SFO-JFK is one of the relatively few routes were it could be J7 on Wednesday and J0 by Thursday due to last minute tickets from business folks. Seems to be fewer consultants on this route and more finance and executives. I've personally purchased day-of full-fare J tickets probably 4 or 5 times as last minute meetings pop-up. SFO-JFK intermittently used to have 2 redeyes, but it's back down to only 1 redeye and tends to be full in J. If I were you, I would waitlist for miles + copay (however, unlikely to clear in advance) if getting into J was very important.

I'm not sure I see your point. Yes, perhaps it's unlikely the miles+copay will clear. But it's certainly more likely than a comp or sticker upgrade clearing, right? If bedelman wants the upgrade, the best bet is to waitlist miles+copay. It might not happen, but it's the best shot.

Yes, a miles + copay upgrade is more likely to clear than a sticker upgrade, but why use miles + cash if you don't have to? There's no benefit from waitlisting early because priority is all about rolling EQD, and particularly since C space (at least in my experience) rarely opens up early on this route, it might be worth it to wait, monitor availability, and reassess closer to the flight.

That said, this is a Thursday evening redeye, and OP only has $15k rolling EQD. Under these circumstances, I would say in general a sticker upgrade is unlikely, even if it's J7, and therefore, miles + copay is probably the only way to clear an upgrade. I'd say it might be a different circumstance if it's the 3pm flight midweek, and OP has $25k EQD.

No, the best shot would be to pay the fare difference.

OP "really wants to upgrade to business" -- my point is that neither miles nor sticker is likely, but miles is likelier, so maybe keep an eye on C or go ahead and waitlist it... and presumably if the flight gets significantly fuller in J by 7 days out, consider upfaring if that's on the table (and before the J fare gets even higher). If J is very open though, I'd want to give the comp sticker upgrade a chance to clear at the 100 hour window. So... it's complicated!

There's your error. Miles+copay takes priority over stickers/comps, regardless of EQD. Says so right in the wiki at the top of this thread.

Also, stickers/comps don't come out of the C upgrade space, so if you waitlist for it, and they decide to release C1 at T-8 or whatever, you can clear into it immediately, even if you're asleep or on some other flight.

Uh, yeah, pretty sure everybody gets that. Seemed clear to me that OP really would like to maximize his chances at flying J but was unwilling (or unable per employer rules, etc.) to pay the price of full-fare business. That's a description that fits me on nearly every flight as well.

This question may well be in one of the earlier 25 pages, but does anyone take the same view that just buying the seat you want is actually the best option today? I know there are corporate restrictions and all that, but this applies in the questions applies in the leisure market as much the business.

Domestically, I fly DFW to LAX/SFO/ORD/JFK/MIA. Yes, I'm an EXPLT, but so what - half of DFW airport is at any given time. So now I just buy the First class ticket and choose 4A or 4F so I know I can work (no one can see), have my meal of choice and have a easier re-qual route each year. I only spend $25-30k a year on flights in totoal so my AA EQD is never going to be the deal maker compared to other round here. It's not that much more expensive and I just plan a little better or further in advance. Average F ticket price (especially on DFW\/SFO) is falling.

International is a little different due to the much wider fare gap, so my comment is mainly restricted to domestic in the first instance.

Just my $0.02

Not sure why the hostility. OP's in a tough spot. You may not pay the difference for J but I personally won't take a redeye in coach, so if I book one, I know my exit strategies are (1) BXP1 (surrogate for OP's miles/copay), (2) sticker upgrade, or (3) pay up if I lose the upgrade game (either to full J, or if it's sold out, to full J on an alternate flight; if I'm inflexible I will usually avoid playing the upgrade game in the first place because odds are it means I have to be in decent shape when I get where I'm going!).

To me this whole charade (which of course I sort of enjoy) is analogous to self-insurance for property damage -- in the long run, I think I'm far better off using FT & ExpertFlyer to fly F at the minimum contribution (even if occasionally I get stuck paying for an expensive ticket to fly up front) than I would be if I always paid for F.

End of the day, after thinking about it a bit more, if I were OP I'd probably wait until 7 days before departure to evaluate further, with an alert for C set on ExpertFlyer. At 7 days out, if the J cabin is still very empty, I'd probably ride it out until the 100-hour window to see if sticker upgrade clears. If not, I'd then call in to waitlist the miles/copay upgrade under the presumption that maybe just maybe, at 24-36 hours out, some C availability will emerge.

I am well aware that miles + copay takes priority over stickers, which is why the very first thing I said was, "Yes, a miles + copay upgrade is more likely to clear than a sticker upgrade."

My point is that it doesn't make a difference if you waitlist a miles + copay upgrade at T-21 or T-7 (as it used to before EQDs were introduced), and therefore, it could make sense to wait, monitor, and reassess loads closer to the flight. You are right that if AA releases C space early, waiting could mean missing out on the C upgrade. But as I mentioned, in my experience C space doesn't tend to open up early on this route.

I'm flying in and out of DCA/IAD (respectively) mid next week (from DFW) and noticed on both of my flights, 2 or 3 F seats have opened up in the last 2 days. Maybe it is common for DC area airports? Haven't really noticed it on other routes before. Anyways, I have (probably still unrealistic) hope of clearing at least 1 of the upgrades based on having more than a few F seats open now and a half-empty MCE sections -- not all that important really, other than I feel burned in that I have only cleared 1 flight since getting PlatPro (short DFW-MSY) out of ~18 eligible segments.

In general I find my upgrade chances to be higher at IAD. But that means going to IAD where the AA set up is an afterthought - no club and at the very end of the B concourse.

This is my first flight out of IAD actually -- I've always used DCA for the good AA schedule and/or its convenient location. My only LUS flights in my flight history were all of my pre-merger DC bound flights. Anyways, I was surprised how few AA flights there are out of IAD, but I had a tight window in the afternoon in which I needed to leave (late enough after my meetings, early enough to make my connection home) and the mid afternoon DCA flights were hundreds of dollars more than the afternoon IAD flight, and with a colleague willing to drive me the airport, I thought what the heck I'll trek out to IAD. I would pin my upgrade chances more on that return flight -- a bit more than a 1/3 of the seat map is empty (both in Y and F), but the skeptical part of me wonders if AA will pull it in their 738 juggling act.

Well, OP said explicitly he was going to buy coach, and was hoping to upgrade. So your point that buying J is more likely to result in a J seat is a)irrelevant to his stated situation and b)information everybody already knows. So it's not helpful, and phrasing it as a correction to me saying miles+copay was his best shot is a bit flippant. That's why my response was less than friendly (though I wouldn't go so far as "hostile").

Of course, I completely understand this perspective. But it's clear from OP's post that's not where he's coming from.

This still makes no sense to me. If your plan is to waitlist at T-7days, what possible harm can come from waitlisting right now? Maybe it won't open up between now and then, in which case, no harm. If it does open up in the middle of the night and somebody clears into it before you see the alert, that's a big loss. Maybe that's not a huge percentage of the time, but so what? What's the downside?

Why? To what purpose? If you waitlist at T-21 and it hasn't cleared at T-7, you're still have exactly the same ability to reassess loads or whatever else. How does waitlisting early hurt you?

As long as there is a nonzero chance of it opening up, there's an obvious benefit to having waitlisted. There appears to be absolutely no downside. If there is some downside I'm not seeing, what is it?