saucesee

Hi. I'm flying from the US East Coast to SIN via LAX and HKG. I'll qualify for AA Plat/OW Sapphire on the LAX-HKG flight (with no prior status this year, school took more time than usual!). Now, as a OW Sapphire (AA), I understand I get lounge access when traveling beyond the US. I've heard alot about the Wing and the Pier, and would like to try them out while in the couple hours I have to kill.

After stuck in Y for that long (student loans), a shower would be nice. It will have been 25 hours total since leaving the east coast (including connects), so a shower might even be required.

The question is, how can a freshly-minted Plat get lounge access in this scenario? I've spoken to my frequent flier program at AA, and they recommend that I call as soon as I get off the LAX-HKG flight and they'll update my PNR--and that my lounge access depends on CX policy after that.

Any recommendations? What will it take? I'm hoping that simply a Boarding Pass with my Plat status will be sufficient. If so, I guess I'd have to get my boarding passes reissued, right? Or is there an easier way?

miki13331

it will take at least a week for the CX flights to post to AA.

CX747-467

Hi saucesee,

Yes, I'm afraid miki13331 is right about the time it takes AA to acknowledge your PLT status.

I completed the PLT challenge back in March on a CX JFK-YVR-HKG flight, on my way to HAN. I stayed in HAN for 1.5 weeks and kept checking online at AA.com for the change to PLT status and it finally changed after 10 days. Then I checked in at CX's HKG ticket counter for my HKG-JFK flight, but CX did not have me as PLT/OW Sapphire, and thus no lounge pass. I pleaded for them to check again and again, but no. Then after security, I went to the Wing desk and explained my situation, and after checking online at AA.com, they let me in! Excellent lounge, BTW.

I was never told to call AA on landing, but may be that will help. Ask CX to check at AA.com for your status and hopefully they'll let you in. Be nice though! May be you'll be able to enjoy the lounge on the way home.

Good luck... let us know what happens.

CX747-467

[email protected]

You can try all you want at the lounge desk but you have two chances.... slim and none and unless there is some magic between CX and AA slim just walked out the door. Now there are a number of "pay as you play" lounges where you can shower. Also, if you had a Amex or Diners Club card you might find another lounge to shower. One last suggestion is that you visit the Admirals Club at LAX and they might give you a note stating your new status for arrival in HKG but you will have to be real nice. But I am affraid the smart money is not on you getting into the Wing or Pier. Sorry

AH-64D

What and when is your flight?

JonNYC

Sounds like someone is trying to make a nice offer. ^^

While it's not true that CX flights take "at least a week" to post-- CX flights routinely can post within 3 days (Usually posting to AAdvantage on Wed/Thurs,) so a Monday flight can even post in as little as 2 days to AAdvantage (a Tuesday flight will take over a week, others, somewhere in between)-- it is, unfortunately true what everybody else says-- you can't be Plat until the flight posts and it won't post in "real time."

You're outta' luck for this trip unless someone "picks you up."

saucesee

Thanks for the tips--let's see I can put them to use.

I'm leaving LAX on 29 Jul on CX 883 at 11:55PM (arriving 31 Jul at 6AM local). NB: I am ticketed on the corresponding AA codeshare.

I am aware of the lag of miles posting across CX to AA, but after doing a round of the call-center merry-go-round, the AA agents claim that they can manually trigger Plat status once you've made your Plat-qualifying flight. Ideally, because I am on an AA flight number, AA will see that I've taken the flight, even if the miles themselves haven't posted. The trick, I think, is how fast that status change pushes out to CX.

Having said that, it's worth a shot--I'll report back with my tips. I might try Dben5Il's suggestion of working with the AA agents while in LAX to see if they can't help me out as well.

CX747-467, I'm doing the AA Plat challenge as well (but it only speeds things up, this particular PNR alone has 35k BIS miles in flights on it over two months--all on OW). You'd think they'd just give me the status outright based on that one ticket alone.

JonNYC

I don't think so. What they meant to say (or said) is: "they can manually trigger Plat status once your Plat-qualifying flight posts." The trick is -not- getting the info to CX, it's getting the flight to post the second you get off it. It 'aint gonna' happen.

ak

CX flights are posted to AAdvantage on Monday night / Tuesday morning.

JonNYC

That's not my experience, nor is the way the person at AAdvantage who handles said postings explained it to me-- the info is sent over to AA from CX on Tuesday. All of my recent CX flights have posted to AAdvantage Wed-ish.

ak

That's interesting, since my very recent CX flights over the past three weeks have posted on Mon/Tues (including a couple of flights from last week that posted this past Mon/Tues). I also remember all my previous CX flights posting on Mon/Tues.

JonNYC

Hmm. That's strange. I'm trying to think if I've ever had one post on a Tuesday (I know I've never had one post on a Monday) and as I said it was explained to me that the flights are manifested to AA from CX on/about Tuesday of each week, but, I suppose, there must be two different reportings, if you get them then. For that matter-- where do you live (or where were you checking your AAdvantage account from)? US or Asia?

ak

US -- California. However, regardless of which time zone I check my account from, the postings occur when it is Mon night or early Tues morning in the US west coast. Usually between 11:00pm and 3:00am (which seems to be the time window for all AAdvantage activity).

Just a thought, if CX reports flight activity on Tuesday morning HKG time, that would be Monday night in the US.

saucesee

To followup: well, I wasn't able to get into either the Wing or the Pier on my layover, because my newly granted AA Plat status (see below) did not get pushed into the Cathay system.

While I was able to verify my Plat status through AA.com (free internet terminals, thanks Samsung!), the CX staff's computers still thought I was Ruby (my status last year). The issue remains simply getting the CX computers to recognize the change in the AA system. We'll see if anything changes before my next CX flight in September.

I talked to a very kind AAdvantage agent the week before, and explained that I would make Plat on the HKG-LAX segment. She looked at my iten, and she volunteered to upgrade me to Plat and rekey my iten while I was on the 14 hour LAX-HKG segment. So, the lesson is that you might not have to wait for your final flight to post to finish the Plat challenge, provided that you have a nice agent (like I did).

Oddly, when I checked in the US, my CX boarding passes, but not my domestic AA boarding pass, indicated that I was Ruby (which was the status that I had last year). I didn't think anything of it.

On arrival to HKG, I checked on the AA.com website, it showed me as plat. Sweet. (So, I didn't have to wait for the flights to post, so the previous couple messages were non-issues.)

However, when I got to the Wing desk, they checked the computers and told me I was still Ruby, like my boarding passes. I still can't figure out this, because that status expired in Feb well before I made this iten. I'm sure the agent upgraded me to Plat, since the AA.com website indicated this. Also, I think she reentered in my status on my existing Iten, since I could upgrade the later domestic segments on this iten (which I wasn't able to do prior, since I had no status up to this point this year).

Anyway, to satisfy the CX people, I would have had to call the AA desk and tell them to call the Wing in HKG to call their front desk. At that point, I decided it wasn't worth the time (connection was departing soon) and returned to drinking scotch straight from the bottle.

Back to wandering in Singapore...

Steve Fenton

Surely some muppett could have issued a letter saying that after you arrive in HKG you have made the correct level and yu should be granted privelages ??? Talk about jobsworth or what ?