Originally Posted by nc203

I have only been EXP for two years now but I have been extremely pleased with my upgrade percentage. I didn't hold elite status back in the mid 2000's glory days of upgrades but it sure feels pretty close.

$18K rolling EQD so not a big spender by any means compared to other EXP's

80/82 on segments YTD
Two misses were A319's (CLT-BNA Wed evening & TPA-MIA Thurs morning). Most of my success comes from avoiding those whenever possible. I believe I'm still around 10/12 on A319 upgrades. 85% of flights going through CLT with 5% each split between MIA, PHL, and DFW. Wide mix of travel days but all during the week or Sunday PM and a wide range of cities (BOS, BWI, IAH, MIA) but very few transcons. Used a couple of BXP1's for CLT-LAS and return but otherwise everything else has been CPU. 90% or so come at 100hr mark and only 1 was at the gate. Biggest surprise so far was PHL-CLT on a Thursday evening. Received the upgrade at 100hrs and the flight left with 54 people on upgrade list.

For a comparison I ran a status challenge with Delta at the beginning of the year and was around 40% as a PM over 15 segments or so. Whenever I have any thought of switching I figure that a marginally lower on time percentage will only result in a headache every once in a while and it's certainly bearable to almost always get upgraded and enjoy a stronger mileage program.