Originally Posted by
PUCCI GALORE
Then I read the outpourings and realised how far the industry had come. There is a charming thread in AAnother place where a caring and delightfully enthusiastic FA has been castigated because of his opinion over a flight that went out with a seat in F unoccupied when there were 12 people on the upgrade list. This is, of course a list where you surrender miles not real money and on a flight between ORD and SEA.
I haven't read the whole thread but you can be close to certain that if an AA domestic flight went out with 11 on the standby list for first class, they weren't planning on spending miles on those upgrades - they were 'stickers'.
AA, and the other 'legacy' carriers have a deal with their most frequent flyers that goes along the lines of "you give us most of your domestic business and we'll upgrade you to domestic first free if there's an available seat". The complaint is AA basically reneged on that deal for whomever was at the top of the prioritized list and put a non-rev in the seat.