Stripe

My YTD upgrade rate is well below prior years' but nothing like the drop you're reporting. With 28K EQD I can't imagine you're that far from the top of the EXP list. The "with maybe one person getting it" is a big part of the equation. AA is likely just selling more F seats outright. Combine that with the new CK priority and there are just fewer seats for EXPs to upgrade into.

cwiderst

Curious to gain some insight from the users here on the odds of our upgrades going through for the following flight. Wednesday December 13 departure Flight AA36 DFW - MAD from Premium Economy to Business. Tickets purchased in June with SWU upgrades immediately applied. I am an EXP traveler and my spouse is PLT

Thanks for any inputs from the community

JJeffrey

A midweek flight to Europe in the off-season shouldn't be any trouble at all to clear. The J cabin looks less than half full, and MCE and premium seats in Y are pretty wide open. In typical AA fashion you probably won't clear until a few days before, but I wouldn't worry.

JBauer

As a CK I’m about 60% on upgrades on Lax to DFW and back.

Also. I’ve used SWU between Lax and LHr. Play with the dates and look for non business heavy flights.

tasty_chicken

So update on my experience, it ended up being a oversold flight and they offered $1000 vouchers for 2 folks. As for my upgrade situation I got upgraded at the gate when boarding group 2 got called. There was only 2 seats availabe on experflyer and I got upgraded most likely because of a no-show. I was 4 out of 22 as a EXP with 13k YTD spend. My SO however was 19 out of 22 and obviously didn’t get upgraded. Not that it mattered but she is supposed to inherit my EXP benefits when we are on the same PNR?

FlightNurse

I find this interesting that CK's are not being upgraded more often then you are. This mean that people are purchasing FC tickets these days.

UAPremierGuy

Thankful that my upgrade, even if I don't get a window, cleared at T-24~ or so (I don't know exactly as I was on a QR flight when it cleared) for LHR-DFW. My outbound was my first time sitting in Y on the 77W and it was...not pleasant.

pmblinn

Waitlisted Darling Daughter couple of weeks ago Miles + Copay for a Sat. 11/18 JFK-LAX flight. Had been showing J0 for the days leading up to flight, so I figured she had no chance. Very surprised when she called me at about T-4 letting me know she'd been upgraded. Lounge access and lie-flats were appreciated by DD.

(Turns out they pulled one of my SWUs instead of the Miles + Copay, but a quick call today straightened it out.)

pafrican

Ended up clearing yesterday (8 days out) for the LHR-LAX flight. Not shocked as was still pretty wide open seat-wise. Thanks for the thoughts and input.

Now time to start looking into DFW-ICN chances for mid-December.

matt85

I'm waiting on my SWU clearing for a ORD-CDG flight mid-week. It's still a few J seats left. Given that I've requested the upgrade more than 2 weeks ago, is it likely that it clears (if it clears at all) only at the gate?
The upgrade for the return flight (CDG-PHL) has cleared more than a week ago already.

I had a DFW-ICN and back flight last week. Simlar story there: DFW-ICN cleared more than a week before the flight, but return cleared 30 min before boarding only.

swingaling

Taking my first flights as EXP this Friday (PVD-PHL-FLL-CLT-PVD) for a quick weekend in FLL. Of the four segments, three cleared at T-100. The only segment that has not cleared is the PHL-FLL flight (1685 on 12/08). Seat map shows one empty seat in J and EF shows inventory of J1, so I'm guessing they will wait to clear the upgrade(s) at the airport (assuming they don't sell that final ticket). It's a leisure route, so I think my chances are not terrible (and MCE is not full). Fingers crossed, but not expecting to get the upgrade for this flight.

eddilev

I'm booked on a flight from LHR-ORD. Looking at the seat map, 14 seats show in business as open. When you search for a fare, only 1 seat is open. I checked and if you change the pax to 2, the cabin is not available. I know seats can be taken with no seat selection made yet but to show only 1 seat available for purchase and 14 appear open? So 13 seats are unassigned? Does that seem normal? Or do you think that more of those seats are in fact available and the airline has them blocked for some other reason?

Trying to use my SW!!

AAExpDFW

Yes it’s very possible. Without knowing the day and flight it’s hard to look closer. Mainly what does coach look like...that gives us an indication if the seats are being held due to overselling coach or not...

eddilev

Sorry it's 47 on 12/10

SeattleDavid

That shows only 7 available seats this morning and J0, as does the earlier flight, and the later flight is J0 and 1 available seat. And the BA seats don't look a lot better.

That makes it look like your chances are slim. As for why it has happened ... it could be that they are considering an equipment change; there could be crew in London who need to be flown back to Chicago; or it could be that lots of those J seats have gone to flexible ticket holders and AA know that they often try to change flights at the last minute. It doesn't look like a situation where Y is oversold.

LHR ORD last January is the only SWU in 8 years that I have missed and despite having been on the waitlist from 6 weeks before the flight (when request time still mattered) with only 2-3 other folks in MCE, I still ended up at number 9 on the upgrade list!