Mileage Timing
 

Hi! So I have a flight tomorrow from NY to MCO, and I'm currently 384 miles short of Elite 20k. I paid for a carry on for my outbound. What I'm trying to understand is will I be Elite 20k for my return flight?

Outbound: December 29th
Return: January 4th

Each leg is around 1,000 miles so that shouldn't be an issue. Just not sure if they wait until the full R/T is completed before putting the miles onto my account.

Anyone have experience with this?

Thank you all in advance!

By the way, reason I'm asking is because the world class customer service chat folks told me that a "flight" is when I complete the full roundtrip. And so it wouldn't appear until AFTER January 4th, which sounds totally suspect and unreliable.

It all depends on when your miles post. Usually, when I fly, my miles post right after my flight lands. Sometimes it posts the next day. Whenever your miles post (as long as it's before the 31st of this year) you should be able to use your elite 20k status. I update the second leg of a RT trip flight all the time so you should be able to as well.

Assuming your miles posted correctly and you hit 20k, you technically have the free carry on benefit... but you still won't be able to add the carry on for free online, because for whatever reason your benefits are tied to your status at the time of booking. You'll need to convince a chat agent or someone at the airport to add it for you manually.

My flights have always posted almost immediately after I've taken the flight. It has never waited for round trip to.be completed. So what ended up happening?