To fully explain how this all happened I need to go back to the beginning. Earlier this year my girlfriend and I booked flights to/from Australia for an end of the year vacation. I’ve never been to Australia and I’ve been meaning to go this year. I booked a Qantas First Class flight earlier this year, but ended up having to cancel it. So, we sat down and looked at flights which ended up being insanely reasonable.
We ended up booking two one way trips. The first was from Los Angeles to Sydney via Hong Kong (more to come on that) and the second was from Auckland to Los Angeles on American. The later flight, on American is the one in question. At the time the flight from Auckland to Los Angeles cost just $300 each in economy. Given the low price we both jumped on an available flight. Next, I applied two systemwide upgrades to our trip and the waiting game began. The plan was to upgrade the Auckland to Los Angeles flights with Systemwide Upgrades.
Things Didn’t Go Well At First
Ultimately we ended up with two long-haul economy flights on American. The first from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and the second from Auckland back to LA. At the time of booking I thought for sure there would be no issues upgrading, but as the trip grew closer the chances of the upgrades clearing looked worse and worse. Finally, I called American earlier this week to ask about our odds.
The American Executive Platinum phone agent gave a grim prognosis. We have Premium Economy seats from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, but he made it seem as though an upgrade would be impossible. Likewise, he said there was virtually no chance at the upgrade clearing on the Auckland to Los Angeles flight. At that point I began to scramble to figure out what we could do. There was no way to guarantee the Auckland to LA upgrade so I started to look for other options. I just really didn’t love the idea of sitting in standard economy on American for 13 hours.
I Called American Again To Discuss Alternatives
A few days later I called American with an idea. I would simply cancel the Auckland to LA flight ($300 lost) and book a business class award flight. The issue was that when I called there was no space from Auckland to the West Coast. Instead, I could fly Auckland to Doha to Boston/Philidelphia in Business Class on Qatar.
When I priced out the Qatar Airways option the cost came to $40 and 155,000 AAdvantage miles each. While I could stomach that number of miles I really preferred not to. I have a plan for my stockpile of miles and Qatar Airways business class is not it. So, I asked for other options.
The phone agent I spoke with was honestly the most helpful I’ve ever encountered. She searched city pairing after city pairing with me. Sadly, we kept coming up with the same issue. The issue was that any flights from Australia/NZ would connect through either the Middle East, Europe, or Asia. Touching any one of those zones triggered a split in the award and would price the trip as two one-ways. So no matter how we tried we ended up with about 150,000 miles and the nominal co-pay.
Moving The Flights One Day Later
After a few minutes the phone rep came up with an idea. She suggested we look at dates +/- 1 or 2 days around my scheduled departure. As I was desperate to see what could be done I said sure and we proceeded to search.
A few minutes later I was told the flight a day after ours had one confirmable upgrade available and was overall much less full that our original flight. While that sounded like a great option I figured the change fee for an international flight would be absurd and negate any value I’d get out of my upgrade clearing.
Surprisingly, when the agent priced the change fee the total came out to just $35 USD per person. Once I heard that news I asked her to change us and within a few minutes we had one confirmed business class seat and the second upgrade waiting to clear.
Final Thoughts
I’m extremely happy with this outcome. I have two more systemwide upgrades I need to use before Jan 31, 2019 and I was worried if the two on this Auckland flight didn’t clear that they could go to waste. So I’m extremely pleased that one cleared immediately and the other looks good.
I’m also extremely pleased because we ended up getting a business class seat from Auckland to Los Angeles for just $350! Surprisingly these seats only go for $1,400 (one-way) but still, that means we saved about $1,000 each on this flight (assuming my upgrade clears).
Overall, I learned two lessons from this experience. The first, is that phone reps can vary significantly. The first rep I talked to made it sound like an upgrade was impossible and then tried to get me to pay more for Premium Economy. The second rep sat on the phone with me for well over 30 minutes to figure all of this out and ended up getting me on a better flight with one confirmed upgrade. The second thing I learned is that sometimes changing your flight on an international itinerary won’t cost you an arm and a leg. I usually stick to my booked flights, but going forward I’ll make sure to call AA if I ever want to stay longer or leave earlier.
