Originally Posted by jbkraft

Hello,

First post here so sorry if it's not in the right place. Planning on booking airfare from DCA to HKG (2 people) in late March/early April using ThankYou points which will count as a cash purchase as far as AA is concerned. Options to HKG are from either DFW or LAX. Both flights will be class Q which I understand to be discount economy and will require 25K AA miles and $350 to upgrade per person (just doing it in one direction). When I call to check availability from AA reservations, they say there is currently none but that I can be waitlisted. From what I've read waitlist priority is based first on status and then on request date and there has to be 2 upgrade openings as if just 1 is available for a 2 person booking, it'll skip to the next.

Questions: 1) What are the odds that AA makes additional space available? and 2) when does this usually happen? 3) Is there any way other than a paid subscription to expertflyer to check availability that isn't calling AA? I check on award space on AA.com and it shows business seats but not business saver, is saver the upgrade seats? 4) Which route is likely to have upgrade space open up, DFW or LAX?

Thanks in advance!