BA<->AA Reciprocal Upgrades

Old Sep 12, 2022, 1:47 pm
  #16  
 
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Originally Posted by orbitmic
Indeed, but bear in mind that of course, buckets' availability is all linked rather than compartimentalised. In other words, RM functions in such a way that effectively any seat filled in any class will affect availability in lower buckets but may also affect availability in higher buckets. An airline may perfectly decide to open a seat that will be available as I or U and close it in both I and U when it is purchased as either. In that sense, this may also result in I or A inventory being less easy to get despite the SWU users do not have access to it.
Absolutely, and I'm not going to argue with that at all.
Just looking at the routes I'm flying most of the time (JFK, MIA, LAX), it's usually the case that Z is entirely unavailable, whereas space in A is very common.
Of course that's the case because RM figured that they can sell tickets for cash and don't need to make seats available for redemption.
On those flights at least we wouldn't face any competition from the AA frequent flyers (trying to be an optimist here)
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Old Sep 12, 2022, 2:28 pm
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Good news for those of us Golds who live in US and can use AA for trips back to Blighty.

Now I'm looking at the small print for the catch..........
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Old Sep 12, 2022, 3:35 pm
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Originally Posted by Chiller3333
Absolutely, and I'm not going to argue with that at all.
Just looking at the routes I'm flying most of the time (JFK, MIA, LAX), it's usually the case that Z is entirely unavailable, whereas space in A is very common.
i agree A is fairly common still, though less than it used to be. But I can be pretty hard to get by these days. In fact I have experienced cases where it was literally unavailable for several weeks in a row despite booking a couple of months in advance. Id say thats the one I am more worried about.
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Old Sep 12, 2022, 11:36 pm
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Am I right in thinking that AA has two C buckets - one revenue and one upgrade?

These could be very useful for us, but definitely need to see how hard Revenue Management and competition make them to use (and whether BA charges the surcharge difference as they do for awards UUA). The AA equivalent thread has much bellyaching about surcharges, as usual - but I cant say Ive ever seen a single long-haul J seat on AA available for Avios.

Last edited by etiene; Sep 12, 2022 at 11:56 pm Reason: Clarification
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Old Sep 12, 2022, 11:43 pm
  #20  
 
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Originally Posted by etiene
Am I right in thinking that AA has two C buckets - one revenue and one upgrade?

These could be very useful for us, but definitely need to see how hard Revenue Management and competition make them to use (and whether BA charges the surcharge difference as they do for awards). The AA equivalent thread has much bellyaching about surcharges, as usual - but I cant say Ive ever seen a single long-haul J seat on AA available for Avios.
They do have two C buckets indeed and it can be very frustrating. I've recently experienced it trying to use an AS upgrade SWU on AA. EF was showing C3 on both the flights i wanted to upgrade, yet none was available to upgrade.
In international tickets, it seems that if C goes from 0 to a positive number, it is a true upgrade C. I wonder if one can call when that happens to do the upgrade with BA in particular if part of the itinerary has already been upgraded.
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 1:16 am
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Originally Posted by DeltaFlyingProf
They do have two C buckets indeed and it can be very frustrating. I've recently experienced it trying to use an AS upgrade SWU on AA. EF was showing C3 on both the flights i wanted to upgrade, yet none was available to upgrade.
In international tickets, it seems that if C goes from 0 to a positive number, it is a true upgrade C. I wonder if one can call when that happens to do the upgrade with BA in particular if part of the itinerary has already been upgraded.
Likewise for A buckets for AAs systemwide upgrades; two different buckets exist for c and A, so even if A or C are available to purchase they are not always available for using AAs systemwide upgrades.
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 1:54 am
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Originally Posted by loosehead
Good news for those of us Golds who live in US and can use AA for trips back to Blighty.

Now I'm looking at the small print for the catch..........
The catch is, it isn't for Golds. Just GGL.
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 1:57 am
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So for clarity (yes I know Im dumb), all BA gold customers are getting these but they can only be used on AA metal, not BA metal?
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 2:00 am
  #24  
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Originally Posted by andymcdonnell
So for clarity (yes I know Im dumb), all BA gold customers are getting these but they can only be used on AA metal, not BA metal?
No. GGL only. Stop believing rubbish written by bloggers who don't know what they are talking about.
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 2:09 am
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Ugh thought it was too good to be true
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 2:51 am
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Originally Posted by Raffles
The catch is, it isn't for Golds. Just GGL.
Hmmm... ok, that changes things quite a bit! So effectively, the OMAAT article is wrong, right?

Can you confirm who gets access to upgrades on BA on the AA side? Is it also only CK (which I guess is the equivalent) or is it a broader range? If the former, I am much less worried, if the latter, it would seem that BA have not done a great job negotiating?
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 3:03 am
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Originally Posted by orbitmic
Hmmm... ok, that changes things quite a bit! So effectively, the OMAAT article is wrong, right?

Can you confirm who gets access to upgrades on BA on the AA side? Is it also only CK (which I guess is the equivalent) or is it a broader range? If the former, I am much less worried, if the latter, it would seem that BA have not done a great job negotiating?
The page is live on the AA side - seems to be the same "SWU" stock as would apply to AA metal. It sounds like SWUs are one of a number of options chosen at EXP[?] level - so the latter I think.
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 3:05 am
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Saw this online, apparently leaked


saw this online, leaked apparently
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 3:22 am
  #29  
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Originally Posted by etiene
The page is live on the AA side - seems to be the same "SWU" stock as would apply to AA metal. It sounds like SWUs are one of a number of options chosen at EXP[?] level - so the latter I think.
Yep, looks like BA has not negotiated particularly well on behalf of their own frequent flyers at all. Only solace is that on AA, AAdv members get to use an SWU to upgrade all the way from Y to J whilst on BA that would be only Y to W (which incidentally we are seemingly not allowed on AA) or W to J, so hopefully, it will encourage them to fly AA metal rather than BA...
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Old Sep 13, 2022, 4:22 am
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is the TL;DR
  • If you booked with AA on AA stock, you can't use these. Only works on BA ticket stock.
  • These are probably just for GGL, but mistakenly says Gold
?
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