As I crossed into the new year, and now in planning for 2007, one area where I have to really put some effort into is with American Airlines.
Following my time at Yahoo!, I remained with Yahoo’s preferred air carrier, American Airlines so that I could continue accruing miles and status on the airline where I had the most miles. After I left Yahoo!, I proceeded to try to redefine my life and went to NYC quite a bit, which elevated me to Executive Platinum status. The best perk about Executive Platinum is automatic upgrades to Business Class when they are available. Oh man! What a perk!
I usually take the redeye on my way to NYC so as not to lose a day there. If you’ve ever tried to sleep in coach, it sucks so bad. The airlines are never going to have enough money to remodel their planes. They’re just going to leave them the way they are, to the detriment of all air travelers and their bodies. Add to that my triathlon training regimen and now it’s doubly worse. Upgrading to Business Class and their much better seats – recline further, better cushions – means I am much more comfortable on those overnight flights.
Have you looked at how much they charge for Business Class? For the cheapest coach from LAX to JFK, it is about $350. For Business Class, it is a whopping $3300! Way too much!
Executive Platinum status has become a necessity not only for my body but for my wallet.
Last year, December rolled around and I realized…I WOULD FALL SHORT OF THE 100K MILES to qualify! I panicked! But I also found out one crucial thing. That was certain flght classes would only get 50% of the mileage applied to Executive Platinum qualification! I spent a whole year traveling not knowing this. By the way, the classes that do give 100% of the miles applied to Executive Platinum qualification are K, L, M, V, H, and W. Every other one is a discounted class and gives you only 50%.
First I go to the website and I realize the website doesn’t give you the ability to have that fine a control over what classes you can buy into. You can only get the cheapest fare, or by major flight class, Coach, Business, or First. If you go ask for Business Class, you’ll get the $3000+ fare. If you ask for Coach, you get the cheapest fare but only 50% applied to Executive Platinum qualification. You hit the “with restrictions” radio button, and you get ridiculous fare quotes of $1000+.
Calling up the Executive Platinum is better. I ask them to change all my flights to 100% mile qualification classes and we sit there for about 30 minutes going through my remaining 2006 flights and switching classes. I gladly pay the extra fees, and in some cases, I actually get money back! But setting all of them to the full mileage qualification classes means I squeak into qualification at approximately 105,000 miles by December 31.
This year, I looked at my travel and realized that I wouldn’t make it on miles alone. Now I have to book flights through the Executive Platinum desk and ask specifically for those flight classes. This is tricky because I need to keep pushing them on lower prices. The first time I did it the person came back with a $1500 fare; I asked for a lower fare and it dropped to $560. I also stopped flying Southwest and fly American Eagle on short hops to attempt to qualify on the 100 segments flown in a year.
I don’t think I could do this travel without Executive Platinum status. It’s too taxing without the automatic upgrade. I may pay a little more for fares, but the automatic upgrades to Business Class make it worth the extra bucks I pay over the cheapest coach fares.