I tried searching for this online and couldn't find the answer, so here it goes. If your EXP upgrade has not cleared 24 hours prior to departure do you usually do online check in or wait until the airport? I have had upgrades clear even four or five hours before my flight.and I wouldn't want the system to bypass me...
I think the advantage of waiting to check in at the airport (or online 1-2 hours before the flight), is that you have the ability to change your seat if your upgrade clears. If your upgrade clears and you are already checked in, you cannot change that seat online and have to wait for an agent at the airport to do it.
Ok, cool, because despite it not having cleared yet, I am pretty confident that it will sometime between now and the gate.
Juan there could be a glitch where a non status pax is offered to upgrade upon check in if the system thinks that there will be open seats up front. So by not checking in and being added to the airport upgrade list, the system doesn't intuitively know that you still want to be upgraded. I've noticed as of late that upgrades are clearing the morning of my flights. So my point may be moot. I still try to check in right before it goes to airport control if my upgrade still hasn't gone through though.
I have to disagree with your assessment. Even if you are not checked in, you are still on the upgrade list. There is no issue there. The "glitch" you are referring to still considers all individuals waiting for an upgrade whether they are checked in or not. Checking in does nothing to prevent the system from offering LFBU if it believes it can accommodate all elite requests, whether checked in or not, and still have seats left over.
I hear ya. I was just referring to AA's official response to this sort of scenerio on another site. I am by no means an expert. Just taking American Airlines advice.
I'm assuming you're referring to this post by AA on FT? LINK. That's still a different situation entirely. That warning is for AA's elite customers who purchase tickets and do not request upgrades at the time of purchase. As odd as it might seem to many AA elites on these message boards, there's a segment of AA elites who purchase tickets, do not request their upgrade, show up days/weeks/months later on the day of travel at the airport, check in for their flight, and only then do they notify AA they're interested in an upgrade. Since those elites only appear on the upgrade list a few hours before the flight when checking in, AA's system could have been selling LFBUs to non-elites since they don't figure into the calculation of how many seats remain vs. # of elite upgrades. So that's what AA meant by "Elite customers requesting an upgrade are advised to add their names to the upgrade waitlist as early as possible". It's not encouraging you to check in to your flight early, it's encouraging you to simply put in your request when you book your ticket vs. at the airport kiosk. Of course they could fix all of this by automatically putting upgrade requests in for EXPs when they purchase tickets, but hey, this current system is so old-fashioned and quaint, and it helps the rest of our upgrade chances when other EXPs forget to do their request.
That's it. With all the chatter about possible system glitch at the switch over to airport control, I used to add myself to the airport upgrade list at around 3 hours prior, if not already upgraded. But now when one checks in, AA automatically adds one to the Airport upgrade list. I think that makes this whole point moot. That's how I interprted it too, but not others in that thread. Peace
That's 100% correct. There's no "glitch" and as long as you got on an upgrade list, that's all one needs to do-- the system will NOT sell LFBUs if the upgrade list has members on it unless it determines it can safely do so. Yes, there will be extenuating circumstances, obviously, every now and then. But the "glitch" is FT urban legend.
FT urban legends are the core of FT's existence . I usually end up checking in the night before, I prefer to check in at home (but from a physical computer), then use my iPhone mobile boarding pass, mostly so I'm not concerned about Precheck. I'll usually reach the airport early enough to change seats if I get upgraded in the interim (not a concern this weekend, F0 already on BOTH flights when I booked 7 months in advance so I highly doubt anyone got a complimentary upgrade ahead of me! ).
Since I've never really had to wait very long for a kiosk at the airport, and am so anal I always get there early anyway, I have found myself using online check-in less and less. I sometimes am going to want to buy an Admirals Club day pass (at the kiosk), or a set of unreasonably priced "Mileage Multiplier" miles, or, I suppose, yes, wait for an uncleared upgrade, and prefer to do all that with one foul swoop. Found an interesting thing when declining to use online checking HNL-DFW-ICT last month. When I got to the kiosk, it wouldn't have anything to do with me. Took two separate agents to figure out why, and the second said, "oh, your onward flight out of DFW is cancelled (snowstorm), so that's why, and there's only one seat left on the flight after that one, I just got it for you." Thing is, I hadn't been notified by e-mail of that cancelled flight, and wasn't for another hour or so. Had I used online checkin the day before, printed the boarding passes at the hotel and skipped the kiosk, I wouldn't have found out all that until much later, after the last seat on the second ICT flight was gone. And I would have gotten home even later than I did. So I am not the fan of online checkin I once was
As a UA defector, this is a feature I like about AA's approach to UDU. I prefer the positive option approach where we must request the upgrade rather than the passive one which puts ever elite into the upgrade tier even if they have no interest in upgrading (yes, I believe there are some of them out there!). What I would like to see included in the AA system (that UA has) is an indication on eVIP upgrade requests that we are actually on the wait list. For UDUs this is quite clear, but otherwise it would be reassuring to know one's position on the upgrade list and that the phone agent didn't mess up the original request. Not to mention, online eVIP requests should also be introduced.
I suspect this is coming, at least if you have the AA app on a mobile device. Lots of work being put into new features there.
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