Questions and Answers

I’m incredibly confused and could use some help. I opened up a Citi Prestige two months ago and already have 86,000 TYP. My company pays for economy or economy plus travel, but I would like to use some points to upgrade to business class. I will do this consistently, but my first trip is SMF – DEN next week.

Here’s the question: Citi ThankYou Travel Center only lets you purchase the entire Business Class airfare using points. No partial cash and points to upgrade. The American Airlines upgrade grid shows 5,000 AA miles to upgrade from full fare Economy to Biz. ExpertFlyer says these Code A upgrade seats are available. What, if any, are my best options to just use my points to do this upgrade? Or should I just buy AA miles? (5,000 for $147).

Thanks, and help!

Citi ThankYou points cant be used to upgrade any flights. You’d [I]transfer[/I] the points to the airline’s own program and redeem for flights but as of now, AA isnt a transfer partner with Citi.

You also need AA miles to be able to upgrade flights, if there is availability. A cheap economy ticket requires 15k miles and $75 to upgrade. I dont think this is a good option for a flight that’s 900 miles and about 3 hours.

Full fare economy tickets require 5k miles to upgrade but full fare economy tickets are usually very expensive and not much cheaper than a paid domestic first class ticket. I’d rather just spring for a paid first ticket since you’d be earning more miles.

AA also sometimes offers paid upgrades at check in, it might be better to wait and take advantage of that instead.