Questions and Answers

Quick question regarding fees to use miles:

Lifetime gold AA. I am looking to upgrade ORD-LHR and MAN-ORD on AA. Two passengers. AA wants 50K miles and 700USD *each way* (thats upgrading both of us, 1400 USD total for the priviledge of upgrading with miles).

Is there any way around this? This seems awfully steep. In the past, I’ve waited until the day of the flight and asked at the airport and its been cheaper (perhaps because of full flights and they wanted to move folks to business to accomodate more coach passengers). I’m not worried about the miles, but the fees seem ridiculous.

I suspect I know what the answer is, but I have to ask.

EDIT: I should add – I did look at using miles to go one way and pay to come back. The one way ticket was more than the return.

There is no way around this, these are from the upgrade chart published by AA. You can wait for day of departure paid upgrades but that’s not guaranteed to have availability either.

Have you looked at buying round trip business class tickets?

[QUOTE=”Have you looked at buying round trip business class tickets?”[/QUOTE]

I did, actually, and they were well more than what we paid for two tickets, even with the 1400 added.

Like I said originally, I am pretty sure I am going to hear exactly what you told me from anyone else that may reply (thank you, BTW). Its just frustrating.

Upgrades with US carriers are stupid these days, really.

Next time it might make sense to look at buying the miles for the return — it doesn’t make sense, but that’s often more cost effective than the upgrade shenanigans.

[QUOTE=”Tiffany, post: 26849, member: 7″]Upgrades with US carriers are stupid these days, really.[/QUOTE]

That is no joke. If you dig on the AA website, there is an additional $75 “processing fee” added on top of the $350 – unless you have status. Hmmm…this leads me to a new topic of discussion for another post.

Again, thanks for your inputs, all.

Really?! That’s ridiculous. I upgraded a flight late last year with cash and miles and was not charged this extra $75 fee though – is it new? I didnt have status, nor did the the person who’s miles I used.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 26925, member: 29″]Really?! That’s ridiculous. I upgraded a flight late last year with cash and miles and was not charged this extra $75 fee though – is it new? I didnt have status, nor did the the person who’s miles I used.[/QUOTE]

I would agree wholeheartedly. But it is listed on AA’s website:

[URL]https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/redeem/award-travel/upgrade-with-miles.jsp[/URL]

The section it is listed in is called AAdvantage award processing, in that link above. It apparently applies to upgrades requested inside of 21 days of departure. Tiffany, if you are following this thread – am I reading this correctly?

Ah. There was upgrade space a few months out from my departure so that’s why I wasn’t hit with that fee