Class of Service Bonus
 

I just had a very 'interesting' conversation with AA regarding COS bonuses. I recently had a paid-first class flight STL-ORD. The flight posted as 675 miles - the same as the Y class flight I had ORD-STL. I asked why. Here is AA's answer:

For the F flight:
258 - Flight miles
129 - COS bonus
113 - top up to 500 miles
125 - AA Gold bonus

For the Y flight:
258 - Flight miles
242 - top up to 500 miles
125 - AA Gold bonus

So, in effect, there is NO class of service bonus for flights less than 500 miles.

How do the other airlines compare?

Cheers,

'toad

With AC, class of service comes after the minimum. In fact, we never see a topup. Flights under 250 appears as 250, flights b/w 251 and 500 appear as 500.

J on short flights is 313 or 625 (as appropriate). AC doesn't have F, but UA flights in F under 500 miles credit with AC as 750

You can get more than the normal miles with elite bonus for flights less than 500 miles. This happens if say the flight is 444 miles. Than the "F" class bonus would be 222 miles for a total of 666 miles. The elite bonus for Platinum would be 556 for a total of 1166 instead of 1000 miles for coach.

Minimum miles for TWA Elites is 1000 "actual" miles. Elite 1 bonus mileage is 50%, and FC bonus is 50%. I haven't had to fly in paid FC for a long time, due to the free upgrades, but the I believe those miles are applied to the minimum as well. So, for a flight like STL-ORD, it would be 1000 "actual" miles towards status, 500 bonus miles for Elite 1, and 500 bonus miles for FC, plus "Fare Reward" miles for your FC fare, so probably close to 2500 miles per segment.