

I've used a couple of BXP1 upgrades over the years and it works pretty well, no big issues (as long as the underlying fare class is appropriate). I had miles expiring in January so picked a PlanAAhead award (the Caribbean one, I think) so miles wouldn't expire, and now I'm trying to book a flight. It's ridiculous- there is scant availability, and the rare flights that qualify take over 16 hours and involve multiple legs and overnight layovers (when a one stop taking 5-6 hours is easily available paying cash). Am I doing something wrong, or is this truly a worthless award? Anyone have better luck with a different award type?

The issue is that any BE planAAhead award requires sAAver award space. AA is releasing less and less sAAver space (across all routes) in favor of the dynamically priced "web special" awards.

You would naturally have better luck with an AAnytime award, but of course that will cost twice the BE points.

Some might think it's a gamble but I've booked some horrible flights with multiple legs knowing that AA will change their schedule 8 times between when I booked it and the actual flight. Once they make a flight change you have a pretty good shot of coercing yourself onto a much better routing. Not fool proof but it is a decent strategy.

Does anyone know if redeeming Business Extra points for miles (100 BE Points for 600 miles) will be credited as Loyalty Points or bonus miles?

AA Business Extra Upgrades
 

I have never used any of my Business Extra points on AA. I have some questions on them...

I have an itinerary next month that I just booked. When I go to the AA Business Extra website to try and book upgrades I get "only available for waitlist request". If I even both to book this, am I likely to get the upgrades? Do they get pulled before regular free domestic or 500-mile domestic upgrades are available? There are 9 FC seats available on each of the two flights. The first flight has the waitlist option and the second flight says "not eligible for upgrade".

Or is it just a waste of my time and I have no chance of them going through? And I should only bother if they are able to be booked instantly after I book the itinerary? Can you find out before booking an itinerary if instant Business Extra upgrades are available on the flights you want?

Thanks for any help.

Business Extra upgrades pull from the exact same inventory as miles/copay or SWU upgrades (C for business, A for first). They can clear at anytime from booking right up until the flight time. Your chances of clearing are going to depend entirely on the route, time, day, etc.

If you subscribe to ExpertFlyer you can search flights with C & A upgrade availability.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...hread-106.html

Do I need to first "purchase" a 650 point upgrade cert from AA before I waitlist the Business Extra upgrade? The form is asking for an "Auth Number" which I assume is the number from the certificate?

As long as they clear after SWUs (and who's going to be using an SWU for an 1100 mile domestic flight) I'll go ahead and get one of the upgrade certs and apply it. We'll see if it clears.

Yes, you need to claim the award first before you can waitlist. Good luck!

I have booked two one-way domestic tickets for which I used the BXP1 upgrades. The flights are not until mid-July, but the upgrades already cleared (they cleared back in Feb). The FAQ section of the businessextra website is very vague about this, so I just want to triple-check my query with the hive mind before I proceed: I have had a change of plans and now need to cancel both tickets. I know I'll get a flight credit for use on AA.com for the coach fare that I paid, but will the BXP1 certificates return to my account, given they were already redeemed against a ticket yet the travel has not commenced? Does this happen automatically once I cancel the ticket on aa.com, or do I have to call meeting services after cancelling the upgraded tickets? Is there a fee (I know there would not be one had they not been applied, but the website is vague about BXP1s that have already been applied).

UPDATE: finally got through to meeting services and they were able to remove the BXP1s from the reservations (no cost) and re-active them so I can now cancel the reservations online.

Can I apply an upgrade to only one person on a reservation, or does it have to be both?

You can always upgrade just one person (whether using BE points or AA miles or SWU's etc.) but you will have to split the PNR.

3 people traveling on one PNR for a domestic flight. I called to apply 3 BXP1 upgrades and meeting services tells me they can apply the upgrades but they need to separate each passenger into his/her own record. MS insists multiple people can’t be upgraded in a single res. I have never heard of that (I understand that is true if pax are ticketed in different cabins). Is this true? I could have sworn I have used BXP1 certs to upgrade multiple passengers in a single res before.

Its true. I always have to split the reservation to apply the BXP1 upgrades.

Weird. Could have sworn I have done this with 2 pax before. Thanks!

Is there any advantage to waitlisting a BXP1 upgrade for someone who has status, assuming that C space will NOT open up before the regular upgrade windows?

Are BXP-1 upgrades next to useless? I had one waitlisted last week as no upgrades available when I made my booking a few months ago. There were quite a few FC seats available when I made the request. 2 days before departure there were still 2 FC seats showing as open.

My understanding of the BXP-1 is that they come before all of the complementary upgrades. And that it should have cleared way before complementary upgrades were opened up.

At the gate, I was 6th in line for an upgrade. I expect that was based on where I would have been as a Platinum for a complementary upgrade. The gate agent didn't seem to have a clue about the BXP-1. She said they were totally based on status, which I don't believe is true (meaning that an EXP getting a complementary upgrade would trump my BXP-1 as a Platinum)

If I ever try to use that BXP-1 that I still have, should I call before 100 hours out if there are still FC seats left and ask why I have not cleared? If so, would I want to call reservations or the Business Extra line? Or not even bother if it cannot be confirmed when I make my reservation?

They're definitely not useless however IME they can be a bit wonky with regards to waitlisting and clearing, sometimes they don't show up correctly or don't clear when space opens up, etc. I pretty much never waitlist for BXP1's but rather only use them when I can confirm the upgrade at booking.

But here your understanding is not correct. BXP1's require C space to clear (same as SWU or miles/copay upgrades) while complementary upgrades require R space. For flights with wide open business availability AA will typically release C space before R space (meaning the BXP1 would clear first) but there's definitely no hard and fast rule that a BXP1 will always come before a comp upgrade.

But it sounds like based on your position on the waitlist at the gate that the BXP1 wasn't waitlisted correctly (see above re: wonkyness).

Calling won't accomplish anything other than double checking that you are waitlisted correctly. But an agent won't be able to tell you anything else other than just "space isn't available yet".

BE upgrades are another area where ExpertFlyer really pays off, only apply the upgrades when space is available at booking, or set up alerts on a flight you're waitlisted on so that if C space opens up you can call Meeting Services and apply the BXP1 right away.