No I didn't Tom. the only thing I value from the AAdv program is (was) complimentary upgrades. I am batting 50% this year due to generally booking last minute.

I have no issue with AA selling out F. I want the company to succeed. But if the program changes then I have to reevaluate my decision with all factors in play, which I have done. I'm not walking away totally, but if I don't make EXP next year, I don't really care at this point.

On friday flew ORD MIA and 3 seats did open up and got upgraded. Was international transfer and even number 1 on VDB as EXP. WAs happy it cleared to get some breakfast.

I knew it was too good to be true.

If this makes sense, I must be going crazy.

Since I started taking what seemed to be more popular flights (AA192 on Friday night annd AA1427 on Sunday night) as part of my SFO=BOS weekly trips, upgrades have been less frequent.

MCE is really nice though and I honestly haven't been able to rest all that well in "First" class in the 737 anyway. The overnight 192 in the 737's First Class seats was really tiring compared to Business in the 767-200's tired old seats.

I think I'll start taking the SFO= JFK flights again - better upgrade chances into more comfortable seats at the expense of slightly less convenient schedules.

Please don't. I don't want more competition ;)

I managed to upgrade BOS-JFK-LHR-JFK-BOS and try out business class on the new 77W -- JFK-LHR was on a busy Sunday. I've also been upgraded BOS-DFW-ICN-DFW-BOS For a trip coming up in two weeks. I realize the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but so far so good SWU-wise for me this year.

So did your JFK-LHR-JFK flights feature your usual AA service issues? ;)
" Every trip has some type of disaster and fully half of my business trips include me wondering if I'm going to get home or be stuck 8600 miles away with a phone bill the size of a planet from calling and begging them to do their jobs properly... Every single AA employee I've had the misfortune of encountering in the last 9 months is some combination of inefficient, incompetent, insufferable, and ill-equiped."

Yeah, actually... it was part of the trip to India AA farked, so there was that. Also, the cockpit turned on the seatbelt sign when we hit some bumps early on going from LHR to JFK. There's no problem with that, of course, but the rest of the ride was glass-smooth and the light never went out. After about 30 minutes, it was roundly ignored and the cabin crew couldn't have cared less. There was no "it may seem smooth, but we have reports of sudden turbulance" announcement from the front office. Folks are going to fail to take that light seriously when they should when that happens. One flight attendant decided to sit down with the guy in the seat behind me and have a loud conversation while I was trying to sleep off the effects of BOM-LHR. I could hear them clearly through my ear plugs. Luckly, the conversation didn't last much more than 15 minutes. He had some sort of service issue and the seat in which he hosted the conversation was the third he had been in.

Thanks for asking.

I wish I could just book 15k worth of travel ... :D

I'm sitting on my flight, neatly upgraded into my fave seat of course, thinking about where I'd go ......

In my one year at AA I've yet to sit in Y domestic (or international for that matter, but at least half of those are bought). Some of it is because I've paid for the domestic leg as part of an international trip, some of it is because I've used a SWU as part of an international trip, most have been complimentary EXP upgrades. Of those, one may have been shenanigans (not prompted by myself) as I got cleared into an earlier flight coming back from europe at dfw and should have been behind all on the upgrade list, yet at the last minute when someone didn't turn up and all EXPs had cleared, they gave it to me. Couple have been gate squeakers, got the last seat, once at LAX, once at DFW. I just cleared my ongoing connection at DFW on a Thursday lunchtime to SFO (T-5h give or take), late purchase for business trip, F2, flight pretty much full. All others have been comfy.

I guess maybe the expectations at AA were for all upgrades to clear at the window. I have not had that experience, however in all honesty I can't complain. I prefer AA to UA by a long way and I'd be perfectly happy to be in Y on the odd flight. I chalk it down to luck that I haven't had to, and would always want to have a truly useful status with at least one airline in a global alliance. EXP will let me sit in GF T5 at LHR for my longish layover this Saturday waiting for our onward connection, I suppose you could say I do EXP for the Grand Siecle :D

LAX-LAS: really?
 

My wife and I are about to head to the airport and we're fully expecting Y. AA is showing only 1 open seat in F. I've never had a problem upgrading on this route in either direction. We bought these particular tickets more than 6 weeks ago and requested the upgrades at that time.

Oh well, it is only a 40 min flight -- I just wanted to start the party a little bit earlier ;)

I missed one upgrade last week -- DFW-PSP. First missed upgrade of the year, and first since a miss on JFK-LAX two years ago.

Current status: 29-1/30 this year
Last year: 122/122

They are clearing later this year also, usually T-48 rather than at the T-100 window.

I don't know if I'll miss it yet, but my flight from ABQ - DFW on Tuesday morning only shows four seats in FC open, by far the fewest amount of seats open in any flight I've ever taken on that route. The seat map for flight 1980 on 5/20 from MIA-DCA already shows zero seats so I'm pretty sure that I'll be missing that upgrade...
I missed an upgrade from LGA - DFW earlier this year already...
Gotta say that it looks like I'll be missing more upgrades this year on AA than I ever did on DL as diamond.

I'm still finding things clearing at, or close to, 100 hours. I always split our reservations, and it rarely fails that we get one upgrade at about 100 hours, and the other later.

The times when this doesn't happen is during coach oversells where they zero out (or substantially reduce) F inventory while still having a bunch of seats. This one is pretty much a guaranteed gate upgrade.

Cheers.

Same here, almost everything has cleared T-100. The lone exception was a flight booked < 1 week out that cleared 7 hours before departure.

Missed DEN to LAX, although that seemed to be filled with revenue pax going onwards to international flights.