slopeboy40

It's very much dependant on the route. I primarily fly SEA-ANC and upgrades are all but impossible. Last year I finished at 50% upgrade success. Mostly thanks to clearing on 4 DTW round trips.

Orwaid

Hi -

There is a quirk in the AS UG system. If you had booked your flights before your status match was processed, then it might not show up on your reservation.

This also happened to me when I first went from MVPG to 75K. My upgrades were not clearing on some flights in January because I booked them as an Gold.

You have to call in, have them manually take you off the waitlist and then reenter your MP#.

God News/Bad news : you should now have your higher status entered for your flights, but you go to the bottom of the waitlist to clear (be it T-120, T-72 or T-48)

slopeboy40

So I log into my email this morning and see from LM FlightTracker that U space is now available on a flight I have today. I say to myself, "Awesome! That means we (wife and I, both 75k) must have been upgraded if U is available for purchase." I log into my reservation and no, we are still in coach. Hmmmm. I check, and no, it's not a mileage ticket, yes, our MP numbers are in there, and yes, it says we are waitlisted.

I then go through the check-in process and up pops an "upgrades available" option. Something I've never seen before. I click it and it takes me to another screen that breaks down the cost of the upgrade. It shows us both with $0.00 next to our names to upgrade. Obviously I say yes I would like to upgrade and voila we are in F.

So what's up with this? If U space is available on the day of the flight why were we, as 75k's x 2, not upgraded? What would have happened had a I checked in last night when this option was not available (and it wasn't because I almost did check in and something told me to wait), would we then not have been able to upgrade this morning?

Anyway, I'm glad I got it, first upgrade of the year, 8,000 miles in!

dave1013

I'm thinking that your rights to an upgrade were being protected until you checked in and confirmed your acceptance.

I suppose that there are circumstances where someone may not want the upgrade and decline, even though they checked the box to request an upgrade upon purchasing the ticket. Once declined, the upgrade falls to the next person in line.

All that said, I agree with your points.

slopeboy40

I don't think so. We got the last two seats in F, it's fully booked now. I think I just got lucky.

pmblinn

2/7 BOS-SAN AS769 Gold75K + companion upgrade cleared at T-120.

JimH64

2/1 DFW-SEA AS 661 MVP GLD No UG, I was #1 on wait list from check-in until 1 1/2 hours before flight with one open F. Then dropped to 3rd on list.

3/5 in 2015

rcarovano

Thanks for sharing! I'm going to have to check for this next time. I am assuming that you checked in from the full website and not the mobile website nor mobile app?

Yesterday, I had some weirdness where someone jumped over me in line and got a seat upgrade before I did.

Jeeves

I have noticed for the past few years that my upgrade percentage is very low in January and the first few weeks of February. As a gold, I typically get upgraded 75% of the time for the entire year. During the first 6 weeks of the new year, it is always low. Anyone else experience this or have an idea why?

I was thinking there might be pent up demand for business travel in January due to elites not traveling as much during the year-end holidays.

So far this year, my upgrade success is 1 out of 4.

Orwaid

Hi -

I would guess that the reason your UG % is low early in the year is that lots of G/75K flyers are building up their EQMs with the (usually) lower fares between January 10-Feb-10

dave1013

Maybe the challenges are a factor also?

dayone

DFW-SEA is a tough upgrade. On my last trip on AS 661, I was 3rd on the list and the two people ahead of me were both 75Ks.

Seat 2A

Interesting. Last week I checked in online for my flight from Seattle to Newark. No upgrade had cleared and - given this particular route - I hadn't really expected it to, especially with the weather related relocations. I didn't have a printer, so figured I'd print one off the kiosk when I got to the airport.

At the airport I signed on to reprint my boarding pass from the kiosk and my seat had been changed to 4C. There was no option to upgrade.

Honestly, why offer the option to upgrade? Of course we want to upgrade! It just makes sense that if space becomes available, just go ahead and upgrade us.

PDXPremier

In this case, it seems like it would be better to book DFW-PDX-SEA since DFW-PDX should be a lot easier to clear (not to mention the few extra EQMs you get which is always nice).

CDKing

Well my upgrades did not clear yesterday on AA PDX-ORD-BOS, as expected since we don't get upgrades on AA . I did enjoy my MCE seat though.

As a consolation prize:

BOS-PDX AS33 2/6/15 MVPG. Did not clear at window, I was still in Y when I went to bed but in F when I woke up this morning.