Originally Posted by
enviroian
Flying to St Louis tomorrow in a sold out F cabin. For the last several days AA has had app buy ups for $97 to F and it's obviously worked as it's now full. I'm flying to Detroit Friday and the same so that cabin will be zeroed out by Thursday I assume. Just SMH AA would take $97 from a kettle rather than keep an EXP happy.
I'm EXP with 250k LPs and have only missed one "R" upgrade this year -- are you looking at C class availability on these segments before booking? DFW-STL and esp. DFW-Detroit would seem like a strange flight for much paid F. Nevertheless, there is enough "signal" here to indicate that lots of EXPs aren't getting even 50% upgrades, which for me would be a deal-breaker.
Maybe AA is trying to replicate the revenue it lost by getting rid of the paid e500s by selling cheap upgrades for sale. If so, they are devaluing the program. I had no problem doing the copay dance for my companions on midcons, which were often $120 each way. But if upgrading disappears for elites in the program, then you've lost a big product differentiator.