Originally Posted by
wanderlust4life
Just got word from a colleague that AA has been advertising buy ups at the airport in SYD pending capacity. $800 AUD to upgrade ticket into J. I have no idea if this is being offered at LAX for the AA73 flight. Doesn't matter if ticket is QF or AA. Somehow, they override it and they don't need to exchange the ticket but your seat on your boarding pass is in the J cabin. This might be the winning strategy for Mandy007 who booked a QF codeshare for the AA flight.
I dont think its something thats guaranteed but it looks like its at the discretion of the station manager when looking at each day's loads. And maybe its after all mileage/SWU upgrades have been processed and the list is empty or maybe it doesn't matter and this could negatively impact those waiting to clear on SWUs all the way at the gate.
Historically, those kind of upgrades, Counter upgrades (which are something separate and apart from LFBU upgrades, but are often confused for/with same,) are almost exclusively sold outside of the US for US-bound flights, from everything I've ever seen.