I wonder if AA actually books SWUs as a liability given how tightly controlled the C UPG inventory is. One could argue that a capacity controlled SWU, especially one that is more of a space available upgrade, isn’t a cost to an airline, but rather a revenue generator as a paid airfare is associated with it. And the purchased ticket in which a SWU is attempted to be used might be an incremental flight for that pax, or one in which the pax flies AA on an inconvenient routing and not on a competitor on a faster or cheaper journey. My guess is that AA considers the distribution of SWUs as neither an asset nor a liability, but instead considers the awarding of EXP as an asset, with SWUs being the means of motivating pax to become EXP, with incremental spend.

The mistake AA has made in not extending SWUs to the end of this membership year is that for pax, like myself, that have decided to not pursue elite status on AA anymore (given their poor service and lack of service from SFO), I would have purchased some air tix this fall if I could have used my eVIPs, but as of 8/1, have no incentive to book AA. On UA, OTOH, I’ll be buying tickets as they extended my SWUs.