A5RoadDogg

Flying with wife lax-ogg tomorrow on 9 am, I'm plat with plenty of stickers, no upgrade at 72 hours, checked in and separately checked on F availability, at 24 hours out there were 6 discount f seats for sale, and 10 unassigned seats.

Now at 18 hours out, F is showing 0, and no upgrade. Any idea what happened? My guesses are:
1) they sold the upgrades to non-elites at check-in
2) they processed back logged exec plat and plat elites (unlikely given high mce occupancy)
3) they processed other golds (unlikely)
4) a family of 10 bought out the cabin

Any ideas? Was really disappointed not to clear at 72 hours - they tend to have issues with my wife filing separately as gold and not as my companion, so I'm wondering if that's at play?

Any speculation, knowledge from last experience, or inside knowledge would be appreciated.

JonNYC

Nope


Probably.

JY1024

Did you look to see if any other flights in/out of OGG are having operational issues?

Many times a flight very quickly goes to F0 and/or Y0 if a flight before/after got cancelled or delayed, causing a waterfall effect of re-bookings.

(Otherwise, I would also guess #2 to be the most likely of the options you listed.)

TXguy

This seems most plausible. They rarely clear upgrades to F0 until the gate.

mmgm

The other time this can happen is if Y is oversold. Then they stop further sales including F.

JumboJet

Could be a combination of a couple of these but agree #1 didn't happen. I have had some funky upgrade action at the gate for LAX-OGG before.

Also wanted to say I don't think #3 happened either

A5RoadDogg

Y not oversold, there are entire middle rows open in man cabin.

I misspoke, it's F1, a single full-fare seat available.

My only issue with the upgrade theory is, shouldn't that open seats up in MCE? Seems strange to have 9 upgrades process, but only 2 seats be available in MCE

Specific question - is there any chance that, rather than process us as plat and companion, they mistakenly processed us as plat tethered to gold, thus holding the upgrade and instead giving it to solo plats without going to the airport? We often have the issue where she is not listed as companion.

Sorry I know I am fixating, but I'm just disappointed. Come on no-shows tomorrow! Skip your 9 am, get placed on the 5 pm flight!

Edit: thank you all for the responses, I appreciate it!

mikelat

Did you ask for upgrades only if 2 open up or were you willing to split? Its possible they only released one at a time and skipped your party of 2.

Frindle

Seat map does not show you what is sold.

bdemaria

EF shows 7s in all coach fare buckets for the flight this am so there is ample Y availability.

I don't really see any shenanigans. The flight was F6 and dropped to F1 (at least thats how I read "there were seat discount F seats for sale). There weren't 10 seats sold, there were just 5 assigned/sold. Thats a big difference.

My guess: a couple of upgrades may have cleared in the regular fashion, & AA may have opened up more "A" inventory and some people opted to use SWUs or miles/copay to be sure they ended up in F. Also, there is the option of the free EXP same day flight change - and if I had been booked on the 757 in the afternoon, I certainly would have tried to change to the earlier flight on the nicer plane.

Finally, I wouldn't eliminate a couple of seats simply being sold for a last minute New Year's eve trip to OGG on either a paid ticket - or an anytime award.

Blumie

First of all, seat maps can provide valuable information if one knows what to look for and only in tandem with other information such as expertflyer data.

In this case, however, the most useful information is that the flight went from F6 to F1 (not F10 to F0), which is entirely consistent with upgrades being processed (very possibly including some upgrades to A in addition to upgrades to X), perhaps with some late F sales (especially since discounted F was available). Nothing really surprising at all.

777Pax

DFW-OGG cancelled on the 29th. Probably Reroutes.