Why You Should Split Your Reservation When Upgrading on American Airlines

This weekend, I was #3 on the upgrade list from Charlotte to Aruba, yet I was the only one that cleared. How did that happen?

To know more, you have to know a little bit about #1 and #2 on the upgrade list. Both are Executive Platinum’s and related to each other, and when they booked their tickets, they linked their reservations together, so that if #1 got upgraded, #2 would also, BUT ONLY IF THERE WAS TWO SEATS LEFT.

So, turns out only one seat was left for upgrade. American’s official policy is that if there’s only one seat remaining and you’re either on the same reservation or linked on the upgrade list, you therefore will be ineligible for the upgrade, and the upgrade goes to the first “single” person on the list. In this case, that was me as #3.

Now, of course in a perfect world, #1 and 2 probably wouldn’t want to split since they’re married and are sitting together. However, if they were only friends, and were okay with splitting, they would have needed to have done one of two things to secure the upgrade:

1. Split the reservations or de link them, prior to coming to the gate.
2. Tell the gate agent they’re willing to split if there’s only one seat left.

So there you have it – if you value the upgrade, and there’s only one seat left, you must split your record to get the one seat remaining.