Originally Posted by
enviroian
Who do you think among AA, DL or UA has the most liberal SWU/GPU/ Etc upgrades from Y to J? Who has the most inventory to upgrade at booking?
Based on my experience, AA.
Delta’s GUC changes were a big negative. Fortunately I have two left to use. The other drawback of the GUC policy changes was that it inherently restricted usage of the RUCs on Delta One Tcon flights. I’m not about to pay for PE for a shot at maybe clearing an international GUC in advance of one day out. The only viable use left when booking economy is on KLM as Air France (former sweet spot) now falls into the PE scope.
To the OP - sounds frustrating and it is annoying when C (or A) space is limited. That said, perhaps cancel the waitlist and take the upgrade?
A good example of their instant upgrade strategy / “taking from elite upgrades” in play is my upcoming trip this week from JFK-PHX. When I booked last week, the flight was J7 with 10 open seats; looked like an easy upgrade. The instant upgrade offer was $247. Sure enough, folks likely snapped the offer up as it went down to J3 six days out. I decided to do an up fare (marginally more than the instant upgrade) so that I don’t play gate upgrade roulette as I’d like the extra space for a 5+ hour flight. I could get annoyed about how they’re undercutting a benefit, but the flip side is that AA is looking to make money and in this instance it caused me to change my behavior. EP still provides very solid benefits beyond upgrades, such as getting superior treatment during IROPS (most recently for me this morning).