Just finished the 73 and 72 round trip process. In short, got the upgrades both ways as a non-elite member going out and Gold coming home (miles + $$$). The upgrade process was smooth going out with availability cleared more like 72 hours ahead of time. Coming home, J was wide open (30 seats available) but the C space did not open on EF until 27 hours or so before the flight (I manually checked so this was not a delay in the alert being sent; the alert came about an hour after I manually found it, checking frequently). Going out, they flew with 5 empty seats; coming home J was full.

Coming home, I asked to pull miles from multiple accounts of the pax in my group and they said they would but needed to split the reservation and have different PNR#'s. After they did this, they then tacked on another $75/each for the non-elite members in my group on their PNR's as they were not attached to my gold status. I found that pretty disappointing to have fee rules that even their own employees don't understand well enough to advise ahead of splitting a PNR. Had they told me, I just would have pulled all the miles from my account and not split the PNR.

As an aside, I was impressed with the hard product offered. The seat was great, in particular. The food was actually really good (actual filet, outstanding kobe sliders (best food I have ever had on an airline), steak sandwich), although the wine was just okay. The FA's are all experienced by definition to get that route. Some were great; others were so-so. I think one of the main areas of improvement on the AA soft product is that the flight crews on this route don't consistently work the route or work together. A lot of little service issues slip through the cracks over the course of a long flight and I was also surprised that they ran out of certain meals, sizes in pajamas, did not consistently offer the mid-flight snack to all passengers, etc. For a r/t ticket that pushes $9k, this does not seem right. The route is somewhat new so maybe it will keep improving.