Success (or Not) Upgrade Main Cabin / MCE to Premium Economy; How, Details
 

Ok I’m not sure if this is in the same category. My mom who has no status flew yesterday on flt 125 DFW to HKG. When I was booking her ticket back in January I think, I was able to get her an MCE seat 18H on the old seat map before there was a seat map for PE. Also the fare class of her ticket was O. So yesterday she informed me they changed her seat to 18C and said there was no seat B. I asked her to take a picture, and she did. Not a great picture but shows a little of the mini cabin of PE seats. Just to say 16 hours later she was happy about the nice seat. Also the base fare on that ticket was less than 600 dollars. I can post the picture if anyone wants.

Recent data point:
EXP flying FRA-CLT (AA705) in the last week on an Airbus 332. When I purchased the coach fare, I requested mileage+$$ upgrade to business. When I checked in online (~10-12 hours before boarding), I was offered/given complimentary PE. I remained on the upgrade list for business, although I didn't get that upgrade.

As a PLT, I tried this from MCE seats through economy awards on LAX-AKL and SYD-LAX, for both cash and cash/miles, at the ticket counter, the gate, online and the ACs.. I was turned down every time, even when initially told "no problem," once it was discovered it was not technically possible.

I believe the 77W PE is complete but they have not started charging yet. So what your wife got was a PE seat branded as MCE (vs a true upgrade to another cabin).

Still, thats a nice upgrade from 3-4-3 in Y. ^

For a recent KOA-DFW flight, I had an award ticket with MCE seat. I inquired as to whether I could be upgraded to PE since it was within T-24. The AA agent explained that she could add me to the upgrade list for F and if I did not get the F upgrade, the fallback would be an upgrade to PE. So no, there was no opportunity to secure a PE seat at T-24.

Grail, what did happen on your flight.

I have a flight on 7/26 DFW to KOA on a 777-200 where the seat map indicates it will have a PE and MCE.

I am PLT. I am currently in MCE 17J. This is a paid fare in O class.

Any chance of scoring a PE seat?

I'm in MCE for a DFW-HKG hop in about six weeks. I called recently, to inquire about upgrading into PE.

The AAgent looked, said it could be done at a reasonable price, but the only seats she could see available were middle seats. With my history of DVT/PE, I only take aisle seats. I thanked her, declined to change, and am waiting to see if the J upgrade comes through. (Historically, the J upgrade usually pops out some time between when I leave the Admirals Club and I get to the gate. For this one, I won't have time to hit the AC, and, if it happens, it will pop out sometime after we go wheels-up out of HSV.

vandesa - i changed my award ticket and flew from HNL to LAX, so I'll never know if I would have scored the upgrade. Sorry that I was of no help.

Is airport UG List for PE UG?
 

We booked in W on MIA-CDG which means we could UG to J for 15k miles. When we checked in, we were told J was sold out so we had no expectations of an UG. We were 5, 6 & 11 on the list. After taking our W seats, I checked the UG list and saw 1-3, 7-9 and 12 clearing their upgrades. The gate agent had various excuses for this but none made sense (e.g. we did not offer to pay for UG, it was non-rev pax, can't UG from W, she was all over the board). When I suggested these were UG from Y to W, she agreed and I gave up. So is the airport UG list now for Y to W? I mean I figured this since 7 people cleared and J was sold out.

I guess there is no answer.

There is an answer.

As AFAIK formal upgrades using cash and copay or instruments are not offered Y->W, they don’t appear on the upgrade list. And the upgrade priority is Status, type of upgrade, last 12 months’ rolling EQD, Booking class (W would beat any Y if and finally time of request.

See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...eqd-spend.html.

There is no definitive answer most of us would know as to why others with higher upgrade List numbers were moved up before you.

We have merged your query into the existing thread, searchable using keyword “premium”, rather than for abbreviations like PE, UG because if the exceptions required for that. /Moderator

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Were you on the airport UG list? I booked at W earlier this year and my experience is that even EXP agents have little knowledge with miles + copay for W or P. I called 3 times, the first two agents just did not put me on the upgrade at all after I explained the differences in W and P.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b35bab4ea2.jpg
As I said in post 10 we were already in premium economy trying to go to business. On a W fare the upgrade is 15k miles no cash. The question is why others on the airport upgrade list in lower order were upgraded and to what class? I'm still confused. As I said J was sold out and there were 7 cleared upgrades.

I get where you are from.

Without knowing you in person there is no way to know whether you are on this list or not. My point is there is a chance that you are not even put in the upgrade list by (potentially incompetent) AAgent who does not know how to request mileage upgrade for PEY bookings. Some thought payment is required regardless of W or P (which is not true) but if no credit card info is available, then no request for upgrade (which is also wrong since W does not need copay).

Sold out also does not mean there won't be no show. (My last SWU cleared was sold out way ahead and at the airport while the upgrade was clear after boarding due to no-show).

At the end of the day, it's correct that we don't really know. AA's upgrade list is confusing for multi-cabin and should have been made more clear.