Pros and Cons When Flying GOL in Brazil With American Airlines Elite Status

My wife and I recently visited relatives in Brazil and took 3 domestic flights with GOL. Thanks to GOL’s partnership with American Airlines, I enjoyed several extra benefits on these flights using my AAdvantage elite status.

From a generous checked baggage allowance to early boarding and premier check-in, flying with GOL as an AA elite improved our flight experience — and the complimentary upgrades made it more comfortable.

Not everything was perfect, though, and the list of things we didn’t like was nearly as long as the list of things we liked. The difference is that the likes revolved around more critical aspects of the trip, which made a big difference for us.

The American Airlines Partnership With GOL

Through a partnership that may someday lead to GOL adopting the AAdvantage program as its rewards program, American Airlines elite members can enjoy several benefits when flying with GOL. These benefits apply even if the flight is purchased with GOL, isn’t a codeshare, and isn’t connecting to an AA flight.

Benefits applied during our trip even though my status was received from the Instant Status Pass for Hyatt elites. Perks for AA elites flying with GOL include:

4 Positives for AA Elites When Flying With GOL

Let’s start with the things I liked. The positive aspects of flying on GOL as an AAdvantage elite outweighed the few disappointments.

Complimentary Premium Seats at Booking

When booking, AA elites can choose Comfort (GOL+ Conforto) seats in the front of the cabin.

Usually, choosing these seats requires an extra fee ($19 on our flights, though the cost varies by flight length). However, AA elites can select them without a fee at booking. After confirming my Platinum Pro status, the fee was zeroed out on the confirmation page.

GOL doesn’t offer first or business class on domestic flights, so Comfort is the best seat available. These seats include 50% more recline space than regular economy seats and 4 inches (10 centimeters) of extra space at your knees. However, the middle seat wasn’t blocked on any of our flights, which would have made the premium experience even better.

Comfort seats didn’t include screens and had standard tray tables on the back of each seat.

Comfort passengers also had dedicated overhead bins in the front of the cabin. We regularly saw flight attendants controlling access to these bins, ensuring only passengers in GOL+ Conforto seats used them. They also were labeled clearly.

Passengers in Comfort received the same options of drinks (soda, water, or juice) and snacks (chips, cookies, or nuts) as passengers in standard economy seats.

Premier Check-In Area

For all 3 of our flights, we had access to the premier check-in area. To be clear, this is not “priority” for Brazilians. Brazil has a law about priority lines, and it applies to the elderly, pregnant, those accompanied by young children, and people with disabilities.

Thus, I will refer to this as the premier check-in. This was a separate line from standard check-in, priority check-in, and bag drop (those who had checked in already and just needed to hand over their luggage).

On 2 of our 3 flights, no one was in the premier check-in line before us, and we zipped through the check-in and bag-tagging process. Then, there was our departure from Rio de Janeiro-Galeão (GIG). There was a long line in the premier check-in area, and it crawled at an agonizing pace with just 1 employee.

The line moved so slowly that we left the premier area and went to the bag drop section. The woman in the pink shirt in this picture was still in line (in the premier area) when we left with our boarding passes from the bag drop section, so the premier check-in benefit wasn’t worth much here. While the line for bag drop had significantly more people, it also had numerous employees to keep things moving.

It’s also worth pointing out that we found trash on the floor in the premier check-in area at all 3 airports from which we departed.

Early Boarding

Those sitting in Comfort seats at the front of the plane got early boarding — group 2 at a minimum. However, those with GOL and American Airlines elite status were bumped up to group 1.

When we boarded through a jetbridge, it was nice to get into the first boarding group, as we could stash our backpacks overhead and get comfortable without a hassle. However, early boarding didn’t accomplish much on the flight for which we took a bus out to the plane. We didn’t depart until the bus was full, so our early boarding meant we spent more time crammed in the bus while it filled up.

Generous Checked Baggage Allowance

Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum members get 3 complimentary checked bags when flying with GOL. That drops to 2 bags for Platinum and 1 for Gold elites.

GOL charges 30 reais (around $9) if you add luggage online before check-in. That jumps to 100 reais (around $17) for a first checked bag on domestic flights at check-in time. Additional checked bags cost even more than the first. If you check 3 suitcases (without booking a premium fare including checked baggage), you will pay roughly $35. Thus, AA’s top elites can save up to $35 on checked bag fees per person on domestic flights with GOL.

That was handy for us, as we needed to check luggage on our extended trip. This benefit didn’t extend to my wife, meaning she didn’t get any complimentary checked luggage even when traveling with GOL on the same reservation.

3 Negatives About Flying GOL as an American Airlines Elite

While there were numerous benefits, 3 items provided surprising negatives.

Confusing Lounge Access

There are GOL Smiles lounges in the domestic and international terminals of multiple airports in Brazil. Access rules online and what’s employed at the lounge entrance felt inconsistent.

American Airlines’ original announcement about the GOL partnership mentioned lounge access. However, GOL’s lounge access policies don’t mention anything about AA’s elite members. We were turned away when we arrived at the door for the domestic lounge in São Paulo (GRU). This lounge didn’t participate in Priority Pass, unlike the lounge in Rio de Janeiro (GIG), which wouldn’t grant access from my AA elite status but did participate in Priority Pass.

Clarifying this would be helpful for travelers.

No Complimentary Wi-Fi

All of our GOL flights over the past month were an hour long. Not connecting to the internet during that time wasn’t the end of the world. Moreover, free messaging and entertainment were available during flights.

However, the only passengers with complimentary internet access were Black clients with TIM, a Brazilian cellular provider. Anyone else wanting to surf the internet had to buy a pass, starting at 10 reais (around $2) on short flights.

Instructions for using the inflight entertainment system from your phone or tablet were on the bulkhead wall and tray tables at each seat.

No Priority Baggage Handling

While the partnership benefits page says AA elites get priority baggage handling on GOL flights, that wasn’t our experience. Our bags didn’t arrive on the carousel in an expedited manner.

Final Thoughts

We were happily surprised by the elite benefits we enjoyed on our flights with GOL, thanks to my AAdvantage Platinum Pro status. The generous baggage allowance and the option to choose Comfort seats at the time of booking were excellent. The lounge and baggage handling aspects could be clarified to improve the experience.