Last edit by: aztimm
Chances of Upgrade Request Clearing
NOTE: Be aware of recent (20 May 2017) upgrade priority changes."New Upgrade Priority as of 20 May 2017
(Upgrades were prioritized by elite status and then time of request until 20 May 2017)
- Elite status
- Concierge Key
- Executive Platinum
- Platinum Pro
- Platinum
- Gold
- Platinum
- Platinum Pro
- Executive Platinum
- Upgrade type
- Miles and copay award upgrades and systemwide upgrades (SWU)
- 500 mile upgrades on purchased tickets
- 500 mile upgrades on upgrade eligible awards)
- 500 mile upgrades on purchased tickets
- Elite qualifying dollars in the past 12 months
- Booking class
- Time of request"
- Booking class
- Miles and copay award upgrades and systemwide upgrades (SWU)
- Concierge Key
See Upgrade Priority Changes to Status, Rolling 365 Day EQD Spend May 20 2017
Link to Gary Leff, View From the Wing 16 May 2017
Updated 17 Dec 2017 by aztimm
Chances of Upgrade Clearing and Availability (2018 master thread)
#361
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Southern California
Programs: AA EXPlat, 2.4MM; HHonors Diamond
Posts: 580
Question: Are rolling EQDs "earned" when a trip is ticketed, or only after the flight? I ask because my wife is EXP, we have purchased tickets for future trips adding up to well over $15,000, and it seems she is having better luck with upgrades. She just got upgraded for Monday 9:45 a.m. flight LAX-MIA, which has rarely happened previously.
#362
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: RDU <|> MMX
Programs: AA EXP 2MM, SK EBS
Posts: 12,481
Question: Are rolling EQDs "earned" when a trip is ticketed, or only after the flight? I ask because my wife is EXP, we have purchased tickets for future trips adding up to well over $15,000, and it seems she is having better luck with upgrades. She just got upgraded for Monday 9:45 a.m. flight LAX-MIA, which has rarely happened previously.
#363
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Southern California
Programs: AA EXPlat, 2.4MM; HHonors Diamond
Posts: 580
#365
Join Date: Jun 2009
Programs: AA EXP. HH DIAMOND.
Posts: 224
Lateupgrades?
Flew ord/tys today and return tomorrow. Both flights J6 on EF & no seatmap wide open no seats assigned. Didn't upgrade like normal at T100 didn't upgrade today's flight T-28 and tomorrow's return at T-26. Y was not oversold.
New norm? Or some kind of IRROPS prep?
New norm? Or some kind of IRROPS prep?
#366
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: SNA
Programs: WoH Globalist, Wait I have an Ambassador?, National Exe. Elite, AA Gold, UA Silver
Posts: 41
Flying MIA-LAX this coming Friday (07/13).
I'm a low EQD PlatPro so not really holding my breath on this one, BUT, it is now T-71 and a quick dummy booking suggests that NO ONE is getting cleared. Not even EXPs. Granted I don't have an expert flyer account, nor am I really familiar with the "buckets" or how they work. All I did was making dummy bookings daily and count the number of available F seats (matter of fact the number of F seats actually went UP today). Can anyone more familiar with AA's upgrade process chime in?
Thanks!
I'm a low EQD PlatPro so not really holding my breath on this one, BUT, it is now T-71 and a quick dummy booking suggests that NO ONE is getting cleared. Not even EXPs. Granted I don't have an expert flyer account, nor am I really familiar with the "buckets" or how they work. All I did was making dummy bookings daily and count the number of available F seats (matter of fact the number of F seats actually went UP today). Can anyone more familiar with AA's upgrade process chime in?
Thanks!
#367
Join Date: May 2013
Programs: N/A
Posts: 685
I just made EXP with AA and feel like I am being penalized with not being able to earn 500 mile upgrades anymore. I often book travel for work and book my SO on an economy ticket and request to place her on the upgrade list. When this does clear, I end up having to use several 500 mile vouchers. However, as I am no longer earning them with EXP, I assume i would now have to pay out of pocket the $40/voucher?
Thanks for any clarification.
Thanks for any clarification.
#368
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: COU
Programs: AA EXP, Bonvoy Ambassador, Hertz PC
Posts: 499
Quarterly update, a bit (4 flights) late but with significant methodological improvements.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
The sheet now has data back to 2017-05-20 except for upgrade results which I only started on 2018-01-01. Right now I have a rolling EQD just over 18k and have been upgraded 83% of the time (when the plane in question had a J cabin).
Minor notes:
1. I changed the upgrade result column to use numeric values, on the theory that someday I might want to do quantitative analysis on it. Positive numbers indicate when an upgrade cleared, in minutes before flight time. The zeros are "battlefield upgrades" i.e. upgraded after already seated in Y. The 10s are "gate dances" cleared off the airport list. Negative numbers indicate failure; the number is how many slots away I was from clearing off the airport list. If I was 4th on the list and 2 cleared, that's a -2 (but that could also mean 8th on the list with 6 clearing). Null (blank) cells indicate either a)the plane didn't have a J cabin so no upgrade was possible or b)the flight was before the first of the year when I started keeping track of whether I got upgraded. The success percentage leaves the nulls out.
2. The "fare purchased" and "fare credited" columns seem redundant unless you look closely, in which case they seem confusing. But it's really just to check random refaring, usually because of IRROPS. Often if I have a flight canceled the rebooking ends up credited as a full Y fare...this lets me see that.
3. The "Max EQM/EQD" field is just the simple ratio 100,000/12,000 ...in other words, the EQM/EQD you'd have if you got the bare minimum of both. It's only there to provide a reference for the cell next door which is the YTD actual ratio, which you want to be below the max.
4. The link is live, so you'll see results up to the last time I updated it even if you click this months from now.
Anyway, as with last quarter, I'm really happy with these results.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
The sheet now has data back to 2017-05-20 except for upgrade results which I only started on 2018-01-01. Right now I have a rolling EQD just over 18k and have been upgraded 83% of the time (when the plane in question had a J cabin).
Minor notes:
1. I changed the upgrade result column to use numeric values, on the theory that someday I might want to do quantitative analysis on it. Positive numbers indicate when an upgrade cleared, in minutes before flight time. The zeros are "battlefield upgrades" i.e. upgraded after already seated in Y. The 10s are "gate dances" cleared off the airport list. Negative numbers indicate failure; the number is how many slots away I was from clearing off the airport list. If I was 4th on the list and 2 cleared, that's a -2 (but that could also mean 8th on the list with 6 clearing). Null (blank) cells indicate either a)the plane didn't have a J cabin so no upgrade was possible or b)the flight was before the first of the year when I started keeping track of whether I got upgraded. The success percentage leaves the nulls out.
2. The "fare purchased" and "fare credited" columns seem redundant unless you look closely, in which case they seem confusing. But it's really just to check random refaring, usually because of IRROPS. Often if I have a flight canceled the rebooking ends up credited as a full Y fare...this lets me see that.
3. The "Max EQM/EQD" field is just the simple ratio 100,000/12,000 ...in other words, the EQM/EQD you'd have if you got the bare minimum of both. It's only there to provide a reference for the cell next door which is the YTD actual ratio, which you want to be below the max.
4. The link is live, so you'll see results up to the last time I updated it even if you click this months from now.
Anyway, as with last quarter, I'm really happy with these results.
Last edited by HLCinCOU; Jul 10, 2018 at 5:02 pm
#369
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: COU
Programs: AA EXP, Bonvoy Ambassador, Hertz PC
Posts: 499
Meanwhile...anybody have guesses on whether I'll get my LAX-AKL rt to clear via SWU? Outbound 2018-11-01 return 2018-11-12. Right now expertflyer shows J7 on both flights and the seat map is wide open (21 and 17 respectively). I have them waitlisted of course, and alerts set in expertflyer. Seriously don't want to do 13.5 hours in Y if I can avoid it
#370
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Hoboken, NJ
Programs: AA Gold
Posts: 194
AA429 (DCA-DFW), 11:55 AM departure (Tuesday, 7/10), 31 people on upgrade list, nobody cleared.
#371
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: NYC
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 1,372
I just made EXP with AA and feel like I am being penalized with not being able to earn 500 mile upgrades anymore. I often book travel for work and book my SO on an economy ticket and request to place her on the upgrade list. When this does clear, I end up having to use several 500 mile vouchers. However, as I am no longer earning them with EXP, I assume i would now have to pay out of pocket the $40/voucher?
Thanks for any clarification.
Thanks for any clarification.
#372
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: RDU <|> MMX
Programs: AA EXP 2MM, SK EBS
Posts: 12,481
Meanwhile...anybody have guesses on whether I'll get my LAX-AKL rt to clear via SWU? Outbound 2018-11-01 return 2018-11-12. Right now expertflyer shows J7 on both flights and the seat map is wide open (21 and 17 respectively). I have them waitlisted of course, and alerts set in expertflyer. Seriously don't want to do 13.5 hours in Y if I can avoid it
#373
Join Date: May 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EXP, LT Gold
Posts: 3,148
I just made EXP with AA and feel like I am being penalized with not being able to earn 500 mile upgrades anymore. I often book travel for work and book my SO on an economy ticket and request to place her on the upgrade list. When this does clear, I end up having to use several 500 mile vouchers. However, as I am no longer earning them with EXP, I assume i would now have to pay out of pocket the $40/voucher?
Thanks for any clarification.
Thanks for any clarification.
All that to say that sometimes AA just holds space before clearing thru the requests. Even on a lowly DFW-FAR route.
So expect to go to gate clearing on your flight to LAX, IMO.
#374
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Thousand Oaks, Ca., USA
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat; Bonvoy Titanium Lifetime Elite;Hyatt Globalist; HHonors Diamond; United Silver
Posts: 8,315
Flying MIA-LAX this coming Friday (07/13).
I'm a low EQD PlatPro so not really holding my breath on this one, BUT, it is now T-71 and a quick dummy booking suggests that NO ONE is getting cleared. Not even EXPs. Granted I don't have an expert flyer account, nor am I really familiar with the "buckets" or how they work. All I did was making dummy bookings daily and count the number of available F seats (matter of fact the number of F seats actually went UP today). Can anyone more familiar with AA's upgrade process chime in?
Thanks!
I'm a low EQD PlatPro so not really holding my breath on this one, BUT, it is now T-71 and a quick dummy booking suggests that NO ONE is getting cleared. Not even EXPs. Granted I don't have an expert flyer account, nor am I really familiar with the "buckets" or how they work. All I did was making dummy bookings daily and count the number of available F seats (matter of fact the number of F seats actually went UP today). Can anyone more familiar with AA's upgrade process chime in?
Thanks!
#375
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Phoenix/Columbus
Programs: Delta Silver Medallion, United Gold, US Airways silver
Posts: 1,717
Upgraded on 7/10 for my flight on 7/16 from CLT => FRA. Still waiting for FRA => DFW on 7/20 to clear