Friday morning 9AM LGA -> DFW, no go. The front cabin was full the week prior.
Monday evening last flight DFW -> LGA. Cleared at T-100.

AA81 (LHR-DFW) was C7 for at least 48 hours before departure this past Monday (22 Oct) when I flew it.

More elusive now, sure, but it's not relegated to less popular routes alone, or acts of the Divine.

Call in and ask them to do what? Had you already called in to request a SWU, or had it already cleared? It's not clear from your post.

Well looking at 2019 and it doesn't looks good for so far. AA is just getting to be more like UA now where you can play the lottery of trying to book something and hoping the upgrade clears. Gone are the days of being able to find C space prior to booking unless you are booking close in (or fares that are crazy expensive - I often find C space only to find out the Y fare is close to J pricing anyways on dates C shows up).

Thanks, JJeffrey. The SWU has not cleared, I had asked them to apply it months ago. I was just wondering if "Not applicable" meant that my SWU's had fallen off the ticket or if this was normal procedure when the ticket transitioned into airport control.

So...I got upgraded at T-100 (LAS-LAX on 10/25). I selected my seat in the F cabin shortly after getting the email. I went to check in today and was notified on the APP that my seat will be assigned at the gate. website said the same thing. Called AA and the agent told me it wasn't oversold and that I was upgraded and that I do nneed to see the gate agent for a seat assignment. What would cause this?

FAM?

That seems odd since I was pretty high on the list to clear @T-100 hrs and that there were 5 seats open when I selected my seat. Also a very short flight, which I didn't think a FAM would be on. That also probably explains why no one calls me to do security.

Amazingly I was upgraded on Sunday to today’s dfw-lax flight. It was the last F seat.

Long list today

Interesting experience yesterday on LAX-DFW; not sure what the implications are, if any.

My flight was served by a 789, but it was J0 from the moment I booked all the way to the plane leaving. When the list dropped at T-4 I was #4 on the list. I figured it was pretty much a lost cause, but called in anyway to request waitlist for miles+copay on the theory that it would bump me up past other EXPs using auto-upgrades. The rep on the phone said it would not make any difference at all; claimed that autos/miles/SWUs all had equal positioning and only the EQDs mattered. This was not my understanding at all. She agreed to waitlist me anyway and we both said we'd watch what happened and get educated a bit.

Right after the call I refreshed the app and I was still at #4 ; maybe 15 min later I checked and was at #5 , with a new name ahead of me. Nobody on the list cleared. Then when they called for CKs to board, like 10 people got on.

So...obviously that's inconclusive. There could simply have been 4 CKs on that list and I was already the top EXP before doing the miles+copay. Or AA could have changed the list order just as the rep said. Or I could have just been mistaken about the ordering in the first place (and have burned 15k/$75 a few times for no reason as a result). Seems crazy to me that they wouldn't put miles+copay/SWU ahead of auto-ups. Thoughts?

They likely were CKs ahead of you. That's what's really killed upgrades for me. Seems like everyone is CK these days. I've had many times where I'm #2 on the list, there is a CK ahead of me, and only the CK clears.

Flew LAX-MIA on the 10/21 11:05PM redeye. Was #1 when I checked in for one seat using miles and copay, and got bumped to #2 when I arrived at the airport. #1 cleared and I slept in my exit row.

Are you normally near the top of the list based solely on your EQD's? It is not too surprising for the phone agent to be incorrect, it happens way too often.