Leisure routes on Saturdays during in-season periods (I.e. PHX in April) can be tough upgrades due to infrequent fliers often springing for mileage F tickets and upgrades.

Try upgrading FLLLAX of all things on a Saturday.

I'm seeing more upgrades at the gate. PLTs and particularly GOLDs must really be out of luck.

Yes - AA has figured out how to hold their powder. I am on LGA-DFW right now and it was F5 last night. I got an upgrade e-mail at 9:30AM today.

wow I was reading through the post and check my 11 2042 MIA ORD flight (morning flight..) & all seats are taken up in F. Anyway as a connect and if something frees up I'll have a fair chance but yeah on such a domestic route I was usually not even looking at open seats in F...

It is what it is. We are still hoping our upgrades ORD-LHR clear this Thursday. If they don't, then we sit in our Y seats, enjoy GF lounge at LHR then on to MXP.:) I realize this thread is about domestic upgrades, but prayers and positive thoughts from you all are appreciated ;).

I was booking a PDX-DFW-PDX flight about 10 days out for last week and the economy fair was about $720 and the discounted F was $827 so I bought the first class fare.

No status on AA (fly AS mostly) and was pleasantly surprised at the small difference in fair.

I think those F sells are cruise ship passengers who booked the "upgraded" cabin packages. A lot of times those include F seating on the airfare part of the trip.

While the majority of my upgrades seem to be clearing at the gate lately instead of in advance, they are still clearing for the most part. Maybe there is a slight decrease, but not a noticeably significant one. However, sitting in Y with a free drink and meal really isn't that much of a hard blow, particularly if the cabin has MCE.

Is it also possible, that pax are afraid their miles will disappear after the merger is complete, and they are using miles (even at the non-saver rate) to go fc?

Are you on AA46?
 

Same here, waiting for upgrade to clear too, good luck.

1. Ease of obtaining dirt cheap miles these days. You can thank the bloggers for exposing vanilla reloads.

2. Ease of obtaining upgrades on AA using miles. You can thank AA revenue management for that. On most flights, A buckets are as available as full fare buckets. On 738s, it's not uncommon to see F16A15.

Yep - if you want a confirmed F seat - better start paying up ....

Upgrades becoming very tough to get - I can't even imagine how bad it will be once the merger is finalized.

I fly AUS-PHL weekly. Up until about three weeks ago, I was upgraded about 95 percent of the time on the PHL-DFW flight. Since then, I haven't even been within five seats of an upgrade.

I'm a DFW based EXP, and I'm 13/15 this year so far. I did book a few trips a couple months out, and some two weeks out. The two misses are peak DCA-DFW and DFW-IAH. The majority of my upgrades have come through at the window, others coming 36 hours out. I only had battlefield upgrade coming on a peak DFW-ORD, booked 3 months out.

That said, I did buy two confirmed F tickets when the price differential was less than $150 on last minute trips. In addition to more reasonably priced F, there is still a large glut of new EXPs from the DEQM promos of 2012, leading to more competition. I should know...I would be a PLT if it wasn't for those promos. And as alluded to in an earlier post, there may be more people burning miles for upgrades due to the merger, if my coworkers are any indication.

I fly PHX/ORD regularly on AA. Three factors on this route (1) since the merger announcement AA has been the high price leader on this route, (2) overall discounted coach fares are just not there, (3) AA's last flight out non-stop is 2pm, through DFW not much later. The capacity is not there.

Also as another poster noted, cheapest non-stop on AA RT PHX ORD is 700+, first is 900+, 7 days out. For a non status PAX, with two bags and seat selection- first is just a few dollars more. I am flying to ORD this weekend for my Wife's birthday, and the small difference between the lowest coach and first almost makes me think about selecting first (I will still select coach- but I thought deeply about it).

AA is starting to offer PHX-LAX-ORD as the low cost choice on this route. Might be an alternative for some.

If you are flying out of ORD this Thursday, lets meet for a drink in the Flagship lounge. We are on AA 46. Good luck to you as well.