747kona

I'm relatively new to this... Hit US Chairman's in Jan and now a converted AA EXP.

When flying on US metal with CP#, I cleared at the 100 hour mark about 80% of the time and the remaining 20% was cleared before the 24 hour mark. I went around 20/20 upgraded, which I thought was remarkable.

Now, with AA, I've only been cleared once at the 100 hour mark. It was a DFW-CLE on a Saturday morning haha.

It seems like they clear a lot at the 4 hour mark [exactly]. I've noticed they hang on to 1-3 seats until the 30 minute mark almost on purpose. Why? Maybe for EXPs that shift flights around at the last second? Example: I was flying from ORD-DFW a week ago and we ended up doing a same day confirmed change to get home 6 hours earlier. We thought we had a 0% chance at getting cleared conserving the flight took off 50 minutes from when we changed flights. We actually jumped to the very top of a 20+ person list and both me and my friend cleared for the remaining two seats at the 30 minute mark. We must have been the only EXP on the list... Because no way I would jump in front of other EXPs that late.

Just my experience....

TritonFlyer

I'll second the opinion that it doesn't matter when it clears as long as it does. I pick the flights based on my schedule, and that's more important.

I too have observed a mixed back of upgrades at the window or at T-24... or in airport. I do lot of short (CLE-ORD) runs, often same day, and my morning flight tends to clear early, with the evening return often not clearing until at the gate. Running 80+% this year on all flights, and near 100% in the last month.

ty97

IIRC, AA started holding back more seats later into the upgrade window (or at least seemed to) sometime last year. I could swear it was discussed a bit around here at the time, but can't find the relevant thread right now (so maybe it was all a dream? )

I tend to find it a little annoying, though I fully agree that it doesn't necessarily matter since you are going to clear (or not) in whatever order you were going to clear (or not) whether that clearing happens 3 days in advance, 2 days in advance, or 8 hours in advance. The only hiccup to me is when AA holds back a lot of seats until within the 24 window thereby making advance meal selection impossible.

But I get the business case here. AA would prefer to sell the seats.

Bigshaker

My US Air Upgrade status emails seem to have stopped working. A couple weeks ago I'd get a yes or no status at the windows and now getting no status and no upgrades at the advance windows.

Would get one of these two emails

"No upgrades available on your flight(s):
We'll email you if a seat becomes available
We automatically check for upgrades up until 24 hours before your flight. If you haven't been upgraded by then, you can request an upgrade when you check in"


"You've been upgraded on these flight(s):

- Dallas/Fort Worth, TX - (DFW) to Phoenix, AZ - (PHX)"

mastertrust

For my latest trip I got one at the 100 hour mark saying no upgrades were available. I went into the reservation today (the trip is tomorrow) and I was upgraded on both of my outbound legs and all three of the return legs on Sunday. Glad to see it but no notification at all. I trust the email problem is a bug and not a new feature. . .

AA-Flyer-SAN

Tomorrows flight and only 5/16 are confirmed for F. Not one upgeade has cleared as of yet. Generally on this leg - they clear those on the list up to 9 at the 48 mark and 12 at the T24 mark. Though this year not one has cleared out of SAN until T4

There are 7 people already on the UPG airport list. Lately it's been elite heavy out of SAN.

moki1

As another datapoint, was recently on DFW-ATL roundtrip. Despite EF showing 10 and 11 seats empty respectively in F UPG didn't clear until T-4 both ways

mikew99

I'm not always willing/able to pay for gurantee of F, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter! It does matter to me for my upgrades to clear in advance, for all the reasons mentioned above, and apparently I'm not the only one.

As long as we're keeping notes, it's only April, and I've missed two upgrades so far this year, and these days, my upgrades rarely clear in advance. But I've assumed it was because of the overall strength of the aviation industry. If I were running AA, I'd be conservative with the advance upgrades, too!

r415

Definitely not the only one. I would also add that it's useful to know if your upgrade is going to clear before you leave for the airport, and even the night before, so you know whether not to pack a meal, bring a pillow, worry about getting there before they run out of overhead space, etc. In addition to the meal selection issue mentioned earlier. I understand the business case, but there definitely is a benefit on the customer side to knowing if your upgrade is going to clear, a little bit earlier. 100 hours? Probably not that critical. 24 hours? Much more useful.

ubernostrum

Things to consider:

• pmUS CPs began reporting a long time ago that upgrades at T-7d (our pre-merge window) had basically gone away, replaced by T-4d and a lot more T-24h upgrades.
• The upgrade queue process is, I believe, different now in that it is -- or so I've been told -- using time of booking instead of time of upgrade request, which may affect your placement within the queue. Similarly, the apparent pmAA practice of differentiating upgrade priority for connecting vs. originating passengers is apparently gone.
• Not entirely snarky: I've been repeatedly told how great it was that pmAA held multiple F seats until the last minute in case of walk-up HVF (where pmUS would just clear as many elites as possible, even if meant filling the cabin). Continuing that practice (especially with shrinking F cabins) is naturally going to impact upgrade clearance for people who don't just stroll up last minute to a ticket counter Scrooge-McDuck-style with a bag with dollar signs on the side.
• Speaking of shrinking F cabins: shrinking F cabins.
• There are now more elites than ever before; people liked to go on about how pmUS was a tiny airline, but there are still a significant number of additional people competing with you for upgrades now.

etc., etc.

CRCJ

I travel somewhere almost every week (various destinations) for work. I am approaching 3MM lifetime miles and spend a significant amount (for an individual) of travel dollars with AA. My loyalty to AA (20 years now) is largely built on the consistency of my experience vs my expectations based on the stated Aadvantage policies.

I missed 4 upgrades all of 2014. This made me a very blessed and grateful EXP traveler. I don't believe (based on many other posts here) this made me unique. It seems like many of us enjoyed great upgrade success. In the past two weeks, I have missed 4 of the 8 segments I have traveled. While two weeks does not necessarily make a trend line, it is an interesting anecdotal bit of data. On 3 of the 4 legs I was in a position on the upgrade list 30 minutes before boarding that should have been upgraded based on EF F availability. For example, yesterday morning I was #3 on the list with F5 at 20 minutes before boarding. I flew the leg in my original seat of 21A. (While EF may not be foolproof, I have found it incredibly consistent for a long period of time in predicting upgrade success especially within an hour of boarding. It is also remarkably consistent in reflecting the upgrade list processing -- seats decrement real time as the gate agent processes the list.)

I will see if I have just been incredibly unlucky or if this trend continues. If it continues, my level of customer satisfaction will decline. I have never interpreted the upgrade policy as "if space is available after we accommodate every other situation that comes up we will process upgrades at the gate". The benefit is about the airline rewarding our loyalty by taking a calculated risk and upgrading people in the specified windows. I can fly any of the other airlines and wait to see if I get upgraded at the gate. The thing I have appreciated with AA is that they are willing to take a chance on missing out on incremental revenue by moving people forward. The vast majority of my upgrades last year happened before day of departure. The four legs I did get upgraded the past two weeks happened at T-3 or at the gate. Two of those legs were F7 and 10 seats showing unassigned on EF at T-2. Those upgrades happened at the gate. (Yesterday, my second leg had 10 people processed off the list just as boarding began. I cannot imagine the gate agents love that either.)

I appreciate the "benefit" of getting to ride up front. But there is a quid pro quo here. This is a program component intended to keep our travel spend at AA. The return to us has always been a willingness by the airline to start clearing seats before all of the crazy late breaking stuff occurs. AA has always been able to manage IRROPS and other situations by holding back 2 seats until boarding time. Disregarding their stated policy and holding back large blocks of seats until so close to departure diminishes the value of the benefit and my happiness as a customer. Especially when I believe I would have been upgraded on 3 of the 4 misses if they had processed seats the way they have so consistently in the past. I feel it really does matter when they start releasing seats for upgrades.

CMK10

The upgrades I've gotten this year, both on AA an US, cleared at the Gold window.

boss315

Read the UA forum and you'll see that this is NOT the case. I am 22/24 on AA this year and 0/6 on UA when forced to take them. UA does everything possible to sell those seats.... Good business to make $$$ but poor customer relations when they tout that as a realistic perk! I am astounded at my AA upgrade % even on lax- jfk.

shoodawg

I noticed the upgrade game change perhaps 12-18 months ago... All the airlines now seem to be often holding off on upgrading elites for free, until the last minute, once all the last minute paid upgrade offers have been made at check in. It's called First Class Monetization. Elite isn't what it used to be, in so many indices.

txrus

FWIW, I discovered today that the upgrade I was allegedly auto waitlisted for when I purchased the ticket, 2 mos ago, never really happened. Nor was I added to the airport list upon check-in, despite my reservation saying I had been. Nor was I on the airport list as the EXP agent I talked to yesterday claimed I was.

I wasn't on the upgrade list until I managed to track down a real AA TA in PHX & got her to put me on the list @ T-5 hrs. Amazing how fast the upgrade cleared once that happened