To switch or not to switch?
 

My husband is a platinum member with AA. Recently we've encountered problems with being bumped from cancelled flights, not getting upgrades when requested, etc.
He is seriously considering switching airlines. If he does, what are the odds he will be able to keep his staus with the new airline if he offers to transfer all his points?

You cannot transfer points.

If he has elite status with AA, then most competitors will match his status.

In general, AA is among the better ones with clearing upgrades. If that's important, he can forget looking at CO.

I'm not sure I understand. You are asking if UAL or some other airline will reward him, including transfering all his miles, for taking flights on AA? Not sure why they would even consider that - miles/points are his benefit, and they don't do the company any good, other than encourage you to fly with them in the future.

As for upgrades, it really depends on the flights he takes. AA has been conservative with their capacity, choosing to fly planes at higher % seats filled (and therefore higher revenue per flight) rather than expand capacity and fly 1/2 empty planes.

If there are no upgrades avail - 1st class completely full with either paying customers or exec platinum status passengers (there are a lot of them out there), then your husband won't get an upgrade - quite simple.

I have heard that in the past some airlines would entice elite members from the competition by offering to grant elite status with the condition of having to rack up a certain number of miles within a designated period. Have not done it myself, though. I have never heard of an airline allowing you to transfer credit for flights flown on another carrier - doesn't make sense, really.
As for upgrades, that always depends on how full the flight is, and these days flights are running quite full so upgrades happen less frequently, especially on popular routes and flights into hub cities - even for top tier elites.

He can call United Mileage Plus and ask for a "status match". Ask for a supervisor if the rep who answers can't or won't help. Points don't transfer.

I also have some comfusion. "Being bumped from cancelled flights" - I assume you mean his flight got cancelled for some reason and everyone got "bumped". Reason for cancellation is important - did it happen at last minute because of equipment, weather? If he flies frequently enough to get platinum status, he knows thaty happens on all airlines.

Upgrade availability - that is also getting tougher on all airlines as so many people have so many points and status. My husband also flies frequently and finds class upgrade is not always available.

Other airlines might offer better upgrade possibilities - but do they fly where he wants to go?

A lot of travellers on AA buy the reduced First Class fares (YUP/KUP) P fares, A fares.On a last minute trip, I have been known to purchase one of those especially if I really do want to upgrade.Bottom line, if you want a First Class seat, you are gonna have to buy it.And thats true with many of the airlines today.

Or get to 1K status on United and earn confirmed systemwide upgrades and confirmed regional upgrades in addition to the 500-milers.

I believe that AA has similar perks for Executive Platinum.

USAir seems to have a fairly good upgrade system, though I don't know about availabilty.

Thanks for your responses. I'll pass them along to my husband.
What happened with the 'bumped' flight is the following:
We were booked on a return flight from Vegas to JFK. The flight was cancelled(no reason given)24 hours earlier. They left a message on my husband's home office phone, even though he had given his cell phone months before.
If they had called his cell phone, we could have made other arrangements instead of finding out at check-in.
We booked the seats six months in advance and up-graded with points.
What is the point of making these plans? It's not like we were requesting up-grades. We had confirmed seats.

So what happened when your showed up and your flight was canceled?

I still don't follow. You say 'bumped'. To me that means the flight took off but you were not on it.

What I read is that they canceled the flight - this can happen for many reasons. You didn't know about the cancellation show you showed up at the airport, only to find out then there was no flight. I don't see any bump situation here. Usually when a flight is canceled they will automatically rebook you on the next avail flight - the operative word is available.

With all the vagaries of weather around the country I never head to the airport without knowing the status of my flight, either by calling the airline or checking online. The weather may be fine in Vegas, but if the plane was to come from Chicago, where the was a blizzard, your Vegas to NY flight could be canceled. If a flight is canceled I am sure to investigate alternatives.

Sounds like DH needs to update his profile at aa.com

I didn't know some of you were so literal! What I meant was, the flight was cancelled and we were moved to another flight on economy. My point is if they had called my husband's cell phone, we may have been able to find another flight with business seats, but 24 hours had gone by when we found out about the cancelation.
As to why we didn't check on our flight status:
I don't think snowstorms between Las Vegas and Los Angeles are the norm.

Las Vegas to LA or JFK?

There are discussions on the www.flyertalk.com board (under the heading "status match") about which airlines are currently offering to match status achieved with other airlines. The pros and cons of asking an airline to match status and of choosing another preferred airline are also discussed.

The flight was Las Vegas-Los Angeles-JFK. We did not want to fly through Chicago, because of the weather. Turns out we were delayed any way!

didibobi, that makes sense then. However weather is only one reason a filght may be delayed or cancelled. Wonder what the official reason was.

<b>didibobi</b>,

A typical AA MD80 or a 737 plane flies around the country for about 20 hours a day.

A 737 may start out in the early morning from Miami to Tampa, then to Dallas, then to Chicago and finally to Seattle or something similar, before it's parked for few late overnight hours.

So just beacuse the weather between Dallas and Chicago is perfect how do you know that your plane and crew are not stuck in Miami because of hurricane or strong winds/heavy rains/fog, etc...???

Airlines don't have empty planes and or too many substitute crews sitting around just so if there is a situation downstream they can pull up with a new crew/plane. The cost would be too prohibitive.

Just because LAS-LAX weather was perfect, ORD could have had a blizzard or DFW could have had heavy thunderstorms (both happened just recently) and many, many planes/crews were not going anywhere.

Flying is not a perfect science. Weather/mechanicals do happen and safety for all involved is more important than your time. Except it or start driving.

I was delayed once in Ottawa. The plane arrived, people got off the plane, we waited, the plane moved off without us. A second plane arrived, we waited, it left without us. The third plane arrived, we got on and flew off.

Several months later, I read that during the time frame of my trip, the airline had been infected with a computer virus and several planes had been grounded due to that infection. Apparently, ours was one of them.

After that, I'm not surprised by delays - I'm actually grateful. ;)

So, any other complains other than one cancelled flight and the inability to get mileage upgrade rewards to Europe?

How were the other 90K+ miles of travel?