Originally Posted by
ethernal
It's pretty intuitive.. anything to/ex-ATL over 2 hours will be a tough upgrade except during very odd hours.
To expand on this, at larger hubs or during heavier business travel hours (commute direction matters - e.g. ex-ATL on a Monday morning is harder than to-ATL on a Monday morning), fare classes purchased will make a big difference. I am 0 for 8 on flights I booked more than two weeks in advance (generally a Q fare class) but am probably 30% (some of this is from RUCs) when booking B or Y fares. There will be at least 15-20 Diamonds on high demand long routes normally, so fare class makes a big difference in where you land in the stack.
The "Upgrade Success" thread is where you probably want to go if you want more detail.
I will definitely check out the Success thread. Thank you for that. I understand the peak times for business travel as I myself travel the same peak times. What I was trying to gather was the routes people had posted successes/failures in this thread. As an example, if I posted I was upgraded 4/5 times, this doesn't really help inform others unless you know where the routes.