Originally Posted by
HLCinCOU
I'm one of the big beneficiaries of the new policy. I typically book no more than 48 hours out, and tend to fly lots of regional routes that have a high price/mile; before the EQD change I cleared less than half the time, and often by the time I booked J would already be full or close to it because they had already processed some upgrades. That was sort of a drag. I knew my behavior was exactly what the airline really wanted...but they were giving all the upgrades to flyers who were behaving in ways much less beneficial to AA. The system effectively had a clear bias in favor of the people who paid the least for their tickets. The new system strikes me as a lot more sensible. Of course my self-interest aligns there too (2018 upgrade success >80%), so go figure. But I just wanted to point out that there are good effects for a lot of people from these changes.
I wholeheartedly agree, they should reward customers who exhibits behavior that is more beneficial to AA. In my case, there are still 9 seats for sale out of 12 with only 4 MCE seats booked (no clue if the other two are elites waitlisted for an upgrade). Theoretically, they could upgrade all four of us and still have 5 seats left to sell.
The route is DCA-MSY on a Saturday morning. So a combination of these factors is what made me wonder. All of the three flights on Saturday all have J7+ seats left.
Regardless, I agree where it makes sense in certain markets that sees a lot of last minute purchases (whether Y or J) upgrades should be held back to a certain degree to ensure that the right customers are rewarded, both paid F and higher value elites.
Originally Posted by
Stripe
Maybe the old bug has returned. I am also on a DCA-DFW flight on Saturday evening where only 4 of the 16 F seats are occupied, and no one has been upgraded. (It was 4 of 16 before the CK window opened.) EF shows J7 I7 Y7 and C3. I am also EXP. I am traveling with a companion on the same PNR and don't want a random assignment at the last minute to have us in wildly different seats. Plus be able to select a meal. It's very frustrating. Nothing wrong with our reservation as we both got upgraded on the connecting DFW-AUS flight at T-100.
The only plausible explanation is that Dec 14 is the target date for Congress to adjourn and maybe AA is keeping the F cabin clear on that weekend to accommodate last minute purchases.
I have a companion on my reservation, I do wonder if that is possibly causing the upgrade process to “hang”. I was a platinum when we booked the trip two months ago and became EXP since then, so this could have messed up the coding? I don’t know
Although your congress comment does make sense since I am flying DCA-MSY and could be a plausible reason.
Originally Posted by
aacar
On many of my flights this year, I've been getting upgraded at right around T-26.5, regardless of the number of available seats.
It's at least early enough to allow for meal selection, but can be annoying when it goes down from J7+ to J1 and I'm pretty much stuck in the seat I was assigned.
I do recall AA pushing through upgrades right before OLCI so definitely will check around 26 hours out. I am a little worried about the seats too since we’d like to be seated together. We will see.
Originally Posted by
Uncle Nonny
Seems to be streaky for me. 9/17 the last month or so, mostly t-cons. All upgrades coming 100 hrs out. Just snapped an 0-4 run (LAX-PHL, PHL-MCO, MCO-PHL, PHL-LAX) last night on an LAX-PHL. My question: Are upgrades harder towards the end of the year as people are making status and those who aren't re-qualifying haven't been dropped yet? WIll it thin out in February, after the Jan 31 expirations?
Upgrades tend to be somewhat harder towards the end of the year. It’s not just SWUs but also BusinessExtra upgrades that typically expire on 12/31. I suspect this week is the last week of the typical business travel routine for many until 2019, so demand might be a little higher.