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Last month, I wrote about American Airlines allowing beta testers to apply systemwide upgrades to their existing reservations. This had been long promised and now American is rolling this out to all eligible AAdvantage members.
It’s now possible to apply systemwide upgrades online, through American’s website, and with the mobile app. AAdvantage members with at least one systemwide upgrade in their account can now instantly confirm them or waitlist the upgrade if space is not available.
It’s about time that American added this capability online. United Airlines has long allowed upgrades to be applied online. This started with Regional and Global Premier Upgrades and now allows PlusPoint upgrades to be handled online (these replaced United’s upgrade certificates back in 2019). Delta Air Lines has also allowed eligible Medallion members to apply Regional and Global Upgrade Certificates online since 2022.
American’s systemwide upgrades are earned at the 175,000, 250,000, 400,000, 550,000, 750,000, one million, three million, and five million Loyalty Point thresholds. They can be applied to flights marketed and operated by American Airlines. A systemwide upgrade will move a passenger from Business to First Class on a three-cabin aircraft or from Economy or Premium Economy to the next class of service (Business or domestic First Class). These can also be used to upgrade British Airways flights. On transatlantic flights operated by British Airways, a systemwide upgrade can be used to confirm an upgrade from Business Class to First, Premium Economy to Business Class, or Economy Class to Premium Economy.
Anthony’s Take: American is finally catching up with United and Delta. It’s great that this was rolled out so quickly after beta testing.
(Image Credits: American Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
