I'm sure andrzej(100% upgrade success) and my 0% upgrade success are not the norm. As I recall andrzej's home airport is Tampa, which may have less traffic (ie, have flown w/ AA FF tix into Tampa a few times because Orlando was full). My airport is SJC or the other CA Bay Area airports. Granted, after many upgrade failures (I only had GOLD, so maybe that's it), I stopped trying and exchanged my upgrades for FF miles (not as lucrative these days as when I did it). I failed to mention that I have not flown AA much in the past 2 years so I cannot comment on what AA & the AA FF program is like now. One general observation is that all the recent airline & FF program changes for every airline are for the worse. Case in point: I LOVED AA's extraleg room in coach --- but now they are getting rid of (have already gotten rid of?) it on some(all?) of their planes. That would have been beneficial for tall people, but it's being/been removed.