Originally Posted by nbevan
jrhone, many thanks for your very informative post.
Consensus here is that if upgrades don't clear in advance, they have to be requested again at the airport, when priority within status is determined by check in time (rather than time of reactivating the request at the airport).
We have also had reports of connecting passengers getting a higher priority on the stand by list. Do you know how that works? Is priority just based on the time you are issued the connecting boarding pass (either at the originating airport or on arrival at the connecting airport)? Or do connecting passengers get a higher priority than passengers originating locally? Does it make a difference if connecting from a domestic or international flight?
When I made the original post, I only included standbys, upgrades and over sales. There are many other codes and acronyms, none of them will put anyone above an Elite or the OS/ UPG/R though so I did not include them, I realize I should have now, so here we go.
Disrupted Travel passengers: If a disrupted passenger cannot be confirmed on another flight then they will be listed on the PALL list as an OS. As stated before, your number according to your status follows. So a regular discount revenue passenger would be just OS, an EXP would be OS1; PLT would be OS2, and Gold OS3.
Through or ‘T’ passengers do get more priority but only within their own tier and only on the original or segments leading to a final connection. As an example lets say you are a PLT checking in at DFW for a flight to STL and then connecting to RDU. If you wanted to go standby on the earlier flight from DFW to STL, you would be on the list as a R1T on the first segment and as a R1 on the second segment from STL to RDU. As you are already checked in for that flight from STL to RDU, your place on the standby list is awarded on the time you checked in at DFW. Now let us say that a Gold Passenger is checking in at STL for the flight to RDU and then has a connection from STL to LGA. He will be a R3T and you will still be R1 so you will still have priority over the through passenger for the standby flight.
T also applies to OS passengers; you could be OS1T, OS2T or OS3T depending on your status.
Sabre will automatically place a T on any connecting passenger on the PALL list. A passenger with an international connection will not get a higher priority over a passenger with a domestic flight. Finally , you will never be a T on your final segment.
I also found one other thing that might be of interest, apologies to those of you who might already know this. If for example you made a reservation in July for travel in December and you happen to change status in September, and you requested to be put on the auto upgrade list, then you will need to call in and update your request.
The reason for this is that reservations contain a ‘banner’ indicating what status you had at the time of the reservation. This ‘banner ‘will not auto update if you make the change from Gold to Platinum or Platinum to Executive Platinum. So your request for that reservation will be based on the Status you had at that time. Call to the help desk will fix the issue and your upg request will be listed according to your status.
I am also not sure that you have to request the UPG again at the airport as I have often had passengers ask me if their upgrade had cleared and I when I looked at the PALL list their name was on there, still waiting for the upgrade.
(edit)I have since found out otherwise. The system will keep trying to process your upgrade until 3 hours before departure. If the upgrade is not avaliable during that time, then it is suggested that you use the online check in to get your 'timestamp' and requet to be placed on the standy by list at the airport. My apologies for the incorrect information.
An agent can look at any pall list for any flight on AA from any airport, they can also put you on any list for any AA flight from any airport. So if you want to catch your original flight but stand by for an earlier connection then the agent who checks you in at your point of origin can do this for you. (edit : this is for standby only, upgrade requests can only be made from the board city)
One last point. The issue of an airport taking 'control' of a flight. This is a bit of a myth as the only control status on any flight is 'PDC' (post departure control). Whilst seats may be blocked by an agent working a flight that day, there is no point in time when an airport takes control of a flight. Reservations, Premuim Services may block seats off , but all these seats automatically unblock 15 minutes before departure time.
It is possible that someone gets the impression that a flight is under airport control when requesting a seat that has been blocked by another Gate agent at another airport. Just for arguments sake lets say that you are checking in at DFW for a flight to ORD , with a connection from ORD to DCA. You want an Exit row or a bulkhead seat out of ORD and request this be changed by the agent in DFW. If the agent in ORD has blocked the seat with a certain block type then only that person can unblock it. The unwritten agreement beween agents is that if an agent has blocked a seat on the flight they are working, then an agent at another airport should never unblock it . It might have been blocked for a passenger with a disability who had another flight cancelled.
From the moment the flight is listed at 330 days out the flight is open to res , airport agents , tariff, ops, customer service, dispatch or any other department., up until the gate agent puts the flight in PDC within 15 miutes of departure.
As always, any questions , please feel free to ask.
