I can see how if you are 50k it may feel this way. However, I would say that it’s far from impossible to get an eUp. Just one personal data point, but on my last 4 transatlantic legs booked in economy, I got an upgrade to Business on 3 of them and PY on one.

With that said, my last 2 legs in and out of FRA had loads of space and pretty much the whole list was cleared, so status level was less important.

Of course your experience will vary depending on the day of week, route, aircraft type, etc. But I often find when people complain about lack of eUp’s it’s because they are trying to fly business heavy routes on peak times for business travellers.

End of the day you are never entitled to an upgrade and if your complaint is that there is not enough room on the plane, than that is a good thing from AC’s perspective. Why would they want to undersell their most profitable seats just to upgrade someone who is paying for an economy seat? However, if this issue (as it often is) is that there are too many on the list chasing seats, there is an argument that AC has created too many elites or handed out too many eUp credits. The “fix” for this would probably not be something that you would like as a 50k.