I know there's no magic number, but does AA release more upgrade space on international flights closer in? On a 788 flight I'm on in 2 weeks, there are 9 available business class seats and only a handful of people currently in MCE. We are on the SWU list as a couple (one of us is EXP, one of us is PLT). Does it help our chances to split up our PNR's? Is this like the 500-mile upgrades where they release one seat at a time so we'd be passed over if we stay as a couple? I'd just be worred that my PLT status would put me to the bottom of the list if it was split. We also subscribe to EF, but no alerts for C availability have popped up.

Are you looking on EF for your data or you counting the seating on the seat map? Normally, when departure gets closer they will start clearing people, on our trip back from PEK, we were upgraded a day before departure.

You will get one on the ground and in the air on your way to TUS.

[MENTION=51309]FlightNurse[/MENTION] I got the 9 number from the EXP Agent. When we put in for the SWU, she commented "looks like there's still 9 open in business class, so hopefully you'll clear the wait-list soon." EF shows J7, but I believe that's because it doesn't show a higher number for AA flights even though there are more seats available.

Agents aren't suppose to tell you how many open seats there are, I always got, "Your upgrade changes looks iffy or your upgrade chance looks good" Good luck and let us know what happens

Phone agents won't tell you your position on the upgrade waitlist, but they can easily tell you how many seats are left for sale.

Unless I missed it you haven't said what the route is and day of week so it's impossible to say. But as you said you have EF alerts set, I would probably not split it, unless the flight is close to selling out it's unlikely AA would release 1 C at a time. Most likely it will go to C5 or C6 a day or two before the flight.

If you want to post your dates/flights I'm willing to bet somebody (uh...me, unless somebody is faster) will give you an ExpertFlyer readout for it.

Let me be clear here that I'm "asking for clarification" as opposed to "disagreeing with JonNYC who clearly knows waaaay more about this subject than me."

Jon, are you using "average" here in a precise sense (and if so did you mean "mean" or "median")? Or are you just saying "that's not high enough that you'll normally beat everybody" or something? My prior would be that EQD follows a power law, that is to say the number of people hitting each higher dollar diminishes exponentially. Given we figure AA set the EQD bar (12k) in such a place as to cull a significant amount of long-cheap flyers, I would expect 20k to be way above the median spend for an EXP. That fits with my experience as well (usually run around 17k rolling, 82% success rate this year). Do we have any numbers for what EXPs spend?

The husband was booked through his corporate travel desk flying GSO>LHR via ORD over and PHL back (12/12-12/16). I just got off the phone with AA to put him on the list to upgrade with cash and points. His ORD to LHR cleared on the spot, LHR to PHL is "requested". The agent I was speaking with was checking on the likelihood of an upgrade and he seemed surprised that the system confirmed immediate availability (he put me on hold to confirm). I hope he gets the upgrade home, I need him fresh fo my bday roadtrip that starts on the 17th :D

733 on 11/21 went from J7 to J1 within 24 hours. Uh oh.

As an EXP with approximately 25K EQD, I am 0/5 on SWU upgrades this year - 2x DFW-LHR, LHR-DFW, and this week's DFW-CLT-RDU, RDU-DFW. (CLT-RDU did clear, but I asked to be put back in economy.)