Duke787

Wow interesting. I WL'd for 2 of us (same PNR so on my EXP) for a Monday departure Saturday return in October about 8 weeks ago. Both remain waitlisted.

The Monday outbound looks promising (about 38 seats still open in J) while the Saturday return looks increasingly bleak (down to just 19 seats from 35 when I booked - which must be all paid J since no one else was in MCE when I booked which should put me at the top of the WL though I do need 2 seats to open).

BrianV

In my case, MCE was pretty tapped out on both of my flights at time of booking (just middle seats available). Starting about three days before the flight, I started seeing aisle and windows open up. My assumption are these were elites how requested before me.

Is MCE on 77W only free for EXP or for PLT (GLD?)? There are still good MCE seats available now, so hopefully my # is coming up. Per the seat chart (admitting this isn't accurate), there are 8J and 1F seat open now with about 24 hours left. I've certainly made many NRT flights with less odds, but given the length of the flight, I'm really hoping my card gets punched.

Duke787

MCE is only free for EXP and PLT and discounted for GLD. Obviously it's not a perfect science but if MCE is wide open (as it was when I first booked) I think it's fairly safe to assume you're the first EXP / PLT (and since I'm EXP I'm extrapolating that I'm either the top of the list or very nearly the top of the list).

If there are a couple of seats taken it gets a little muddier since I'm sure many people buy MCE on a flight of this length.

BrianV

Per AA Twitter, with a little confusion. I'm not sure what "pre-cleared" SWU is.:

Me: Does check-in time have any weight on my SWU upgrade priority. The admirals club agent told me this, but I'm not sure it's right.

AA: Yes, your check in time is a factor on where you are on the standby list, as is your Executive Platinum status.

Me: Thanks, I wasn't asking about "stand by" but for SWU upgrade priority. I thought it was based on the original time of the request.

AA: We apologize for the misunderstanding. For pre-cleared SWU's, it's done by time of request automatically.

ESpen36

Wirelessly posted (Apple iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D201 Safari/9537.53)

I think the term "pre-cleared" might refer to eVIPs that clear prior to airport control / day of departure. But that term is new nomenclature for AA--at least, I have never heard it before.

I hope that it doesn't mean that eVIPs will clear more regularly at the airport instead of at time of request, as they should. EVIPs that clear at the airport should be the exception, not the rule, IMHO.

everestgrp

Looks like AA just released a tons of C inventory for the DFW/PVG route. Most days showing C7.

Pinned

What sort of date range?

everestgrp

I only checked from now to early next year via Expertflyer.

betonic

I was wait listed to use miles and co pay for DFW HKG on August 20th and it cleared today.

The business class cabin is almost empty. If you had your choice of seat which would it be?

sinanju

Booked DFW-HKG in a couple of weeks and was surprised to get an upgrade immediately. Still waitlisted for the trip back, though.

LTH

I booked DFW<->HKG for travel in August a month ago. At time of booking, I was wait-listed for upgrade on both outbound and inbound. I'm now looking at the same flights bookable on AA.com, and it seems that SWU can be readily cleared (if the reservation shows "Systemwide Upgrade" as an option under the flights, does it mean that it can be cleared if booked?). But I am still wait-listed for upgrade, should I call to ask?

DCtrAAveler

Chances are that tag is appearing because there's SWU availability from J to F. "Systemwide Upgrade" will show in that instance as well as when there's Y to J availability. Could check EF to confirm whether A or C space is open.

mohan12

I've flown the route round-trip a few times; SWU clearing has been mixed:

(Early July, requested ~5 weeks before departure) Cleared J --> F outbound 7+ days out, return at ~T-24 hours
(Mid July, requested ~3 weeks before departure) Cleared Y --> J outbound 4 days out, did not clear return (12+ on list, 5 cleared at gate)

BrianV

I bought my ticket 10 days out (for travel last week), cleared J both times right around the 24 hours mark, with 5-6 seats left after my clearing. When purchased at 10 days out, seat chart showed ~16 open seats. MCE was completely taken on both of my flights but as other upgrades (presumably) cleared, I was able to slot into MCE and ultimately even got 16C on my return (before my upgrade). Some on tihs thread have said viewing MCE may give you a slight indication on EXP (and PLT) load and SWU competition.

In regards to jetlag, my outbound was severely delayed and that caused misconnects and jetlag. My return was a relative non-affair last Friday. I boarded, ate the meal, watched 2.5 movies and slept solid for many hours. I woke up ~1-130pm DFW time, with about 2 hours left in flight. I landed in AUS at 7pm, drove home, had dinner with the wife, a bottle of red wine at home, finally hit the sack around 11pm and slept like a baby with no jetlag. I woke up around 8am on Saturday with no issues.

I'm generally not impacted too bad by jetlag, but I usually try to set a schedule based on arrival time, what movies I want to watch, etc.

Good luck!

frudd38

Has anyone failed to clear their SWU to J yet as EXP on this route? Starting to get slightly concerned with a few weeks to go but now showing 17 J seats left available on the dfw-hkg leg.