American Airlines sells first class upgrades for as little as $40. If you buy a coach ticket, they may offer first class to you for less than the current price of first class. If you don’t buy, and the flight doesn’t look like it’ll sell out up front, the price may drop even further. I’ve seen American offer $40 upgrades.
Now, when they’re offering first class for $40 I might get an upgrade with my status. But I might not! They’re trying to sell this to every passenger on the plane. They’d rather take $40 from a once a year passenger than reward a $30,000 or $50,000 a year customer with the seat for free.
But something that many people don’t consider about these upgrades is that they are completely non-refundable. If you cancel your ticket, there’s no change fees on most fares. You’ll get a trip credit for the cost of the ticket, that you can apply to a new ticket later.
The upgrade? That cost is lost. And it’s a reason to consider not buying one!
American Airlines knows this. They even published a policy that they’d give you a credit for the upgrade. But they rolled the policy back, promising to make this change in the future instead.
Eliminating change fees on fares other than basic economy is one of the biggest reason to spend more money and avoid basic economy.
Offering travel credit gives you confidence in purchasing tickets. There’s little reason not to give them your money, as long as you’ll use the credit within a year.
Likewise, offering credit for a cancelled upgrade makes it easier to buy the upgrade. That in turn means more revenue for the airline, as well as greater flexibility for the customer. Hopefully we’ll see a return of this new policy soon.
Update: credits for cancelled instant upgrades have been reinstated:
United Airlines paid upgrades have had this policy for a long while. If you change or cancel your ticket, the segment upgrade money you paid is completely lost. That’s why if I want to upgrade to first class I call and pay the difference to buy up.to first class rather than buy segment upgrades. It’s also usually cheaper that way.
Agreed, Gary. Shame on American Airlines for rolling the policy back. If you paid for it, but they don’t provide it; refund or credit. It’s simple. This ‘bait and switch’ is absurd, and is why we need robust ‘air passenger rights legislation’ in the USA, so that these companies cannot literally steal from people. This is not just a matter of ‘reading the fine print’ or ‘buyer beware’ it’s false marketing. It’s theft.
I’m a bit confused. I’ve been told multiple times that if I cancel a flight or need to make a change I will get a flight credit for the unused upgrade. One area that is very fuzzy is how cash upgrades are treated on involuntary changes due to irregular operations. For the most part if there’s an open premium seat I’ve been confirmed right away into that seat as if I had purchased a premium seat from the start. There have been times in which I’m told that I would have to go back on the upgrade list and take my changes there but if I end up in coach I would get a flight credit.
I have found as an AA CK usually the former happens. Also, seems to depend on the agent, whether at the Admirals Club or on the phone that you get.
@Andrew — Just because United also does a bad, greedy, anti-consumer thing doesn’t mean American (or Delta, or jetBlue, or Spirit needs to.) It’s the ole ‘if your friend jumps off a bridge’ thing.
In my experience, I get a refund if I apply for it on the cost of the upgrade if the ticket isn’t used. Not sure if that has just changed?
Wasn’t aware of this on AA’s part. I believe DL does refund ancillaries (including upsells) when a flight is changed/cancelled.
This is wrong Gary. I had an AA flight (on miles) and paid for upgrade. Had to cancel since plans changed. Got miles refunded along with 5.60 security fee. The approximate $100 I paid for the upgrade was given to me as a credit to be applied against future travel. Get your info correct please!
“They’d rather take $40 from a once a year passenger than reward a $30,000 or $50,000 a year customer with the seat for free.”
@Gary — it’s actually worse than that because you’ve ALREADY PAID for the coach seat. They’d rather take $40 from a once a year passenger than pass on $40 to give you the upgrade.
AA has put a value on your 5-figure annual loyalty, and it’s less than $40.
I did not know this was possibly a thing, thanks for the PSA. I saw a “VFTW-made-famous” $49 Delta first class upgrade for one of my flights later this week so I upgraded. I don’t currently have any intention to cancel but it sounds like Delta is one of those that will indeed give you back credit for it so that would be nice regardless.
Upsells should be refunded if not used. Unless they allow us to use credits for upgrades, which they don’t allow.
Wait. I don’t understand. Do you or don’t you get a trip credit for your instant upgrade if you cancel or change your plans?
@L737 — Epic! Enjoy! Keep Climbing! 100 more years! Let them eat… Biscoff!
As someone that buys upgrade on AA the number of $40 (or thereabouts) upgrades is really limited. Your talking about sub 200 mile short routes like PHX/TUS, CLT/RDU, MIA/ORD. Is $40 worth a couple of free beverages, a pack of nuts and the comfort of a first class seat for 60 to 75 minutes when you consider boarding, taxi and flight time? And you might not get a drink in air or the nuts.
@1990 — Nom nom! It was a very thoughtful and elevated offer so I had to take it 🙂
@George Nathan Romey… if it’s on American Airlines… you can always get ‘nuts’… *wink*
@L737 — So, you did ‘please consider’ after all… @Matt! We miss you!
I’ve bought up a few in the $100-120 range for a 2 hour flight with a meal. When I’ve canceled, I’ve had to manually fill out the refund request form but gotten a trip credit usually within a day.
Though funny on the really short flights…. In the last couple weeks, I flew on an American Eagle flight round trip that was about a 40 minute flight out of DFW. I did it mainly to see a new airport. I got off the plane, went outside, came back, got back on the same plane. AA was selling the cheap $40-50 upgrades. I got mine for free from status. There was a crew change at the out station. Funny on the flight TO, the F/As were great… pre-departure drinks, address by name, in the air both F/A on the E-170 did a full drink service, even came and poured out the rest of the can in my glass, offered nuts, etc. On the return? The Captain announced before door closure that “the crew who brought this plane in said there’s a lot of turbulence so I’ve told the flight attendants to stay seated the whole flight.” We got offered pre-departure cups of water from a tray. In the air? Nothing. Seat belt sign even came off for 10 minutes. F/As didn’t get up.
Gotta love a good lie….
@NedsKid — Wow. It really is a game of roulette up there, isn’t it. Hope the new airport was worth the day-trip!
@L737 those still elude me. Last week I was offered an upgrade to first class from MSP to ATL for $750 lol.
Do I have to get on some kind of Gary’s friends and family list?
@IsaacM — Maybe there’s a secret AI algorithm that is targeting regular visitors to the site so you may also see one soon haha
This article is inaccurate. Here are the current refundability terms as of today:
“If you cancel or change your trip and your upgrade was purchased with a credit or debit card, you will receive a Trip Credit for the value of your upgrade.
If you cancel or change your trip and your upgrade was purchased with AAdvantage® miles, the miles will be deposited back into your AAdvantage® account.”
This is the laziest rage bait piece. If they actually checked their sources (aka their dated Webref screenshot), they would have seen that it the trip credit policy was reinstated days later and NOT posted this inflammatory, misinforming article. Guess Gary didn’t want to actually fact check and write a real piece.
You get a Trip Credit. If you are a “$30,000-$50,000” customer of AA, what’s the problem…you won’t be using it in a year? Perhaps the $30-50k isn’t your money?