During a time in which airlines are hurting for business, particularly from loyal elite members, American Airlines has decided to make the upgrade process less transparent. It’s a foolish and unnecessary move.
American Airlines Obscures Upgrade Availability
Historically, American Airlines has used “C” class as its upgrade fare bucket for business class and “A” class as its upgrade fare ticket for first class. This has been easily verifiable via Expert Flyer, making it both transparent and easy to check whether your flight had confirmed upgrade space. With A or C space, you could use miles, systemwide upgrades, or Business Extra certificates to upgrade.
But Zach Griff notes that “C” space for business or “A” space for first class no longer necessarily directly correspond to the number of upgrade seats available. Instead, American Airlines will now only assign a subset of that space for confirmed upgrades.
Why this change? A spokesperson told Griff that AA is making “C” class a revenue fare bucket. In a sense, AA is reappropriating that fare bucket while still leaving it an upgrade fare bucket.
An Unnecessary Move By American Airlines
I get it. Times are tough. But during a time in which simplicity and streamlining seem to be prudent, AA is complicating its fare buckets even further by introducing a new revenue class, C (in addition to J, D, I).
Why not eliminate one of the dozens of economy class fare buckets and use that? Why not, if C and A are really needed, create new two-letter fare buckets for upgrade space, like CC or AA…that’s how United does it.
My point is that unless the goal was to obscure transparency, there is no reason for the change the way it occurred. This is surprising coming from American Airlines because it has been one of the most historically transparent. Indeed, while Delta and United sent cease and desist letters to Expert Flyer, American Airlines actively worked with Expert Flyer to provide travelers more transparency.
We will see how this move develops and whether we start to see a wide delta between “C” and “A” space and actual upgrade inventory.
How To Check For Upgrade Space On American Airlines
While Expert Flyer may no longer be accurate when it comes to tracking upgrade space, you can still check for upgrade space on aa.com. Log in before searching. When searching for your flight, look for the upgrade hyperlink at the bottom left of each search result entry.
Then look for a green check mark (or red X) next to your chosen flight.
Note, even though it says Basic Economy is not upgradeable, such “B” fare class fares are upgradable effective immediately via telephone.
CONCLUSION
Transparency is a foundation of trust when it comes to an airline loyalty program. AA, to this point, has been a leader, continuing to provide award charts and up to this point, clear access to upgrade inventory. I trust this latest change is not the start of a trend toward obscurity.
image: American Airlines
Matthew – you should know that in searching for different int’l flights this ewek, no shortage of them that depart <24 hours with 80-90% of them empty, yet still no "systemwide upgrades" link on AA.com (meaning technically no guarantee they clear you).
Maybe in practice it will be different (with upgrades at the gate) but incredibly bad form with so much capacity.
It’s pretty pathetic and AA should know, especially during this period of depressed demand, there is no way I am booking an AA longhaul flight without my upgrade confirming immediately. I know I am not alone.
AA is being playing games and finding way to scam their customers, I m thinking of cancelling my AA advantage account
I love people complaining about upgrades. Pay for First if you want it.
These types of posts are as stupid as always…they are “paid” upgrades, with the form of payment being miles or certificates
Exactly. It’s part of the loyalty bargain as well.
How does one without status check for mileage upgrades on AA? I do not see any flights with a “Systemwide upgrade” link when I search, even when logged in (no status). I think non status folks might be effed.
That’s very annoying and unfortunate. You’ll have to call them.
Their airline their rules. You can always vote with your wallet.
The benefits of AA Rewards continues to shrink. Some MBA is guiding this nose dive…
Airlines are inherently stingy with business and first classes as this is where they make their revenue… and they have no problems making the coach class experience even worse, in part to squeeze more px on the ac and in part to convince you to shell out $$$ for upgrades. It’s a crummy business model but that’s all there is to it.
Hopefully SpaceX and other companies will emerge with something the airlines haven’t been able to do for decades… a supersonic or sub-orbital long haul flight.
Electric and hybrid aircraft (and hyperloop) should change the shorthaul landscape somewhat if the cost of operation is lower.
All these factors together should hopefully put pressure on the airlines to come up with a more comfortable flying experience…