Received upgrade to F T+48.5 - much earlier than the recent 20 to 24.

+1!
Alaska still getting away with smoked turkey sandwiches, cans of white or red wine (no alcohol) in first on sold out flights to/from Hawaii.

And how many of those voluptuous birds does AA fly to/from SEA and various Hawaiian islands? How many to/from the SF Bay Area and various Hawaiian islands? If AA had that pictured aircraft, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, on SFO/HNL at similar pricing to what I've paid AS for my upcoming trip, I'd have chosen AA and credited the trip to the AS MP.

AS is currently raking it in, should continue doing so through at least the summer, with all of the pent up demand to Hawaii, time to throw us a bone - restore alcohol at least.
Combined with the near criminal car rental rates, I plan to scale back as much business travel as possible, until things settle down a bit - despite receiving my second Covid vaccination.

Hard liquor returns next week.

Perhaps availability has opened up a bit in the month since anteater made this observation. I was just looking for U space on upcoming SEA-HNL flights and there seems to be availability here and there for the next 6 weeks, most often on the AS129 evening flight. Latest I found was 7U on 6/16/2021 on the aforementioned AS129.
I was actually hunting for availability much later in the year (November), but it's encouraging to see that they now appear to be releasing U space at least a few months in advance.

Yes, it has gotten better. 🤙🏻

To be fair, the real "needle in the haystack" has been trying to find U space to east coast cities like EWR, PHL, DCA, etc. more than a month out. About the only long-haul flights I've seen for June/July and beyond has been some random Hawaii flights.

I played this game the other day in a different thread, but the real change has been with mid-con and HI for 6+ weeks out. Maybe you should do a data analysis for advance t-cons!

ps: I'd also say one of the reasons they aren't worried about the t-cons, is a very large % of those flights will never even operate...

I don't have ExpertFlyer so I'm not sure how to interpret what is going on with AS 2599. There is no box with either a filled or unfilled "F". I assume this is because there are no main cabin fares to sell so a GGU couldn't be applied either way. There is still F availability though, so my question is how do I find out if there is U space? I'm just curious if I do an SDC whether I would immediately clear into F.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a8daf7118d.png

I believe you would. I don’t believe SDC rely on U space. If you’re on a paid FC ticket you should immediately be able to switch. If you’re on a flight and we’re upgraded into U then you’d be on the FC upgrade list.

I should have clarified, this is in fact a flight where I was upgraded to U. In the past, I could do an SDC and I will immediately be upgraded to F if U space is there and if not, I will be on the upgrade list as you suggested. I guess I'm wondering if there is an easy way to figure out which it will be (i.e. see if there is U space) before doing it.

That flight looks nearly sold out and no U space as of this moment (see picture for flights that day). I presume since there are no main cabin fares available on that flight, the AS system does not display the F symbol.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0a1021313f.png

If this is for tomorrow, 5/6, there is J2 and everything else is zero.

James

Wow, I think AS may have finally re-opened the floodgates. I have been monitoring U availability for SEA-HNL fairly closely for many months now. And when I checked yesterday, there was still only a smattering of availability, all within the next few weeks and none after the end of this month. Today when I woke up, I saw a bunch of EF alerts I set up months ago finally fire, and sure enough, looking on both EF and the Alaska site, they're now showing tons of U availability for SEA-HNL well into next year (June, at least).

I further confirmed by calling in and modifying an upcoming SEA-HNL flight I had for mid-November. I had booked seats in G using a companion cert for my wife and myself, and we're both just lowly MVP's so we were waitlisted for F and PC. But I called in to up-fare to B, and though the rep indicated she saw the U availability, the system didn't allow her to be able to grab it for us as part of the up-fare transaction. However, within about 30 seconds of her submitting the transaction, we were both auto-upgraded into F.

Anyway, not sure about transcon or other routes, but you may want to check...