beerup

EF shows inventories are based upon what AA is willing to sell, including overbooking. Sure, it's not 100 % guaranteed to match AA, but it does most of the time. An exception is that Z, A, U, C and T are subject to expanded available for EXPs and so there may be up to 2 more seats available to EXPs when they call than shown on EF.

SFOPhD

You were offered a load factor-based upgrade in the past. If you paid the price at the kiosk, you would be instantly given the upgrade. The new program involves "plusgrades," where people can bid on an upgrade days before the flight. Bidding on a plusgrade doesn't mean you get the upgrade instantly. AA swears that plusgrades are not processed until all elites on the wait list have cleared.

More info in the original thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...d-upgrade.html

VSLover

call me a skeptic (and this was BEFORE the recent aadvantage changes) but i just do not trust that AA has the ability to do this properly. i mean they cant even show us our own accurate accounts or allow agents to see proper inventory i can see on my screen.

so to think they could manage to implement this plusgrade system while still leaving us status folk unharmed is hilarious.

what kills me is it can be a double whammy: as exp i am probably not getting the upgrade because someone bought it (do not believe their "promise") and i'm not even given the OPTION to pay for it!

steve64

No.
The operating carrier determines the "availability". This is the number of seats the operating carrier is still willing to sell. It is not capped at physical capacity (unless the operating carrier wants it to be).

If (as in your example) UA has decided to sell 55 seats on an aircraft that seats 50, and 51 seats have been sold so far, then the AA Agent most likely sees 4 seats avail and can book one of them. The AA Agent is clueless over the fact that the seat they just took is beyond the UA aircraft's capacity (or not).

Where discrepancies set in are the timing of communication between systems. If UA just sold the last 4 seats on their flight themselves, then at the moment AA probably still sees availability as the last time UA sent an update was "x" minutes ago. If the AA Agent then takes one of those "allegedly" available seats, when they "end transaction" then a real-time msg is sent to UA. UA (in this example) would then send back a status of UC (unable to confirm) despite AA's SABRE still showing availability (the response would be HK [hold confirmed] if realtime, UA could honor the AA booking).

austin_res

If AA wants to give an upgrade to someone willing to pay cash over an elite waiting for a complimentary upgrade, that is fine with me provided that elites are given to same opportunity to pay to upgrade.

The day AA/US merger closed - 12/9/2013. PAR/D is basically a SMI/J clone.

jordyn

I don't see the conspiracy theory. The computer often does an upgrade run shortly before the list transfers to airport control at T-3. It strikes me as entirely possible that at least one person was ahead of you on the upgrade list, so they got the last seat.

FWIW, I often see mileage upgrade inventory opening up at about 24 hours out, so this would be consistent with your experience too. In fact, I used this today to "jump the queue" on a JFK->SFO flight that I wanted to be sure I got the upgrade on. Sometime between T-30 and T-23, the flight went from J7C0 to J7D7 (but still R0). That's pretty common, in my experience.

(Yes, my upgrade probably would have cleared anyway, but I wanted to make sure I would get seats with my traveling companion and would have had to pay $180 for stickers for her anyway.)

nrr

For the weekends of 3/28-3/31 and 4/4-4/7 I was flying JFK-LAS-JFK [1263 outbound and 44 return]. 4/4 had F7 until about a week before departure; 3/28 had F3; at T-4 both were down to F1--my upg only cleared at the gate.
Similar stats for 44, but my upg cleared before I got to the airport.
Was the "big" decrease over one week from F7 to F1, due to upgs being sold out from elites?

MAH4546

What he was almost definitely offered was the to up-fare his ticket to the cheapest paid F ticket.

LFBUs have been around for well over five years now. The only way for a kiosk to offer an LFBU is if all elite upgrade requests have been cleared. A kiosk will otherwise not offer it. They allow non-elites to upgrade at a cost of 50% more than elites - or $45 per sticker.

LucWise

I have a flight on Saturday morning... I checked 48 hours before departure, I still haven't been upgraded (I'm a PLAT). I checked EF and there's 15 empty seats in F. I know the seat map isn't always a good indicator but I fail to understand why 48 hours out with that many seats open why haven't I been upgraded? Similar thing happened on a flight last week to me, too, but I ended up getting the upgrade about three hours before the flight.

MarkedMan

Unlikely IMO. Much more likely to be a bunch of last minute bookings, changes plus people redeeming the 15k miles +75 dollars, which on a route like this is a no brainer IMO. If you think about it AA has in a sense been selling upgrades from under elites for years by offering any F seat in A inventory for basically peanuts when it is a 2 class transcon. The price of F on a RT transcon is O fare + 150 + 15k miles

I've had similar experiences, varied in fact. Flights where I clearly felt I was going to get the upgrade have cleared at 100, others not 'til T-24. The flippant answer is we're not getting upgrades because they aren't releasing the inventory I do see reasons for holding up inventory: my 5:55am SFO-DFW always clears at the window if there are seats, but a middle of the day DFW-SFO needs to support WX, misconnects of a various nature, even F standbys. They may just not want to fill that cabin up too early. I could see someone thinking that.

grrizzli

I was totally willing to snatch A1 (on EF) as a miles & copay upgrade on a transcon last Friday after I learned that I was only fourth on the upgrade list. No chance to upgrade with stickers as usual. However, all of them, the check-in counter, the Admirals Club, and the gate agent told me that nothing was available. There are still forces that prevent the lower elites from snatching upgrades from the top elites.

PainCorp

Yes, they determine the availability that AA can see.

wrigleyville

That would be my preference. While I would hope for the free upgrade - or even use stickers - ultimately, I would like ROFR on paying for an upgrade before non-elites. Especially on vacation travel.

Upgraded!

Another scenario is that someone perhaps was wait listed for mileage/SWU upgrade and nabbed it through reservations if the flight started showing A1? Or would the TA at the airport have seen/mentioned that?

The other thing worth noting is that the offer to the F-I-L could have been an up-sell, not LFBU. If $45/500mi is the typical price, $129 doesn't make much sense. However, looking at a random date in May, the difference between the lowest o/w in Y and F is $142. If that pricing differential still held day-of (OK, this is a few bucks off, but ticket prices fluctuate), then this is quite different from the LFBU scenario. This is just giving people one more chance to buy up to F, at a non-discounted price.

smilinganddialing

I generally have two kinds of work trips:

- Conferences (booked 6 weeks to 5 months in advance)
- Sales Meetings (booked 3 days to 2 months in advance)

While I am booking the latter, I often see that the price difference between Y and F is quite low. For example, I have a booking next week for West Coast - ORD on a dinner flight. The OW J - Y fare difference is $148. I have a "must buy lowest fare except if it is Spirit" policy at work and can't justify spending the $148 out of pocket but I'm sure many employers allow it, many employees are shady, and many leisure travelers will pay out of pocket. There go sticker upgrades.

I do a decent amount of ORD - West Coast travel and find myself somewhere between 1 - 5 on the UG list every time even when seatmaps will have 10-12/16 F seats available at T-7. The joys of living at a hub.