Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC's

[blackcat20]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

I'll still be claiming my ORC for my 810 SCs though right?

Yes I'm aware there's a risk of Y with YUPP fares. All part of the fun

My travel companion put the routing to a TA who was horrified at all the connections and asked several times "why Phoenix?" lol. And then came up with a direct flight itinerary that cost $300 more :shock:

I was told no ORC for that situation...

Slight edit, you *could* end up in economy. I've found mostly AA are more than willing to move flights around for you and even re-route, to ensure you're in F.

Then, a simple ORC to Qantas saying you were re-routed and it's problem solved.

I've taken may YUPP/KUPP's in my time and not once landed back in whY, despite a/c going tech, weather misconnects and delayed/cxl'd flights.

Well yes, but in our case we were subbed with an all Y-plane...so unless they are going to let me sit in the coughpit, economy it was. They offered to switch flights, but I was not going to be up and onboard at an ungodly 5am, nor arrive so late that it was bed time...

 

[drewbles]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

I was told no ORC for that situation...



Well yes, but in our case we were subbed with an all Y-plane...so unless they are going to let me sit in the coughpit, economy it was. They offered to switch flights, but I was not going to be up and onboard at an ungodly 5am, nor arrive so late that it was bed time...

Did you ask for a re-route?

Explain to Qantas that AA had to re-route you (involuntary) as it was a delay/tech/weather problem etc. Providing the original booking and proof of actual flights taken should result in ORC being granted.

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Did you ask for a re-route?

Explain to Qantas that AA had to re-route you (involuntary) as it was a delay/tech/weather problem etc. Providing the original booking and proof of actual flights taken should result in ORC being granted.

I did not deal with AA on the phone myself. There were not a lot of options to where we were going and they seemed willing only to offer one change and that was it. We didnt end up needing the SC anyway.

 

[AV8]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

.....
Anyway, the point of this post is that I had to ring AA to get it ticketed. There was a delay because aa.com (US) did not like that my booking was in USD but my cc was Australian. The CSA had to manually change the booking into AUD before the system would issue the ticket. It seemed to be a system glitch rather than a deliberate attempt to stop Aussies booking on aa.com

I had to go through the same process recently as well - AA.com website accepts AU cc for payment but ticket sits in pending area - AA USA CSA converted booking to $AU but could not process Amex payment - I was asked to contact AA AUS and eticket was issued within a couple of hours.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Slight edit, you *could* end up in economy. I've found mostly AA are more than willing to move flights around for you and even re-route, to ensure you're in F.

Then, a simple ORC to Qantas saying you were re-routed and it's problem solved.

I've taken may YUPP/KUPP's in my time and not once landed back in whY, despite a/c going tech, weather misconnects and delayed/cxl'd flights.

With YUPPs you have a choice - either fly in coach or wait for the next service where F is available.

The one catch is that being an instant upgrade fare, the underlying economy seat must be available in order for you to upgrade. We got caught once where the flight was full in coach so couldn't transfer to it even though F had empty seats.

As for ORC - the difficulty is that QF could rightly say that you had booked economy, so that's all you get. I appreciate people are mostly successful claiming ORC, but there is always the chance QF could clamp down on this if they wanted to.

 

[Anna]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

As for ORC - the difficulty is that QF could rightly say that you had booked economy, so that's all you get. I appreciate people are mostly successful claiming ORC, but there is always the chance QF could clamp down on this if they wanted to.

Now that there is no longer a search button for these fares under the economy heading and you have to search under "business/first" (unless I did it totally wrong), I think it's difficult to argue that anyone "booked economy". I don't even think these fares work like they used to when you could specifically search for them as 'instant upgrades'. It's just that the US market is so huge that they are able to offer much better value on US dom F fares than QF is able to offer in the Australian dom market. For example QF SYD PER return in J for just over $4K and 160 SCs, versus on AA spend A$3,400 on dom F flights and earn 5 times the SCs. Probably you could spend even less if you didn't care where you were flying to or for how long.

Also - being offered F alternatives but preferring Y because the F alternatives were inconvenient for personal reasons such as early or late timing is a different situation from being told "you're now in Y, bad luck no choice no ORC". I can understand why no ORC was offered in that situation.

And finally, it's always great to read AFFers offering suggestions to QF on how to enhance the FF program even further, so thanks for that.

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Also - being offered F alternatives but preferring Y because the F alternatives were inconvenient for personal reasons such as early or late timing is a different situation from being told "you're now in Y, bad luck no choice no ORC". I can understand why no ORC was offered in that situation.

We never asked for ORC; I questioned it on here and was told under no circumstances was I entitled to it due to cabin downgrade/plane substitution. It's very hard to get a better option when your destination is BUR, they wouldnt consider a reroute to LAX for example.

 

[medhead]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

I had to go through the same process recently as well - AA.com website accepts AU cc for payment but ticket sits in pending area - AA USA CSA converted booking to $AU but could not process Amex payment - I was asked to contact AA AUS and eticket was issued within a couple of hours.

Is this a case f dynamic currency conversion? Doesn't it add a significant cost to the ticket?

 

[Anna]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Is this a case f dynamic currency conversion? Doesn't it add a significant cost to the ticket?

I was very happy with the AUD amount that I was quoted over the phone when they converted it. Not as good as Princess Fiona's result but better than I had worked out for myself. And about 4 times cheaper than the fare price being quoted on aa.com.au

 

[madrooster]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Is this a case f dynamic currency conversion? Doesn't it add a significant cost to the ticket?

No. They would have used the IATA exchange rates which are < 1% deviation from the spot rates of the day. This is generally a better result than paying in USD, as you can most likely use an AU amex card without incurring a foreign transaction fee due to the merchant usually being located in AU.

This isn't specific to AU, any airline can do this, if they are willing.

 

[AV8]

Re: Research & book AA "Non-refundable "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise SC

Is this a case f dynamic currency conversion? Doesn't it add a significant cost to the ticket?

No complaint with the conversion to $AU as 24 hours+ had elapsed after original purchase - $AU exchange rate increased in this time.