Originally Posted by
FWAAA
How do you know when the C inventory was released? Did you search EF at 1010 and then again at 1015? And how do you know that it was exactly 7? AA inventory maxes at 7 in any bucket, so it could have been 8 or more, no?
I'm not seeing anything to support a suspicion that you jumped the queue. Unless you know that you were not next up on the waitlist, what evidence do we have? For all we know, you rang AA immediately prior to its automated system allocating one of the (at least 7) seats to you.
One thing I've never seen addressed is how quickly AA assigns C (or A) to those on the waitlist. Is there a one minute delay between release of inventory and processing of your upgrade? Or 10 minutes? Or an hour? I don't think that's ever been answered here.
Exactly. If you search EF and find C inventory and you call AA on behalf of a nonelite or Gold and you're able to confirm the upgrade on the phone, that would cause me to suspect that maybe you jumped the queue. But in your situation this morning, you're an EXP and probably pretty high on the waitlist. So I don't see anything to suggest that you jumped the line this morning.
I checked at 1000 and again at 1015. Flight was J7C0, then went to J7C7. You are correct that it could have been 8 or more.
Based on recent experience, I've been on the WL and had C hanging out there for up to two hours, before I had the time to call in. On a London flight last winter, my non-status wife was on the WL and 1 C seat was made available...hung for at least an hour before we called and grabbed it.
In today's case, I wasn't waitlisted for C, I was waitlisted for a 500-miler (this is for a transcon). So 7 seats became available for upgrades, I have no idea if there were passengers WL'd to burn an eVIP. My hunch is there were, but I agree we have no reason to verify.
Based on my experience, the lag between release and WL clearing may be significant.