Ugh....this is like pounding on rocks. You have clearly confused AA miles and Asia Miles, and now we have lots of incorrect information on this site to boot. You just cannot upgrade with AA miles. Period. I am not basing this on reading FT - I'm basing it on a colleague who has a hoard of AA miles (quite fewer Asia Miles), boasted to our whole office how much better off he was with his AA miles when using upgrades, until he had to eat his own words HKG-LAX when he showed up at the airport assuming he could upgrade and was told to pay or fork over ASIA MILES. Not AA miles. With AA miles you can buy AWARD tix, and with AA codeshares you can buy a high-fare subclass and upgrade using ASIA MILES (NOT AA MILES!!!!), but what you insist is correct just plain isn't.