sarahaukett

Hi - I am flying from Mia to LHR return in PE - the return leg is in business. Plane is a 77W. Departs Nov 16th

Firstly I am in 16C outbound in PE - I chose this for the fact its aisle and bulkhead. Is this a wise choice?
Secondly whats my chances of upgrading to business on outbound either day of departure cash or miles and cash?
I called AA but they say there are no miles upgrades available at this time but there is availabile seats left. They want $7700 now to upgrade the outbound flight so obviously I dont want to do that. I have not flown AA for a while and I find myself in unfamiliar territory regarding these upgrades, I used to upgrade all the time at 24 hours out with miles and cash but it seems to be different now.
Do you think the cash option will be available? I dont actually have enough miles in my account right now so not sure if I should buy some in advance or not? If memory serves me rightly its about $1000 to upgrade cash at 24 hrs out?

Ugh - hate being in Limbo.
That being said I am quite interested in trying the PE - it looks quite good, although obviously not as good as business!!! lol

Thanks

Sarah

bchandler02

Here's the chart for you.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...with-miles.jsp

HLCinCOU

From the sound of your post I assume you don't have any AA status? If that's correct, there's basically no way to get that upgrade, short of refaring (the $7700 option). There's no cash-only option, and the cash+miles upgrade is tiered by status; there will be plenty of status-holders ahead of you to fill the cabin. Usually they don't even get through all the EXPs.

PHL

While it's true that elite tiers get first dibs at mileage/mileage+cash upgrades, it's not to say you have no chance at all even if you have no status, though it is slim. The chart link posted above is your guide. If you're on a discounted PE fare, it will cost you 25,000 miles plus $350. If you are on a full fare Premium Economy, it will cost you 15,000 miles and no cash.

Right now that flight you mentioned (11/16 MIA-LHR) is completely full in First (all 8 seats) and PE. Business is light at the moment, and any of those pax hoping to upgrade to First will be out of luck.

You could get an ExpertFlyer account ($10/month) and set alerts for "C" inventory to open on your route. You would get a text or email alert and then can call to request it. But - if there are other higher tiers waitlisted, they will get it ahead of you.

ijgordon

HLCinCOU

Sure I agree with this in theory. But a quick tour of Chance of Upgrade Clearing and Availability suggests that's a vanishingly small chance. Apologies if I was too certain, but seriously OP is extremely unlikely to get an upgrade, right?

ijgordon

If that were true, then you'd almost never see "C" inventory on ExpertFlyer. But I just looked up JFK-LHR and v.v. and saw C>0 on 10 flights over the next week. Including some C5s and a C7. Also, coincidentally, on 10 flights on DFW-LHR and v.v. over the next week, including 3 C7s. On 4 flights on PHL-CDG and v.v. over the next week (out of 14). On 3 flights on MIA-LHR (out of 14).
And those were the first four routes I looked at, and only reflect upgrade availability at the current time.
I put the odds at 40% on that flight.

SeattleDavid

This is unduly pessimistic - many TATLs fail to fill business class on upgrades. Last week I flew LAX-LHR with 20 of the 37 seats empty.

But, you shouldn't wait for the airport to request your upgrade - request the miles + copay now and let it be waitlisted. That way as soon as C becomes available you'll be in the list. Frequently I find I am the only one on that list when C becomes available 2-3 weeks before the flight. And if you waitlist and it doesn't clear then you lose nothing (you don't pay the miles or copay until the upgrade clears).

Of course, this all assumes that there are a good number of seats left in J, since if there are not then C will probably not become available until at the airport.

ShortDog

I've gotten day of departure cash upgrades from LAX to LHR. I think it was just shy of $500 for a J -> F and a Y -> J upgrade. I've done both.

MIAFlyer

I fly that route 4-5 times per year. I am an Exec Plat and use Systemwides on this route. They always clear 2-3 days before the flight, if there are more than 11-12 seats available on the seat map. Point being, they seem to release C inventory with 12+ seats available. Other posters are correct, if Economy and/or Premium Economy are close to capacity, they may hold back the upgrade inventory.

To be honest, I have never seen the cash only upgrade offer at check in, but I rarely go to the check in desk and usually have SWUs in my account so I may not be the best indicator of cash upgrade availability.

Most of the time everyone on the upgrade list will clear, which would imply miles upgrades for non status folks have been accommodated. I will share that it is rare to have an empty seat in business from MIA-LHR on a Friday or Saturday night. Tues-Thurs yes, other days quite rare.

Good Luck!

HLCinCOU

OK, well, fair enough I guess. The experiences here sound drastically different from the main thread on the subject which I linked above. In my own experience I've never been on a TATL where they didn't fill up J, but that's a small sample size. In any case, regardless of the odds my recommendation would be exactly the same as yours: waitlist the miles+copay right now for sure.

ijgordon

Keep in mind that there will often be a number of non-revenue/employees looking to sit in business class - any empty seats prior to departure (after upgrades have been cleared) will typically be filled up by them. So a "full" cabin doesn't mean a fully sold (or even upgraded) cabin.

I think certain routes may be more difficult to upgrade, probably the longer ones to Asia/Pacific and maybe deep South America, because you may have relatively higher paid demand as those flights are more likely to be over the threshold for corporate travel policies to allow business.

HLCinCOU

Well I'm not just looking around at the cabin; I have expertflyer and habitually look at it even on short domestics. So I know the TATLs I've taken have all ended up J0. And I've missed the upgrade before when I was EXP and using an SWU. Of course like I said, small sample....

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if TPACs are harder. Although I have a 100% SWU success rate so far on those flights (including tomorrow's LAX-AKL).

aztimm

At the kiosk I've been offered to upgrade to business for DFW-NRT at least twice. I think the cost was $700, but it has been a while.

ijgordon