Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
When you said "as an elite of any sort" I assumed you were referring to elites of any program, as opposed to just AS elites (which you referred to in the next paragraph, not the part I quoted).
AFAIK the first tiebreaker between AS elites on AA flights is fare class. I'm not even sure if AS 100k is ahead of AS 75k; I've never seen any evidence that AA's system knows the difference (I strongly suspect that they don't).
I posted in another thread here recently that I'd never pay for a higher fare class on AS simply for the chance at an elite upgrade due to how broken the upgrade processor system is.
For different reasons, I think I'd say the same about AS elites paying up for a better fare class on AA to secure a higher waitlist position.
I think the integrity of the AA upgrade waitlist is pretty good, at least in my experience. For instance, there's no way to check in at a certain time and skip the list like you can with AS. However, as you mentioned, given how we don't really know how AS elites are listed on AA (whether 100k gets any priority over 75k is a good example), it's enough of a black box that I wouldn't take the chance of spending unnecessary extra funds just for a higher fare class.