My daughter paid $40 for an F upgrade MCO-CLT. When many flights out of MCO were cancelled last Friday night, the cheap upgrade definitely helped her for IRROPS purposes--it got her in the MCO AA Priority front counter waiting line (she has no AA elite status) with 5 persons ahead of her instead of the 100+ in the regular AA line, and she was able to get a confirmed seat on the first flight out the next morning. She was stuck on hold with a call to AA reservations when she got the seat.