PHL-MCO on an A321 with 20F has steadily been dropping. $185 2 weeks ago an $140 in the week leading up to the flight. It's 2 days from now and EF shows J7 and seat map 10 open. it was 12 open seats yesterday when my PPRO window opened. no upgrade. Today the PLT window passed and still no upgrades. They really want to draw it out until the last minute for those buy-ups. I can't think of any other reason to leave so many open. The Y seat map has a lot of MCE seats open too, so I don't think there are a ton of elites on board as it is.
I have noticed lately that the advertised EXP and PPRO upgrade windows have become fictional as AA continues to try to sell upgrades up to the day of the flight. Wife is EXP and I am PPRO. We were getting upgraded regularly (her about 75% and me about 25-50%) until about four months ago, more than half of these upgrades at the window. Now we get an upgrade offer by email and app to buy up to first, usually for $205 and sometimes for less. Initially I would get the offer and she would not (we're usually on separate reservations to preserve companion rights for others travelling with us). Now we usually both get the offer. And we started noticing that even when the flight was J6 or higher with 10 open seats on the chart at 100 hours or 72 hours, we wouldn't clear at the window. Those open seats now tend to fill up between 24-48 hours preflight, and when the upgrade list is finally published on the app day of flight there is magically only one or two open seats in first, sometimes none. A few months ago, if there were 10 seats available in first, we would usually clear at the EXP or PPRO upgrade windows, but not anymore. Our last upgrade was in January, and we usually fly once or twice each month. Right now we have ORD-DCA Friday returning Sunday. Friday has 8 seats left and Sunday 10. No upgrades at the window but today she got an in-app upgrade offer for the Sunday flight, although the tech was broken so we couldn't see the price.