Yes, it is normal to see more upgrades issued at the gate these days.

I was very surprised last night to be upgraded on the red eye SFO-PHL.

I purchased my ticket Sunday morning. There were three available seats at that time in F. I was very content to have exit row window with no seat in front of me.

Checked in. Still in same seat. Visited club for 40 mins and then headed over to gate when announcement made and they had already started boarding. I was in group t2 and they were calling for group 5. Upon scanning my BP the agent did a double take and my details and monitors. And it was then that I saw I was #1 on UG list. Then he handed me my new BP and said "enjoy the flight!" Wow!!

Some do, and more commonly, plenty of people burn SWUs on trips like NRT-DFW-RDU, HNL-DFW-RDU, ...

Ah, that makes sense.

On an international 757 flight this week it was 14/16 seats available and they didn't even process upgrades until after general boarding had already started. I realize that its all the same in the end, but I don't see a reason why they can't just process them at T-2.

At first I thought they might be trying to cover for irregular ops, but my return flight is the same scenario.

LAX-DFW and ORD-LAX a week ago both cleared around T-36

PHL-CLT-SFO. Just noticed upgrade came through. Departing on Sunday morning! T-36.

Surprisingly, yesterday ORD-PHX 711, which left 2 hrs late due to engine trouble in PHX, had 3 pax clear @ the gate. That left 25 sitting on the upgrade list & we went out with 4F empty.

GA was on the plane just before the door closed-not sure how deep she went into the list before giving up.

All of the CLT-PHL flights today have many open seats in F, including mine which has had 10 open seats in F since the window opened, now T-3 hours and there are still 10 free seats.

Data point: LGA-BOS this morning (4/17, Easter Monday, 7am), booked 1+ month out as a PLT, had not cleared as of T-90 with J7 and 9 open seats up front. I was sure I would clear--preferred seats were sparsely occupied--but ended up making it just in time for the 6am, for which F had checked in full by the time I made it to the gate.

I cleared an LAX-SFO upgrade at T-100. I had no intention of taking that flight, and didn't in the end, but it was certainly nice to see it still happens occasionally.

I'm Platinum.

We cleared RIC-CLT after we boarded and were seated in our exit row seats. We were #1 & #2 , with three seats showing open on EF. Gate agent had said she would clear the list later, and to take our assigned seats. It'd be so much easier of they cleared the list BEFORE boarding begins.

Cleared PHX-CLT and CLT-RIC at T-48 on the dot. I had tagged our regular seats in EF to notify me if they changed, and I got an EF text saying our seats were open. Then I logged into AA and saw we got upgraded. Received an email from AA about 30 mins later. My wife was happy. :p

Yes, it would be easier on those us hoping to be upgraded if they'd clear the upgrades before boarding. Unfortunately GAs have been known to say one thing (we'll come get you) and do something else (pass you over for someone still waiting to board). The airlines have let the bean-counters drive operational policy and value stats like on-time departures over customer satisfaction. And given Elites make up a small proportion of their customers, there's no immediate benefit to do what's good for them.

It's the age of getting what they promise is not the norm.

I booked a last minute weekend trip to Key West and all my UPGs cleared while my ticket was still pending lol. Not bad!

That's nothing! I got an upgrade on a trip I didn't even reserve!

I was testing something or other by starting a booking for an itinerary for a couple days out. The itinerary started with TPA-MIA, for which an upgrade gets auto-requested. I then abandoned the process before actually committing to the reservation.

Several hours later I had a moment of panic when I received an email congratulating me on getting the upgrade!