I believe it was a YUP fare actually. But why would that matter? The fare class listed on the ticket was I not Y. The weird thing is our outbound was also in paid F, and on that flight we did get priority baggage handling. I don't remember if the roundtrip fare was YUP both ways, or just the return. But again, why would it matter if it was a YUP? I thought the only benefit of that from AA's standpoint is they can overbook F and downgrade the YUP customers without penalty?

From the link you provided:

So "technically" it DOES apply to First customers.

Two ways this could matter.
1. What are the exact condition of the the YUP fares? Are they an F fare, or a Y fare with better seating? If the latter, that would explain the missing priority tag.
2. There could have been a system glitch, seeing you as a Y pax, rather than F. Picking up the original fare class

Back in the day (I am not sure if it's the case anymore) these were full Y fares that instantly upgraded to F. Used in some cases to work around company Y only policies. IIRC AA sold these on the web as "instant upgrade"

Huh - either way it still doesn't make sense to me. As far as (1), a YUP fare is defined by being a Y fare that includes an instant upgrade. As for (2), the booking code on the ticket (and our boarding passes) still shows I, so I'm not sure why the system would flag us as Y passengers. To me this is significant because we booked this ticket expecting to earn 2xEQMs. That would be incredible for AA to be so deceptive as to only award Y class miles when purchasing a F ticket. I've never had this issue when upgrading with stickers, which is odd because the original fare basis for a ticket upgraded with stickers is definitely discount Y - so by this logic we shouldn't get priority baggage on upgraded tickets either, but we do.

If indeed it's due to the YUP issue, I'm kind of shocked that as frequently I read this forum, that I don't remember anyone else having a similar issue. Surely someone else would've noticed this "glitch" before today!

Well, if it was a YUP issue then I would expect similar issues on my 500 mile upgrades when they clear. Once you are confirmed in First you get all the benefits of First.

Checked in at DCA on Friday and they were cutting the priority tags in half because they were running out of them. One of the ticket agents commented that it was another cost-cutting measure by AA :)

sounds about right..

That bean counter must be giving themselves a big pat on their back!

I still don't understand why AA doesn't take a leaf out of the QF book and issue luggage tags with RFID or barcodes for elites.

Or more likely a raise.

Checked in at the Priority Desk in CLT for a flight to IAD. I had changed the flight multiple times and for some reason OLCI would not work despite issuing me a boarding pass for the flight.

When I dropped off my bag at the counter and officially checked in the agent tagged my bag but failed to put a Priority tag on it. I really didn’t care as I wasn’t in a rush upon arrival.

Once bags arrived at the claim in Dulles, my bag magically had the orange Priority tag on it, and it appeared to have a brand new bag tag as the claim check stickers weren’t peeled off.

I saw the agent put the bag on the conveyor belt without a Priority tag. Somewhere along the way did someone manually scan it and reprint the bag tag and add the Priority tag?

More likely it got partially torn and difficult to read for the systems. Someone made a new one, and added the priority sticker as well.

AA Priority Baggage Tag
 

Has there been discussion about how these are meaningless. I'm lifetime Platinum and have checked bags dozens of times and always get the priority tag. However, less than 10% of time my bags amongst the first wave. It's just as likely to be in the second half. Today, in going to miss a connection in Miami because there was a >20 pause between the first and second wave of bags. Am I unlucky, or is this part for the course at AA?