If the flight remains J1, then based on my experience I would not count on C ever being published, with the last seat going to upgrades at the gate. If J2, however, it's not uncommon to see C1 published sometime inside of T-48h, but for a route like JFK-LAX, I'd say the chances of that happening are lower than on other routes.

My guess would be that both the equipment swap and the cabin occupancy are MAX-related on top of likely spring conferences and school/college sports meets.

I think LAS was indirectly affected a fair bit by planes being reallocated around the system to fix the MAX problem, along with corresponding schedule changes.

That's a lot of segments to cover not a lot of ground. You do that by choice?

Empty seat. If im that #3 guy on the list I would be pissed. How does this happen? This is 368 to SEA.

DFW gate agent trying to make sure the door closes 5 minutes early, perhaps? Or simply too lazy to come down the jetway to upgrade #3 ?

Probably the latter. I didn’t say anything as #4 I didn’t have a shot regardless.

Looks like we were both wrong.

Twitter reply:

“If there's space for an upgrade we should be processing it. We looked into it and 4C is out of service.”

Thinking about an overnight SFO-JFK, buying coach and very much wanting to upgrade to business class for sleep. This would be on a Thursday night, so peak day for consultants flying back. A few weeks out, flight is F7 A3 J7 D0 I0. Seatmap shows 10/10 available in F and 23/30 available in J, which sounds like great news. But J7 D0 means RM thinks they can sell these seats at full price. At least it's SFO-JFK, rather than LAX-JFK, as AA seems to clear more upgrades on the former. Still, last-minute business travel. Guidance and experience welcomed.

AA EXP, EQD rolling 12-month about $15k

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If it were me, I'd probably do a miles+copay to skip the line. That does look like a lot of J seats, but the last 789 flight I took (DFW-LAX) had 53 people on the gate upgrade list.

On the other hand...booked COU-DFW-LAX this morning for next Monday. Ticketing got hung up because COU-DFW upgrade cleared too fast, but once that was sorted both legs cleared comp upgrades within a few hours of booking. COU-DFW was J3/I0 and DFW-LAX was J7/I3 when I booked. I was considering whether to do miles+copay, but they rendered that question moot.

Well, I'd definitely set an alert for C availability on ExpertFlyer, and if any pops up, I would call in to do the mileage + copay.

But I have my doubts that any will pop up given that there's only J availability. I have been watching things pretty closely the past year and AA seems to do a remarkably good job of predicting when it will and won't sell seats at the higher prices... not perfect, but far and away the majority of times I say "there's no way they'll fill the cabin without and D and I inventory" it ends up filling up with upgrades only at the gate... and in situations with ample I (and any significant quantity of C) inventory in advance, the gate upgrade is easier.

So... I'd keep an eye on things. I suppose you could go ahead and waitlist the milage & copay upgrade, but I'd still set the ExpertFlyer alert. I wouldn't expect to see more than C1 if C comes up at all. I also wouldn't expect the cost to come down (presumably if you're looking at J0 it's already >$1900). Unlike LAX there's only 1 redeye from SFO so I imagine it'll end up filling up closer in.

Maybe someone else can chime in re: likelihood of your clearing a battlefield upgrade. I'm a ~$23k EXP but I've lost patience gambling on anything as long as a transcon so I don't know whether you'd be in the handful to clear but my hunch is no.

Interesting -- but I think it's a different calculus when you're that close to departure at booking (i.e. already within the upgrade window) because the time to buy an advance purchase fare has passed and (assuming it's the right kind of route) AA optimizes by holding out for high-fare true-last-minute pax. I've had plenty of CLT-DCA upgrades surprisingly clear when it's been J3/4/5. But OP is a "few weeks" out (and presumably AA is offering D and I on at least some non-redeyes that day)... so I'd gamble that the redeye will fill up.