I noticed an issue after upgrading to jQuery 1.7 where I could no longer access the jqXHR object returned from an $.ajax request. I used to be able to access the jqxhr fields in 1.6 through this method.

Here is the fiddle (jquery 1.7):

http://jsfiddle.net/8GLav/2/

Here is what it used to be like when it worked (jquery 1.6.4):

http://jsfiddle.net/f6pAP/