American Airlines will let you confirm an upgrade at booking or any time before travel using miles (plus a cash co-pay) or systemwide upgrades (which are a choice benefit for Platinum Pro elite members and above, and given out to million milers upon qualification).
However the airline is super stingy with this space, even on flights that are completely empty and likely to remain so. But a glitch is giving away upgrades to customers that American Airlines didn’t intend to offer.
I often will write about international business class saver award and upgrade space when it’s available on American Airlines flights, because it’s a rarity – and has been largely since US Airways management took over.
Recently there’s been a glitch, as reported in an internal memo, where passengers have been accidentally having their upgrades confirmed immediately upon being placed onto upgrade wait lists.
The great news is that when this happens, customers are being allowed to keep the upgrade. The airline is working to fix the glitch of course.
Here’s the internal message to agents:
It’s unclear what is triggering the glitch, how often it is happening, or when the error will be resolved.
AMAZING. Thank you! Just called in to waitlist a JFK-DEL flight that didn’t have availability and it cleared instantly.
Maybe, like other airline mistakes, they will honor it.
Imagine: reconfigured AA metal that had nothing but “first” seats… that would be designed to be on-par with Emirates Economy Premium, and not what AA calls “first” in domestic crafts now.
One can always dream… 🙂
Operator error…..
Just worked for me too! Thanks, Gary!
Can you waitlist a flight on hold?
Finally a change we can really like.
Tried a BXP1 businessextraa upgrade and it did not confirm
Just got off the phone with AAdvantage and the agent was not able to waitlist. She got the help desk on the line and they were able to manually add the waitlist. So far, it has not gone through, so guessing this might be dead.
Did anyone have waitlisted SWUs clear? I have DFW-MAD waitlisted but nothing unfortunately
It just worked for me. I called earlier today and took my SWU off a reservation to OGG. Just called back and added it again and it cleared immediately. The agent said it was the second time she’d seen that happen today. Thank you!
Damn/ booked a trip routing through JFK to confirm the upgrade at booking. Would have preferred a direct flight, tempted to cancel and retry but worried if it doesn’t clear I might be stuck with no upgrade.
This is customer friendly. Someone needs to be fired!
Immediately!!!
So I just did it 10 minutes ago not sure how this works. Shows that my SWU has been requested but my itinerary is showing business with business seats selection. But my SWU status is still showing requested and I have not been charged for the upgrade. Anything I need to do? I see the bug report on PNR and reprocesses VCR have no idea what those means.