I don't know if this is an AA policy but you have given me food (no pun intended) for thought and I will use your information in a letter I will send to AA. Sounds like some of you have flown AA overseas and you were bumped up to Business Class because of overcrowding and had no trouble because of a special meal you ordered. It just followed you. Please confirm for me if this was your exact situation. An upgrade on an unfilled flight won't count according to their reasoning. The more ammunition I have, the better.

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DtG

Ah, islandcub, my sentiments exactly (substituting UA for AC), and you put it far more entertainingly than I could. How much do you spend on Lactaid annually (I spend about three hundred on Trader Joe's brand, which I find work best and cost close to the least).

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Cheers
Michael *G

I buy the 40-tablet Lactaid Ultra packages, which normally cost around $23 CDN, including taxes. I go through about a box every three weeks to a month (because I love milk, cheese, ice cream, etc), so it's about $200-$250 US a year.

I've had cases where I've received operational upgrades and I was served the coach meal in business as well as cases where the FA tells me my special meal wasn't loaded and I choose from the business class menu -- which is no problem, as there is usually one vegeterian (pasta) dish on the business class menu.

On the other hand, I've been handed a business class boarding pass and had it snatched out of my hand after the special services agent (in FRA) noticed that I had a special meal. I told her that I would eat the coach meal and she told me that I would be eating it in coach.

The moral of the lesson if you want to increase your chances of an operational upgrade - don't order a special meal (and eat enough before the flight or bring some food along, just in case you don't get that upgrade and are stuck with a regular meal that you can't eat).

I always bring some food along anyway because I can't totally trust their special diabetic meals. But now, I have learned my lessen - even if it is sporadic, your experience confirms it could happen to anyone, and it does happen beyond my personal experience. Thanks for sharing your experience.

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DtG

Some useful information that you may have missed.

dGordon.

One of the reasons that I have heard given for operational upgrades being denied has been "insufficient catering". Usually, they do not like moving catering forward on European carriers, but there seems to be no hard and fast meal. I used to order Seafood option on flights as I found it was usually better and fresher, until the day that I was handed a Tuna Sandwich as the meal option on Delta TPA-JFK. I thought it was hilarious. The flight was shown as "Lunch" by the way!

Way back when, I ordered a special meal in coach (a diabetic meal, I am not diabetic but I thought it would be low carb -- which it wasn't) and got an upgrade. I think it was on America West and you could upgrade a cheap ticket without status at that time.

So then I hear my name mentioned and I am embarrassed because they have this "special" meal for me and I am in F and I didn't want the meal when I saw what it was. It took some convincing, but they would happily have served it to me in F, it seemed.

I NEVER order a special meal...However there is one exception:

Once a year, I fly from NKG-HKG on KA. Oddball, I know, it's Nanjing, China to Hong Kong on Dragonair.

Even in Business class, the food is bad out of Nanjing catering...So I learned a few years ago to order the Kosher meal--and I'm a goy--10 years of Catholic schooling.

The Kosher meal, coming out of Nanjing year in and year out is the best airline meal of my trip, at least better than any C class meal. And the flight attendants truly know how to serve it too...Although it doesn't matter to me personally, allowing me to open it from the mounds of shrink-wrap.

I assume the meal joins the aircraft in HKG or somewhere else and is on-board well in advance of my flight.

I was on a PHX-EWR flight on Continental, it was a completely full flight. A Silver Elite was moved up to F/C just before departure. Mr. Silver Elite decided that he'd rather have the regular F/C meal then the kosher special meal he had ordered. Since the flight was completely full someone in the back was going to get the Kosher meal, if Mr. S.E. had decided to stick with the meal he had ordered the flight would have been one meal short in coach since the airlines don't permit F/C meals to be served behind the curtain. You can see the complications that upgrades to coach passengers can create.

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Is it just me or does the quality and variety of special meals seem to have declined in recent years?

Djlawman

"Is it just me or does the quality and variety of special meals seem to have declined in recent years?"

Never having ordered a special meal I can't dispute the above comment. It would certainly apply to regular meals during my frequent flying days.

Probably the quality has declined, if for no other reason than that the types of special meals has skyrocketed. How can the airline kitchens do a good job with the proliferating types of special meals?

I haven't ordered a special meal since my original meal, but I haven't had the opportunity to be upgraded either. But I am in agreement, that the special meals are not better than the regular meals, and the diabetic meals are outright dangerous. They still don't "get it" - carbs are bad!! So, it is no great losse to "give up" special meals and have the opportunity for an upgrade.

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DtG