Upgrades are tough out there. First class doesn’t cost as much as it used to when airlines sold only about 10% of the seats up front. Planes are full and plenty of people have status. They’re more likely to pay for first class outright. And airlines sell first class upgrades aggressively. There are far fewer leftover seats available complimentary to those with airline status.
Now, at least, American Airlines will reward you when you buy a coach ticket and take their paid offer for an upgrade.
When I was an American Airlines ConciergeKey member, my upgrade percentage was good but not great. I was at the top of the upgrade list, but there were often no seats left to upgrade into! Deadheading pilots now have upgrade priority over customers at the airport. American doesn’t have enough first class seats, especially on their Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft, or enough business class seats on their Boeing 787 aircraft.
And when they will sell domestic upgrades for as little as $40, coach passengers will frequently pay to move up.
The downside to these upgrade offers is that they did not earn miles or credit towards status.
- No ticket number is generated for the purchase
- So there was no ready-made system for tracking the purchases and awarding miles
- As a result, they needed to make IT investments to put the earning in place
American Airlines promised back in January that this would change for 2024. It’s finally here.
AAdvantage now awards miles and loyalty points at the same rate as purchased ticket for cabin buy up offers. A paid first class upgrade earns 5 AAdvantage miles per dollar, plus status bonuses, so up to 11 miles per dollar. And that’s apart from the miles you earn paying with your credit card.
This makes buy up offers more attractive.
- If cheap buy ups are being offered, American likely believes they have plenty of seats that won’t be sold. So there’s actually a decent shot of the free upgrade.
- But the cheaper the upgrade, the more likely someone will take it – making the freebie less likely.
- If you’re aiming for status, at least getting rewarded for it and credit towards the coming year’s elite level takes away some of that sting.
- So maybe consider your status benefits as something other than the upgrades, and just pay up.
One strategy to consider if you’re set on not flying coach but want the best deal, now that most fares no longer have change fees?
- Pay for coach, wait to see if you are offered a discounted upgrade
- If you are, great, you’re getting a better deal on first class than if you’d purchased it outright initially
- If you aren’t, just cancel the flight and use the credit towards the purchase of first class
It’s possible that the price of first class could rise (or fall!) in the meantime, of course. But consider discounted buy up offers, since they’re available so frequently when the airline doesn’t think they’ll sell out their premium cabins organically.
American also told us in January, by the way, that they would introduce mileage redemption for access to Flagship First Class lounges (Miami, Dallas – Fort Worth) but that hasn’t happened yet. Seeing them move forward with one of the announcements gets me excited for the remaining unfilled one, too.
Gary, this is twice in a week you have made a very misleading comment about AA pilots dead heading in F over paying customers. You keep leaving out the important part that AA is dead heading them TO WORK. Do you really want the pilot on your all night trans Atlantic flight sitting in a middle seat for 4 hours to JFK and then working your flight? I think not. AA has more than enough screwups to talk about but tell the whole story on the dead heading issue.
I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news? Of course, any spend with AA should earn miles and LPs. On the other hand, with folks chasing LPs, it will become more difficult now to receive a complimentary upgrade.
has AA shared if upgrades purchased prior to today for flights departing in the future will earn LPs or not? i haven’t seen anything state what the case will be in that circumstance
I would call this good news. But frame that in an environment where you can get enough LPs for status without actually flying. At least this is LP activity associated with flying.
@Eric – yes, previously purchased upgrades will start earning miles and loyalty points with travel that begins today
@Ben Rich – there was never a safety concern with pilots in coach versus first. Are you saying that APA pilots at American were unsafe in years past? And most of the actual deadheading isn’t prior to a transatlantic flight in any case. It’s usually moving them from their crew base to another domestic city to operate a domestic flight. (Since this isn’t commuting.) We’re talking about a domestic first seat versus domestic coach and they aren’t getting so much rest before that flight.
As far as ‘leaving something out’ no I did not, I wrote deadheading and I did not write commuting. What I wrote is 100% accurate.
Did you confirm with AA that these earn loyalty points and AAdvantage miles? The banner that pops up only days miles (though t&c on the website says earn both).
Maybe I’ve just been lucky but my wife and I have gotten upgrades together on 5/6 flights on American in the past month.
@Gary Leff: The T&C in the app state “Upgrades PURCHASED starting August 14, 2024 will earn. . .” Are you sure previously purchased upgrades will earn? As a programmer, the other interpretation seems more likely to have been implemented.
This is good news for me. Most of the time the offers are very reasonable but you do have to keep checking because an upgrade offer can go from $900 to $146 in a matter of hours. I have no issue paying for upgrades. The free upgrade is going to be much less frequent. Already I see upgrade lists rolling several pages and maybe if there’s a no show or misconnect number one and maybe number two get a battlefield upgrade. (Usually being dragged out of coach-assuming the gate agent even comes onboard to do so).
@LarryInNYC – i asked this specifically and was told “Yes. If you purchased before today but fly today or later, you’ll earn.”
@Brian – yes I did
I have recently been seeing the upgrade offers being more expensive than the price difference between main and first. I just paid 155 extra to buy a one way in first over what the main cabin cost. The upgrade offer from main was 291 for EACH leg of that journey. In fact, the tota lupgrade price for both legs was more the total price for first.
Moral: even if you only want to upgrade one leg, check the price difference just to switch to a first ticket – it might be even cheaper. The table when you go to change ticket makes it pretty easy.
@Steve, the pricing is all over the price with little rhyme or reason. I have an RDU-LAX flight booked where the upgrade offer is $1,637, while the price to buy first class outright is $774 (not the difference between main & first). But I’m still getting decent offers here and there as well on other routes.
GAry says: “So maybe consider your status benefits as something other than the upgrades.” Well, not much left, is there? Not for an EP, and certainly not for the other poor sods in steerage. It’s just a bunch of crap that AA is feeding us when we’re told about these 100-hour upgrades. Liars. Plain and simple, liars.
Gary – this is great news thanks!
With my BA status run jfk-lhr- cdg, I have a domestic den-ord-jfk-lax-den flight that I grabbed for 31k miles.
I was wondering if I could upgrade the 321T jfk-lax … as they are offering first for $800. (SYS UP was not offered).
If I bought that, it would earn more than13k loyalty points.
While not cheap, it would make paying for the pointy part of the plane seats a bit more rewarding.
Seriously, @Ben Rich, why is this suddenly a safety concern now? Planes weren’t falling out of the sky prior to the new contract being ratified that granted this new perk.
I’ve been an AAdvantage member since 1997 and an Executive Platinum for the better part of the last decade, but for this year I let it lapse down to Platinum Pro. (And it may even slide down to Platinum next year based on my American spend to-date.) I just don’t perceive the value for loyalty to be there any more.
Sure, you don’t need my business, I’m just one guy whining on the internet. But I hope you really feel your new contract perk is worth it, American’s brand degrades more and more every year, there’s not much consumer goodwill left, and this is costing you some portion of the little remaining.
I don’t know how AA pilot’s contract treats DEADHEADING (not commuting) but in my past life any time spent deadheading PRIOR to a trip was factored into your duty day limits if you were operating a flight following the deadhead. Consequently there should be no pilot fatigue concern.