mcrw00

IAHtraveler

I'm curious where you found this info?

mcrw00

JDiver

See post 15 above, or follow the link to the active thread. Though, Booking class is probably not the sorting point for most upgrades; status, type of upgrade (within the applicable zone) and EQD will probably handle sorting for most.

enpremiere

And perhaps in a dystopian alternate reality:

6. Barclay or Citi card holders

IAHtraveler

Right, so I'd guess it never really applies because what are the odds that the EQD are identical for 2 people fighting for an upgrade on the same flight?

ijgordon

Well, how many numbers are there between, let's say, 6,000 and 9,000? (That's the EQD that will get you Platinum, putting aside EQMs).

How many Platinum elites are there? Waaaay more than 3,000 I'm sure. So there are probably LOTS of elites with the same number of EQDs at any given point.

Of course the odds that two end up on the same flight is smaller, and the odds that both requested upgrades smaller yet, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that this situation comes up more than seldom.

Zacnlinc

I wonder if booking class should be of a higher priority than EQD though. Just to play devil's advocate, I just wonder if it better to treat the "cheap" road warrior "better" than the Kettles that that splurge from time to time. True, the Kettles may or may not have the Status of the Road Warrior, but let's just stay they did. Maybe it's a newbie road warrior enduring the battle!

JDiver

Some might think it should, particularly the road warrior buying last minute tix, but of course AA has studied the issue and chosen EQD metrics as more indicative of passenger value than fare class purchased.

robofski

Interesting idea but I for one hope not! I get my EXP by purchasing 100% economy tix, and my upgrades clear about on about 80% of my domestic flights so it works for me!

pa3lsvt

I'm a PLAT and I have 10924 EQD in 2018 year to date, along with another probably 4 - 6k from the last half of 2017.

Also, there aren't anything close to 3000 PLATs on the same flight requesting the same upgrade. Maybe as many as 30 - 50 at most, and that's for a Monday AM PHL-PHX or similar elite heavy route.

So, what are the odds that there are 50 PLATs on the same flight and any two have identical EQDs in the range of 6000 - infinity? That is solvable mathematically, I won't do it here, but I assure you the probability is quite low. (I won't even add the qualifier "a seat is available for upgrade after EXP and PP all have cleared" as that makes the probability approach zero.)

mvoight

Or, starting from 0, because it is possible to be PLT with no EQD in the previous 12 months

lloydbishop

Quick update.

Since my initial call with AA Customer Service was abbreviated due to another commitment, the rep called back an hour later.

He didn't make much more sense, but said he'd spent the hour checking with other internal groups and the "blame" fell to the LHR team - that they didn't understand the ticketing and what could be upgrade-able. He said that they were 'training' them in the correct process.

Still makes little or no sense to me, as I'd expect more automation - that when I checked in 24 hours ahead, the system automatically put me on the upgrade list, but he implied/stated there was some human intervention in there.

I'm guessing there is an underlying IT issue that was compounded by poorly trained staff.

Rowyourboat

There's ~100MM AAdvantage members. Using #'s from a VFTW article, there should be about 2-3 million AAdvantage elite members. Even if they are all Platinum, and you assume EQD is evenly distributed in that range, then there should be 1000 elite members at every EQD number. But there's also many people above the EQD number but below EQM for ExP, plus comp status/buy-up/credit card waiver people, so your range is really ~4k - 10K. That makes ~500 people at every EQD number. These people aren't evenly distributed, so you can assume they're concentrated at a hub like NYC, DFW, etc. Maybe 100 people going to/from any given hub. Even if they're flying on the same days (Monday/Thursday), it's probably ~20% of ppl on any given day, so 20 ppl per day conflict potential. And then to be on the same flight time to the same places, which is likely another hub.

So overall, I think it's very rare that happens. Because in reality, not every elite member is platinum. According to VFTW, it's probably closer to 25-30% of elite members are platinum, with more than half being Gold. So instead of 3MM platinums, it's closer to 1MM, which means you 1/3rd all our numbers above, so it's like 6 ppl on a day with conflict potential in the best, best case.

jordyn

The birthday paradox means that the odds of a collision are a lot higher than you initially think. If PLTs were evenly distributed across say 5000 EQDs values, it would only take 84 of them on the same flight for there to be a 50/50 chance of two of them having the same EQD value. On the other hand, if there were only 20 PLTs on each upgrade list, you'd only have a 6% chance of a collision so you'd only expect to see one every 16 or 17 flights, but it would definitely still happen from time to time (but would be the exception rather than the rule.