CAWineNerd

Completely agree. And there is no C space availability a couple months out on any international flight. Don't see the value of SWU's at this point.

flyingeph12

Really, "useless"? Certainly, the value of SWUs has been diluted, but I think "useless" is overstating the situation. Surely, you wouldn't think sticker upgrades are "useless," even though they clear at most 100 hours before departure. (Or maybe you do?) In my decade or so of being EXP (although this year, for various reasons, I have moved to other pastures), I can count on one hand the number of times I confirmed an SWU at booking, but my clearance rate was 100% nonetheless.

Although I cannot say for sure, I would think that flights with the 77W (aside from DFW-HKG) generally have a relatively good chance of clearing. Aside from that, I would (very generally speaking) look at flights to South America.

dave_261

The primary issue with the SWU situation is that AA wants to hold onto a possible revenue seat as long as possible before giving it away as an SWU. How do I know this? 1) It's obvious. 2) They've told me.

So there are a few scenarios moving forward:
1) They eliminate the SWU program to avoid frustrating EXP/CK members who demand to be upgraded at time of booking. They let us complain about another devaluation of the program, but at least they don't have to hear us complain about not being able to redeem.
2) They make all SWU's redeemable at time of booking. Sounds great... but this would have an impact on revenue, as well as customer satisfaction for passengers who would otherwise want to book a last-minute (expensive) seat but can't since the cabin is sold out... and yes, there are lots of those people out there
3) They find a solution which involves an immediate redemption option for either 1) booking a minimum fare class in economy, or 2) requiring double SWU's (or some other scenario... like SWU + copay). Without knowing anything about AA's plans, I believe this situation aligns well with AA's behavior and we could see it in some fashion for the future.

I tried to do some very rough math to figure out the situation.
1) AA currently has around 160 'desirable' SWU planes- that is, planes with lie-flat/premium J or F. That includes A330, 757 (some), 767, 777 and 787. Let's assume 10% are not flying for one reason or another.
2) I estimated the number of premium F/J seats at around 30/plane (obviously more on the 777/777W, less on the others).
3) Let's say that each plane does 1.5 international trips/day (Europe flights generally doing 2... Asia flights doing less).
4) Then let's deduct a random 12% for seasonal international routes which go domestic in the offseason.

So that made up math = 2 million 'desirable' seats annually.

I haven't seen an estimated # of EXP/CK in a while, but I'm going to pick 120k as my rough guess. Assuming an average of 5 SWU's per... that would be 600k SWU's out in the wild.

So... if each passenger were to be able to redeem on a premium flight, that would mean about 30% of all premium international seats would be going to SWU's. To be clear, I would love a scenario where I could have instant redemption of SWU's on any trip, but if my math is even close, that would be a hard financial scenario for AA to manage.

andersonCooper

I just wrapped up this year's AA metal travel, here are some stats:

Total segment: 22
-Domestic Upgrade: 12/21 (57%)
-SWU/copay: 2/2 (100%, 332 and 757)

Upgrade fail count:
-Thursday afternoon/night: 8/9 (DFW/CLT)
-Friday afternoon/night: 1/9 (ORD)

Delay 30+ mins (2/22)
- ex-ORD (1/2)
- ex-DEN (1/3)

bse118

You missed two far more likely options:

A) AA does not change the policy at all. Advance C space continues to be determined by whatever method RM uses today.
(because a few people complaining on FT doesn't actually indicate how AA's overall customer base is feeling)

B) AA formally/officially restricts SWU policy so that SWUs only clear at the gate or within T-24. No advance clearing.

Neither of these would make me miss a beat. 4 years of being an EXP and I've never missed a SWU/copay/BXP request on Y-->J longhauls. YMMV

Advance clearing is nice - but by no means is it the end all / be all of the program.

CAWineNerd

As an EXP my SWU's have failed to clear 3 times SFO-JFK. So for those of you that have 100% luck - good for you. But experience proves that SWU upgrades are far from a sure thing. And for Dave_261 - I'm not asking for a third of biz class seats to be open, but really... maybe 2 openings a week on each route? Is that a ridiculous ask?

HLCinCOU

This doesn't really have anything to do with your point (which I have no strong opinion about), but have you considered miles+copay instead of SWUs on SFO-JFK? It's the same as an SWU from a list-order perspective, and just $75+15k for domestic flights; I consider an SWU way more valuable than that. The miles+copay going overseas is $350+25k, and still just one SWU.

For the record, I've used 7 SWUs out of 8 attempts; none were available at booking. One gate cleared, most a few days out, and the LAX-AKL rt I haven't flown yet cleared a month ahead. I think SFO-JFK is likely very difficult, both because of the clientele's buying patterns and the equipment involved. Mine have all been spent over an ocean on either 777 or 789 equipment. I've never flown SFO-JFK, but I did successfully do a miles+copay on SJC-JFK the one time I flew that route.

andersonCooper

What was the time of the flight? For peak business travel time, it's quite hard to clear. Also upgrade from Y to J might be hard, but J to F should be fairly easy I would assume?

flyingeph12

Admittedly, probably part of the reason my SWU success rate was 100% is because, where possible, I deliberately chose less popular travel times and flights to maximize my chances of clearing. The problem with SFO/LAX-JFK in particular, I believe, is that recently J pricing has become more reasonable to the point that I would just outright purchase J instead of playing the upgrade roulette. I'm thinking I'm not alone in that regard.

BOSishome

CAWineNerd

If I were purchasing the SFO-JFK tickets myself, I would just purchase J and be done with it... but it is business travel so I don't get that option.

For JFK-LHR there is availability on A all over the place - so maybe I'll purchase the biz fares and upgrade to first. AA first does not get rave reviews, but I'd still like to try it.

flyingeph12

FlightNurse

This type of comment makes me laugh, why not let us know what time and day are you trying to fly? This is just like the people who complain about not finding sAAver awards to Europe, then come to find out they want to travel in 2 days.

Ding Ding winner...

econ

chicagoflyer1976

I've never missed a SWU in 8 years. But can definitely feel the squeeze, as they are eliminating chunks of their premium cabins.
One of the big benefits I see of it clearing early, even if only a few days, is if something happens and you need to be rebooked- if you are already cleared in business, your upgrade willl be maintained. We had a flight from Paris cancel earlier this year, thankfully our upgrades had already cleared prior to the cancellation, so we could easily rebook into J. If not, we would have definitely missed the upgrade, since J was all but sold out everywhere.