One question I would ask is, if C space doesn't wind up opening up on your flight and your best bet is a gate upgrade, will the BXP1 still provide you higher priority than the free EXP upgrade? Or is your hope of effectively using the BXP1 dashed once the flight turns over to gate control?

Instrument upgrades have priority at the gate. If there are unsold seats you may find C availability is released before the gate actually starts working the list. I have received upgrade notifications while in the AC in time to enjoy the Flagship Lounge for 30 minutes before boarding using BXP1s.

Anyone know how the gold status business extra award works in practice? Does it artificially bump up the miles/EQDs to the gold level (for purposes of higher level elite tiers)? In other words, would they be able to qualify for platinum from the gold threshold, or is it like starting from scratch to get to platinum?

The reason why I am asking is because the person for whom I am gifting the gold status may be flying enough to get gold by the end of the year anyway.

Anything other than the gifted status has to be earned from scratch. For million milers, Gold status is granted annually--still have to start at zero to get to Platinum or higher, though.

Think of the gift as a facade over the organic earning process (although some might perceive their earned status as a facade too).

For flights upgraded using BXP1 upgrade redemption I'm going to be cancelling the flight most likely. Once canceled will the certificate automatically go back into the count, though show as redeemed? Meaning I'd have 1 year from when first redeemed to use, correct?

I believe I can also redeposit it back into my points. As an EXP I believe that it is free then to do that. But, what I'm wondering if I do that will the points used for that BXP1 then expire one year from when I redeemed it? If so I guess the only point of doing it is if I had another use for it, not to use for BXP1.

Thanks!

The Business Extra account is technically owned by your business (in whatever legal form it takes), not by any of the travelers or manager linked to the account. It's possible some courtesy might be extended to an EXP listed as the travel manager, but I suspect it's unlikely. I'd plan on just applying the certificate to an upgrade later on, or paying the Business Extra redeposit fee.

Being the 100% owner of a S corp and the travel manager I'm not sure that's my only option. I guess the key thing is if I am able to redeposit for no charge does that change the clock on when those 680 points will expire(or is it the same as when the certificate would?)

eh? just call them and they'll waive the fee if you're an EXP. i have myself listed as "owner" (which is true) and have never had a problem. but I also don't think the Meeting Services folks are being sticklers about whether you or the travel manager or someone else is the EXP.

Meeting Services is bad at booking awards and upgrades but they're pretty good about administering the program otherwise.

January points have posted - as expected, my BA tickets failed to post automatically. Again.

They might still be processing. My account has not yet been updated...we had a lot of AA flights in January (and only 1 BA flight), and no flights appear yet.

Do BXP1 clear in C?

When they clear, they clear in C inventory.

Unfortunately I received a flight change notice last week, seems that after late April AA is moving from 2 daily flights for SEA to JFK, 7:35AM and 11:15AM dept to just the 11:35AM flight and as I was on the earlier flight I was moved to the later flight (still in Y since I had not cleared the BXP1). It too showed 0 J seats assigned and was still 7s in all buckets, frankly I am surprised they removed the earlier flight as it was by far the better timed option and the times I've flown it quite full but :shrug:.
Given the schedule change was not ideal for me I took the option to refund the 200ish I paid AA and just booked a Mint flight for ~400 since if I have to leave later (the earliest Mint flight was 12:35 so not much later than the AA flight I was moved to) I figured it made sense to pay an extra $200 to save the BXP1 not have to gamble on the upgrade. I checked and AA J fare on the same flight was >$700 and that is on a domestic 737 that doesn't include a lie flat suite with a door so as much as I'd like to earn miles/EQMs and stay with AA it just doesn't make sense to do so in this case. The refund has been processed but that was all done via regular AA EXP reservations so my new question is: regarding the BXP1 cert previously applied to by reservation, do I need to call meeting services to refund it or is that automatic and I can just re-use the cert number in the future?