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

[Note that there have been significant changes to QFF since this was written and much has changed.

However there is still much valid. (A new thread is in the pipeline)]

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There have been many requests on how to best book a premium class "Non Refundable First", "Instant Upgrade", YUPP fare on AA and at the same time maximise Status earning.

I've put this brief summary together to help people get started.

The next few posts cover specific topics.

Please reply to this thread with any suggestions, clarifications, observations, queries etc. about this you may have. Do not ask about specific routing or request any calculation - this is about how to do it, not getting someone else to do it for you.

Find a Fare that is Suitable

OK, you are either going to be in the USA with a few days to spare or you are planning this from the get go.

If the former you have to consider where you will be as a start point and where you may need to end up and what is available from/to those locations; if the latter you simply need to find a doable fare and get to the start point and back from the end point, which may be the same.

What are these "Instant Upgrade" fares? In reality they are just "Discount" First or Business class fares that are available at relatively cheap cost for North American itineraries. They are generally non refundable and have high change fees.

The booking class of each segment is important:

• For travel wholly within the USA on 2 class aircraft most segments book into First Class.
• Segments on 2 class aircraft book into Business for travel to/from/within Canada/Latin America/Caribbean.
• With three class aircraft segments, these fares may book into either First or Business depending on the fare rules.
• Segments on one class regional aircraft can book into Economy or Discount economy.
• When researching/booking be careful to check the class for each segment as sometimes an economy option on a two/three class aircraft may show when you really want First/Business.

The booking class and distance of each segment can have a direct affect on the SC's points earn, see the "Calculate SC / QFF points earn" topic for more on that.

I should mention here that you really need to forget about having checked luggage; for some connections/delays it may be concerning enough to get oneself physically from one flight's gate to another, let alone worrying about whether your bag will make it or not.

The suitability of any fare can vary depending on a few facets:

• What you are comfortable with doing,
• Where you really want to go,
• How much you are prepared to spend,
• What time frames you have,
• What transfer/accommodation costs may be required
• You need to factor in any costs of getting to/from the USA and
• How many SC's/Points you want/need to earn or need.

Consideration of each, any or all of these should be done before finalising any booking.

Research Routing - A few considerations

Now to investigate possible routings in order to maximise SC earn for reduced cost.

A good place to start is read threads here on AFF, FT and other fora. There used to be a really good facility on the "Farecompare" web site that would list available the "Instant Upgrade" type fares from any particular origin. However this is no longer available.

Some of the better routings are for longer distances, e.g. West coast USA to/from the Caribbean, Hawaii to East cost USA etc.

Keep asking questions! Many posters are extraordinarily generous with their time, and as long as you're not asking them to reveal all the secrets of their pet run (unless it become too well known and be removed), you'll generally get [discreet] answers to most questions you might have.

As a rule of thumb, the more segments you can book for the one fare the higher in general the earn.

Lets look for example at a LAX to AUA business fare. This may not be one of the 'better' ones available but it serves as a good example.

This fare can be USD600 one-way with the most direct routing LAX-xDFW-xMIA-AUA earning 270 SC's. However, this could be routed LAX-xLAS-xORD-xMIA-AUA to earn 360 SC's for the same price. (Note the MIA-AUA segments are in Business class, the others First.)

MileageMonkey is a useful tool for calculating earn, more on that in the "Calculate SC / QFF points earn" section below.

Research Routing - Tools

As far as finding these routings and availability, Matrix - ITA Software is very useful.

Use the "advanced routing code" AA+ to force AA flights only and use the "Business class or higher" Cabin option.

You can also try to force connections through a specific port, e.g. For the LAX to AUA booking "AA+ LAS ORD X" searches for a three transit routing, forcing LAS, then ORD then any other airport.

Once the "results/options page" come up you can have a close look at multiple connections - under the 'stops' column you can click the drop-box arrow and select specific Numbers of stops to further filter the results.



Some options may suddenly jump in price with different routing. This is normally due to a change in routing rules. To help with looking these routing rules up and understanding them a subscription to Expert Flyer or KVS Tool can be invaluable.

You do need to be aware of the booking class for each segment of your prospective routing - with the ITA "Choose flight" results page, "mouse-over" the blank area on the far right hand region of a row you may be interested in and a "Details" label will appear.

Click this and more information about the option will appear including scheduled flight times, transit time and the booking class/buckets for each of the segments.

Check the listed booking classes for earning. The eligible booking classes (for SC earn) are as follows. (If the booking class is not listed here, then it will not earn with QFF.):

Replicate on AA

Once you have found what you are after you need to see if it can be replicated on AA.com for easy booking.

Have a quick look with the AA one-way search tool for the fare you are after or a comparable one.

Here's the one-way search tool link: One-Way Airline Tickets | One-Way Flights | One-Way Airfare | AA.com

Set:

• "How Do You Want to Search?" radio button to "Price and Schedule" and
• "What Is Your Cabin Service Preference?" drop box to "Business/First".

[-]Look for fares under the column labeled "Instant Upgrade", also, interesting options may be shown under "Business Special" or "First Special" heading. Sometimes even "First" has some cheap fares although this is rare. [/-]

Update: In late 2012 AA changed the web site and with one-way or return searches the "Instant Upgrade" or "Business Special" columns no longer show. The site simply lists the cheapest option under "First", if there is a more expensive option for the class of travel on the same flight(s) it wont show.

Sometimes they come up as "First" the presence of "First Flexible" in adjacent column to the right can indicate you have the type of fare this thread is about (i.e. not the "flexible").

To find the cheapest fares with one-way or return searches, go to the bottom of the list and select "View All Results". It should scroll back to the top where you can click the ^ under the "First" (or "Business") column - this toggles the sort order, showing the cheapest options at the top.

If a comparable fare for the date is not showing then it's back to the ITA drawing board.

However, when a ball park fare is showing, look to see if the routing you are after is available. It can help to select "View All Results" at the bottom. Generally that multi-segment option you are after won't be there - so it's time to drill down.

Change to the AA.com "Multi-City" utility to search.

Here's the direct link: Online Flight Booking | Online Travel Booking | Online Booking | AA.com

Set:

• "How Do You Want to Search?" radio button to "Price ",
• "Show [10[SUB]v[/SUB]] flight results" drop box to "[50[SUB]v[/SUB]]" (do this, even though the schedule radio button is not selected),
• "What Is Your Cabin Service Preference?" radio button to "Business Class & Higher: With Restrictions".

Enter your routing step by step, making sure each departure and arrival port is as per ITA, the dates are the same and the hours is the one on or before the ITA departure time for each segment (for after midnight [00:00-00:59] departures, select 12am - the last option in the drop box).

Click on [GO]

Once the search is completed, hopefully you can find the routing/price combination you are after. If not, don't despair. Try new searches, omitting transit points -e.g. With the above example, try LAX-LAS, LAS-ORD & ORD-AUA. Keep the times and dates as they were.

Once you find what you are after you now need to check the booking class of each segment to ensure they are as expected.

To do this after doing a "Multi-Segment" search, click [SELECT] on your option. You then may be asked to log on, or proceed without logging on. Log and on the next screen click "Show Trip Details \/".



You can then see the booking class code for each segment (labelled "Booking Code" - I have circled some relevant parts in Yellow). In the above example, they are P, A, A & I. See Appendix 1 (post 10) for how to find the booking code for one-way and return searches.

Calculate SC / QFF points earn

You have found your prospective routing and determined it can be booked on AA.com, lets now work out the earning for that routing.

Firstly lets deal with SC's.

Qantas work with a zonal system and it depends on the booking class and distance of each individual segment of the routing. With AA flight numbers, any "eligible" earning revenue class will earn as for AA irrespective of the "metal" (Operating carrier).

For a rough and ready calculation of SC earn, use MileageMonkey;

• Set Earning Preference" radio button to QF,
• use the "Oneworld Explorer Validator" section and
• check the "Ignore errors" box.

Page down to the segment earning table and read off the SC"s for each segment in the class booked and add these together (this will not work for Y or W).

Let's look closer - SC's are earned based on distance and eligible booking class, this web page list them: Frequent Flyer - About the Program - Status Credits

Here's a version of that table for our purposes. There are 'higher' distance zones but rarely are they used for these fares). Note that with AA flight numbers, if the booking class is not listed here then it will not earn with Qantas Frequent Flyer:


To calculate the distance of each segment, you can do this using Great Circle Mapper. Plug the routing in then read them off.

For the booking class (or "Fare Bucket") for each segment, after selecting your flights on AA.com you are at the "Customer Details" page. If you click "Show Trip Details" you should see each segment along with the "Booking Code".

Compare these with the table and tally.

In the case of LAX-(P)-LAS-(A)-ORD-(A)-MIA-(I)-AUA, the distances, class and SC's are:


As far as QFF points earn goes, for AA there is a 50% bonus for First, 25% for Business and 10% for premium. Status bonus may also be awarded at rates of 100% for WP, 50% for SG and 25% for PS. All such bonuses are on the base miles only.

So, a WP would earn:

Booking

There are many posts on actually booking on AA.com. I will summarise them here soon, but for now, please see this thread:

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ines-advantage/best-way-book-aa-ex-29112.html

I have not referred to the Oz booking portal here as it is not as amenable to the type of routings were are after here.

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With the replication of the fare on AA it getting really close to finalising the booking.

It used to be quite an issue to get past this point to complete the booking (see references to El Segundo elsewhere on the forum), but these days AA.com is a lot easier to book with.

When entering your flights search criteria in the multi-segment booking page, down the bottom is "6. Country of Residence:" option.

"Australia" is not available here - I choose the very last option "All Others" before clicking GO.



The next screen is the "Choose Flights" - find the option for the routing previously ascertained as being available and click the [SELECT] for that one.



The next screen may asked youto log in to your AAdvantage account, I suggest you do this. It's free to join if you don't have one and provides means to easily look up you bookings and otherwise expedite processes with this and other bookings going forward. You can select, "Continue Without Logging In" if you prefer.

The next screen in the process is "Customer Details"; it will generally be auto populated with information from your AAdvantage account or previous bookings.

Since most would want to enter their Qantas Frequent Flyer number here, the first thing to do is select "Qantas Airways" from the drop box. (If you try changing some of the other data, but the same pop up referred to in the next paragraph will appear in any case).

Changing from "AAdvantage" will invoke a pop-upr, querying your choice: "Are you sure you want to change this Information?". Click "Yes, Remove it" and the pre-filled fields will be cleared. Now enter the passenger's details carefully. (You will also need to reselect "Qantas Airways" as that jumps back to "AAdvantage" for some reason.)


Continuing entering your details carefully; I enter the one 'phone number selecting +61 being my country prefix. Click [CONTINUE]

Review your routing on the next screen (you may need to click "Show Trip Details"). When Satisfied, click the "Select Seats" checkbox and select [CONTINUE]

The select seat window will appear - select the seats you prefer for each flight (more on that later) and finish by clicking [SUBMIT].

The next page shows a list of your flights following by a list of payment options. I select Credit Card here. You can also "hold" the booking for for later payment.

After selecting Credit Card further details are requested -I include a copy of penegals's post here. (Although I always see Australia listed these days, so no need for El Segundo in my case.)

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If Australia appears on the country list you no longer need to use the 'El Segundo' method.

I have successfully made bookings on AA.com using an address like this:

View attachment 9144

If you read the form carefully it says that the least two fields are only required for "U.S. and Canada", and "U.S., Canada, Mexico or UK" respectively.

In my experience if you populate the ZIP/Postal Code box your form will fail their validation checks as the website checks this field regardless of which country is selected, therefore I have started putting the state and postcode it in the city box in order to enter a 'correct' & 'complete' address.

Travelling

There are many considerations when travelling on these types of runs - you may find yourself in unfamiliar places or having very short connection times.

It is quite important that you research the airports you are transiting through, before on AA.com (https://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInfor...rtInformation.jsp?anchorEvent=false&from=Nav#!) and during - look at maps the back of the "American Way Magazine" in the seat pocket in front.

Pay attention to the connecting gate information that is generally read out near the end of many flights, and still check the monitors upon arrival (Don't assume the information given has not changed.).

Keep an eye on the status of your upcoming flights - once I found a segment cancelled (some 6 hours out) and was able to use Expert Flyer to research a solution that I could deal with. Armed with that solution I approached a lounge AAngel and was able to empower her to enact it. An hour later all A / P class was gone for any reasonable flight option and I would have been in a problematic situation.

I'm sure I mentioned it's a good idea to avoid checked luggage, but I will mention that again.

Note that AA domestic boarding commences no less than 30 minutes before the scheduled flight departure, generally 5 minutes before than that and occasionally even 40 minutes earlier. I always try to be at the gate before boarding commences, so this means knowing how long it should take you to get to the gate - getting ready to leave a lounge at least ¾ hour prior to the flight is the norm for me.

Miscellaneous Considerations

From Princess Fiona:

For those who are bereft of routes to even look at may I suggest that you head over to Flyertalk BAEC board. There is a "Tier Point runs" thread there which is a little gold mine for the time poor. Tier points on BA work out a little differently to SC earn on QF but it does provide a good starting point for the newbie into the possible routing and cost of YUPPs/KUPPs.

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From kempvet:

You really have to respect the weather that sometimes can hit the US, especially the North East in winter and perhaps the South in summer (storm cells). If you are time poor, then in winter a LAX-ORD-NYC-MIA (300 SCs) run could be a disaster if ORD is shut down, AA may only offer you LAX-DFW-MIA for 210 SCs or even worse LAX-MIA for 150 SCs to get you to the Caribbean in time.

Having undertaken three of these runs in recent times, definitely carry on luggage only for quick flight changes if needed and also be careful what you eat, I tended to over indulge a little on the first SC run, trying to recover while still flying another 6 legs is not easy, especially when thrown about by the remnants of a super cell.

And don't be afraid to ask questions, I asked quite a lot of "what if" questions to ticketing and staff at the lounges.

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From iqis60:

One thing I would say regarding payment of AA fares on the US site is that if it isn't giving you the option to enter Australia as your location and hence easily enter Australian credit card details, I found that closing the browser and re doing the booking would get it to work.

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Appendix 1: Booking Class with One-Way and Return Searches

To find the booking class with one-way / return "Price and Schedule" searches you first need to do the search as noted above.

Once done, the results will show. Locate a routing/price that your are interested in:






This will show the booking class code For each segment. Locate "Booking Code:" in the left column and read across for the single capital letter. Immediately under each letter is the cabin (hopefully reading "First" or "Business") description.

In the above case, the "Instant Upgrade" classes are A (First), A (First) & I (Business).

Re: Miscellaneous Considerations

Brilliant summary, thank you!
Reading on mobile, while in transit. Itching to run through again when conditions are better.
(Have just done part of AA status challenge, based on advice from these threads. Not quite to Plat yet and returning to Oz in a few days, so will have to be creative from there.)
pj

Yep, what pagingjoan said.
For those who are bereft of routes to even look at may I suggest that you head over to Flyertalk BAEC board. There is a "Tier Point runs" thread there which is a little gold mine for the time poor. Tier points on BA work out a little differently to SC earn on QF but it does provide a good starting point for the newbie into the possible routing and cost of YUPPs/KUPPs

Cheers Serfty, could not have been put better.

Most important - where do you want to go!!


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app

re: Researching/booking AA "Non-ref "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise status

Thank you for taking the time to post this serfty, this noob will make use of this advice on next trip to U.S. !

re: Researching/booking AA "Non-ref "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise status

Serfty has just about covered it all, I would like to add that you really have to respect the weather that sometimes can hit the US, especially the NE in winter and perhaps the south in summer (storm cells). If you are time poor, then in winter a LAX-ORD-NYC-MIA (300 SCs) run could be a disaster if ORD is shut down, AA may only offer you LAX-DFW-MIA for 210 SCs or even worse LAX-MIA for 150 SCs to get you to the Caribbean in time.

Having undertaken three of these runs in recent times, definitely carry on luggage only for quick flight changes if needed and also be careful what you eat, I tended to over indulge a little on the first SC run, trying to recover while still flying another 6 legs is not easy, especially when thrown about by the remnants of a super cell.

And don't be afraid to ask questions, I asked quite a lot of "what if" questions to ticketing and staff at the lounges.

re: Researching/booking AA "Non-ref "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise status

Brilliant how-to guide Serfty!

Re: Miscellaneous Considerations

pagingjoan said:

Have just done part of AA status challenge, based on advice from these threads.

Click to expand...

Question: Is there any advantage for Australians on a status run to do an AA Status Challenge, vs just funneling the points into your QFF account?

Re: Miscellaneous Considerations

SteveJohnson said:

Question: Is there any advantage for Australians on a status run to do an AA Status Challenge, vs just funneling the points into your QFF account?

Click to expand...

There is no simple answer as it depends upon your circumstances. The AA platinum challenge will give you QF Gold equivalent. If you fly a lot on full Y fare or higher in AUS then this may be an advantage, as you would be getting double AA miles, and if you fly ANY fare on BA code you also get double miles, therefore the AA miles could build up quickly, and AA miles give you a lot more bang for your mile than QF. You will not get double miles on some of the QF classes so it depends upon your flying pattern (some QF flights earn no AA miles) and if you fly discount BA then AA will give you 4 times the miles with respect to QF.

AA, not for everyone, but if you fly full Y or higher, and O/S a lot, then may be an advantage. It could be a problem retaining status with AA as they will not let you do the challenge again, as status will need to be earned correctly at some stage, and is some ways, the QF short cut to Gold via AA F status runs is easier than trying to earn AA plat status without the challenge.

Re: Miscellaneous Considerations

Thanks for that explanation kempvet!

re: Researching/booking AA "Non-ref "/"Instant Upgrade"/"YUPP" fare to maximise status

kempvet said:

Serfty has just about covered it all, I would like to add that you really have to respect the weather that sometimes can hit the US, especially the NE in winter and perhaps the south in summer (storm cells). If you are time poor, then in winter a LAX-ORD-NYC-MIA (300 SCs) run could be a disaster if ORD is shut down, AA may only offer you LAX-DFW-MIA for 210 SCs or even worse LAX-MIA for 150 SCs to get you to the Caribbean in time.

Having undertaken three of these runs in recent times, definitely carry on luggage only for quick flight changes if needed and also be careful what you eat, I tended to over indulge a little on the first SC run, trying to recover while still flying another 6 legs is not easy, especially when thrown about by the remnants of a super cell.

And don't be afraid to ask questions, I asked quite a lot of "what if" questions to ticketing and staff at the lounges.

Click to expand...

Also, the first class food on AA is certainly not healthy, more so if you have 2 breakfasts in one day! It will take me a few bike rides to burn my status run off!!