lightbulbs

Which one of you actually had your seat updated? If you did and you gave the seat to your SO you'll be fine. If your SO is the one who got the seat changed then I don't think AA's systems are able to figure that out and I imagine you will have stickers deducted. Writing in to explain what happened might possibly work esp if you said the gate agent upgraded the wrong one

lizthegrey

SO's seat was updated and was checked off on the upgrade list.

It looks like the gate agent did the right thing, and I still have all the 500-mile upgrades I started with

jcain

Just cleared miles + copay from Y>J for AA185 (8:30PM departure JFK-LAX) on 5/12/19. Cabin looks nearly empty - wondering if I would have ultimately cleared a comp. upgrade but nice to be sure for a 6 hour flight.

mrosskam

Flying LAX-JFK on Friday 5/3 AA28 at 10:50pm. Expertyflyer currently showing F3, A3, J3, D3, I0, and economy across the board with 7. Wondering what my odds for a EXP 500-mile comp Y>J upgrade as an EXP with ~$16k in rolling EQD. Currently there are only about 5 MCE seats assigned on this flight of 36 total MCE, with regular economy mostly full. Any thoughts here?

SEA737

I've always found strange how AA will only hold one J seat for the day before departure, filling it with upgrades the 4 days before that. However, this works rather well on the premium A321T flights.

I'm flying LAX->BOS this Thursday on the A321T redeye. As an exec plat, I was upgraded to J within hours of the 5 day window. The flight was J7 with 6 seats open, and quickly all but one filled up. The next day, there was still only one empty seat, and yet the flight was still J4 (and also F7). Since then, the flight has gone to J1 and F4 (and no additional seats have been taken on the F cabin). Clearly, AA is "lending" some F inventory to J, with the plan to roll the cabins if necessary.

It's great that some in J will get the F upgrade complimentary (and in fact I've gotten that before as a double upgrade from Y). What's even greater is that it enables AA to upgrade some in Y to J far in advance, filling up the remaining empty seats in the cabin with upgrades, while still selling expensive last minute seats (well not exactly last minute, but you get the point).

In fact, I think this makes for one of the most valuable sweet spots of exec plat (and to a lesser extent plat pro and plat). I've read plenty rants about how AA doesn't release much award space on these routes, but in fact I find that upgrading from Y to J is rather easy when you play your cards right, and getting upgraded to F is a thing too. I'd definitely take the current system to no upgrades but some award availability far in advance.

ijgordon

FWIW, I think there is a significant amount of last-minute "movement" on these flights - passengers cancelling/changing itineraries as well as last-minute purchases in all cabins. To the extent AA knows a flight gets more last-minute J/F cancellations, it would be willing to process upgrades in advance even when flights look nearly full in J. My non-status husband confirmed a mileage upgrade into C on JFK-SFO earlier this year at booking, about 5 days before. On his return, he was waitlisted as a Platinum, but still cleared a flight showing J0 a day or two beforehand, although there was lots of weather-related IRROPS then, and ultimately they voluntarily reconfirmed him into J on a flight the next day when he didn't want to depart SFO on a severely delayed late-night departure.

BTW, this probably belongs here, will alert a mod.
Airbus A321T / 321T “32B” Transcon JFK <--> LAX / SFO Upgrade Success / Help

ridepow

I'm sure this has been covered, but didn't see it...

How do comp upgrades work on the 321T?

For example: J is Full, F is empty with 10 people on the upgrade list. Do people in J get upgraded to F to make room for the people in Y on the upgrade list for J? Do 10 people get moved from J to F so those 10 people on the upgrade list get Y to J??

Hope that makes sense?

potus18

Nope, unfortunately AA never rolls J into F to facilitate Y to J upgrades. They'll only ever do so if Y or J is oversold.

flyingeph12

No, AA will not roll cabins to accommodate upgrades. If J is full, no one in Y will get upgraded, even if F is completely empty.

ridepow

Copy that. Makes sense, I guess. Pretty nice ride in F if it's only you and a couple other people.

lightbulbs

ijgordon

It will likely fill with non-revs, they're like moths to a flame when they see a flight in their system with all that availability.

uscjeff

Anyone have any idea why LAX-JFK are so full next week? J on my flight has been sold out for over a month - cannot recall ever seeing that before

SEA737

Which day? It doesn't seem too full. Flights from tomorrow thru Wed are already within the EXP upgrade window so it makes sense they're filling up, and even then they don't seem fuller than usual to me. More than half of Thursday's flights are at J6 or J7. Friday might be the only day that is a bit full, although I haven't flown on Friday before so I don't know if that's unusual. Saturday looks open.

AA2070

They're down 1 A321T at the moment due to the "wing contact" event at JFK in April . They pulled one JFK-LAX off of the schedule. I am actually suprised they didn't steal it from the two that BOS-LAX requires.