Originally Posted by
Raralith
Definitely wait until the last moment (likely before 03/30 reward choice deadline) as you never know if those J seats don't get booked and take the risk on the SWU. I would also suggest taking looking at flight schedule and remaining seats available the week before and the days before your flight before you make your reward choice. If it's a true 50/50 at that point, personally, I would just take the guaranteed 30k miles if I knew I wasn't going to do anymore international travel in the next ~15 months because I value the flight home less as I'll be sleeping in my own bed that night anyways, and MCE isn't that bad on a 787. If there is a 30-50% chance I'd fly in the next 15 months and could use the SWU, I'd take the SWU. A guaranteed ~$300 vs. possible $8k in international upgrade to J savings is worth the risk for me.
Thanks. Makes sense. On the timing, even if availability remains at C0, does AA ever start processing SWUs a few days in advance, similar to complimentary domestic upgrades? If so, then we would have to take that into account as well. To your point about checking the seats, I know you can only read so much into this stuff, but as of now the plane appears to be two-thirds full:
- 7 of 20 seats in J
- 24 of 28 seats in PE
- 23 of 48 MCE seats
- 10 of 32 Preferred Seats
- 89 of 106 standard economy seats
I suppose we'll just wait and see how many seats are left in J, and then guestimate how many EXPs might be on the flight
and taking a run at an SWU.