>>>>>Trying to "snag?" Missing 6 upgrades is more upgrades than I think I missed all last year.

I missed more in the last month than I've missed in the last THREE years (gold at the time!). Something is percolating in perkland, fishy in the 1000 lakes of the state of Minnesota, or possibly rotten in the state of Denmark. Flights on identical days/hours/spring-breaks that I was easily EUA'ed last year as a Gold I now have no chance of getting upgraded on, EUA or battlefield, as a Plat.

I would tend to guess that targeted-corporate-agency-booked incentives or other targeted F-class promotions are filling seats upfront on many flights well in advance of EUA ever running, leaving any and all elites to hope to get lucky on flights that used to be easy pickings. Dick G's anecdote about 73 plats is still valid--I've been on virtual all-elite flights--but only on busy Mondays after I've gotten a bump from the weekend, and never before on the leisure times I tend to fly. I don't really think that it is the same-day bumps or reroutes that are shifting the landscape like this.