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2015 Chances of Upgrade Clearing and Upgrade Availability Discussion (consolidated)

2015 Chances of Upgrade Clearing and Upgrade Availability Discussion (consolidated)

 
Old Aug 14, 2015, 9:19 pm
  #751  
 
Join Date: Jun 2015
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Just kidding, found the answer to my own question by scrolling up a couple of posts.
Originally Posted by grrizzli
DFW-PEK was flown in late July on Thursday. The upgrade cleared a couple of hours before the departure, even though EF was showing J7/C7 for at least 30 hours before that. At the end the J cabin was full of non-revs.
Also accidentally made a new reply instead of editing the old one...
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Old Aug 15, 2015, 9:33 am
  #752  
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Hi all, on flights marketed by Alaska but operated by AA, can AA elites request any upgrades (stickers or automatic for EXP), and when?
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Old Aug 15, 2015, 8:09 pm
  #753  
 
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J full to MXP on 9-1

I'm flying DCA-JFK-MXP on 9-1 and MXP-MIA-DCA on 9-8 and I have SWU's waitlisted for both longhaul segments from near the date of purchase (5-21)

Tonight I decided to check the seatmaps to see how upgrade odds were looking, and to my great shock, J has no available seats on JFK-MXP on 9-1; J is also showing full on that day's MIA-MXP.

Is it really true that J is full and no upgrades will clear JFK-MXP? I guess I should get ready to drop the change fee to get on better flights. LHR or MAD, anyone?
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 12:39 am
  #754  
 
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something going on in mxp? def odd for j0 two weeks out
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 1:06 am
  #755  
 
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Originally Posted by Exec_Plat
something going on in mxp? def odd for j0 two weeks out
I was going to say Expo 2015, but the last day of that is 8/31 -- odd that flights *to* MXP would be full on 9/1...
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 1:31 pm
  #756  
 
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Originally Posted by taxicabnumber
I was going to say Expo 2015, but the last day of that is 8/31 -- odd that flights *to* MXP would be full on 9/1...
The only thing I can figure is that it's the end of the European summer holiday period. But I checked various other random transatlantic segments for that day (CLT-FCO, ORD-DUS, DFW-LHR), and those loads looked pretty normal. So I don't know what gives.

The kicker is that my only reason for flying to MXP is now flying straight to FCO and I'm supposed to go by train from Milan to Rome that day to get there - doable and not horridly expensive, but a little cumbersome. Perhaps it's time to do some EF research, then try to pay one change fee that gets me both the better destination and the better cabin.

Does anybody have any other thoughts?
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 2:06 pm
  #757  
 
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JFK-FCO is showing 7J and 11 open seats in Business on September 1 (Tuesday).

Does that seem like a good SWU bet if I pay the change fee?
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 3:46 pm
  #758  
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Originally Posted by discoverCSG
JFK-FCO is showing 7J and 11 open seats in Business on September 1 (Tuesday).

Does that seem like a good SWU bet if I pay the change fee?
Well, it's certainly better than zero. The only thing is, I don't think you will retain your upgrade timestamp if you do that. What does the MCE cabin look like? If it's empty, then yeah, you'll probably have a decent shot. If it's full, then you might have a problem.
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 3:53 pm
  #759  
 
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Originally Posted by cmd320
Well, it's certainly better than zero. The only thing is, I don't think you will retain your upgrade timestamp if you do that. What does the MCE cabin look like? If it's empty, then yeah, you'll probably have a decent shot. If it's full, then you might have a problem.
Anytime you change flights, SWU time-stamp re-sets. Sticker upgrades do retain the original time-stamp as long as changes are done in the same pnr.
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 4:11 pm
  #760  
 
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Originally Posted by sukn
Anytime you change flights, SWU time-stamp re-sets. Sticker upgrades do retain the original time-stamp as long as changes are done in the same pnr.
That was my next question.

But since I need to be in Rome anyway, I'll take

1. The flight to Rome with the possibility of an upgrade, as opposed to

2. The flight to Milan with virtually no chance of an upgrade, followed by five hours in the train system getting to Rome.

The MCE cabin looks fairly full, but that would also include Plat (behind me), OAL OneWorld elites, full Y tickets, and people who purchased MCE. Plus not all ExPlats will be attempting to use an SWU. Plus there are eleven unassigned seats in J - more than I could find on many tatl flights that day.

At least that's what I'm telling myself as I fork over $800+ in change fee and fare difference.
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 11:30 pm
  #761  
 
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Time to call the EXP desk and get a sympathetic agent to give an opinion. Definitely see if you change will you keep a timestamp. You might luck out and one will take the extra 5 minutes tolook at your actual position on the list
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Old Aug 17, 2015, 10:42 am
  #762  
 
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Originally Posted by Exec_Plat
Time to call the EXP desk and get a sympathetic agent to give an opinion. Definitely see if you change will you keep a timestamp. You might luck out and one will take the extra 5 minutes tolook at your actual position on the list
I won't use the word "Sympathetic", but the EXP desk agent I got didn't challenge my assumption that I wasn't going to get upgraded on that JFK-MXP leg. She said it looked "good" on the JFK-FCO leg I switched to, and that's good enough for me, I guess.
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Old Aug 18, 2015, 10:04 pm
  #763  
 
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A full JFK-MXP J cabin is not unusual. My wife and I flew JFK-MXP in June and were waitlisted for upgrades. Ultimately no one was upgraded. 21 J seats were open when I booked 5 months prior, all were filled 10 days out. At the time I checked other days and very few, if any, J seats were open on that flight.

It was the first time I missed an international upgrade.
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Old Aug 19, 2015, 4:15 am
  #764  
 
Join Date: Jun 2015
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Originally Posted by discoverCSG
That was my next question.

But since I need to be in Rome anyway, I'll take

1. The flight to Rome with the possibility of an upgrade, as opposed to

2. The flight to Milan with virtually no chance of an upgrade, followed by five hours in the train system getting to Rome.

The MCE cabin looks fairly full, but that would also include Plat (behind me), OAL OneWorld elites, full Y tickets, and people who purchased MCE. Plus not all ExPlats will be attempting to use an SWU. Plus there are eleven unassigned seats in J - more than I could find on many tatl flights that day.

At least that's what I'm telling myself as I fork over $800+ in change fee and fare difference.
$800 just for the possibility of an upgrade seems like quite a gamble...

Would love to hear how it turned out -- planning to do JFK-MXP next summer but from the looks of things guess will have to settle for Rome.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 7:38 am
  #765  
 
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Can anyone give me an idea of how tough an upgrade SFO-DFW is on a Saturday morning (6:45a)? Still well outside the EXP window, and EF is already showing only F4A1 (for a 738 with 16 F). To me, that seems like a lot of paid F for a Saturday morning, even out of SFO.

I'm tempted to use an instrument to upgrade now, primarily because my last few ex-SFO flights have all been significantly delayed, and 1) sitting on the tarmac is always better in F than Y and 2) having an 'A' rather than 'X' class fare is always better for flight changes in IRROPS (usually allows upgrade preservation).
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