I'm looking to fly LAX-LHR AA 108 on a Tuesday in early November (six weeks out). I want to try and upgrade both myself (low rolling EQD EXP) and my mother (non-elite) with a couple SWU. Expert Flyer has only 13 J seats occupied and only 14 in PE. Pretty much every fare bucket is 7 (except for C0 of course) including even U7. Any idea about the chances of upgrades showing up or getting upgraded? I assume I should hold off requesting the SWU until a day or two before the flight while watching for C's to open up, since time of request is behind a whole lot of other tiebreakers...

Thanks.

I'd say waitlist ASAP. If it's U7, I'd say there's a fairly good chance some C might open up. While time of request doesn't HELP that much, it certainly doesn't HURT to make the request immediately. You lose nothing.

In case you don't know, not all seats are assigned until the gate. (For example, based on exactly how and where people book, they may not be able to get assigned seats, just as you can't always get assigned seats when booking on some of AA's partner airlines.) Plus an airline may holding back seats in an upper cabin because they're overselling a lower cabin. So how many seats are showing open in the seat map is near meaningless in terms of judging how many seats are available in the cabin.

Absolutely request the SWU now. If the upgrade process works as it should, C space might never actually show up, but they might release the space and process the upgrade list and those are all gone before the C space can show up on EF. If you are not on the upgrade list, then they can never process your upgrade if they release the seats and others end up getting the upgrade.

It it doesn’t cost you anything to submit the SWU now and not have it clear unless you have another flight booked and that does have C space, or C space appears and you are all out of SWUs.

Thanks for the responses. Luckily for me, about an hour or so after posting this, a bunch of C's showed up on AA108 a day earlier than the flight I was looking at. My timing was flexible, so I booked those with two SWU clearing at booking. I'll use your advice and request my last SWU on the return trip now.

In my experience, it's no where close to near meaningless. In fact, I think if a flight is J0, but has empty seats in business on the seat map, it's a near lock someone will be upgraded. YMMV of course.

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9/28 got ExpertFlyer alert email, 5 seats in C so called and got my seat 1D, nice.

My friend used one of his SWU to put in for an upgrade for my flight from ORD-LAX in November. On the business.AA site it shows that that segment I'm in first, but that's it. It didn't transfer to the main AA site yet.

Should that have happened, or will that still come down to the last few days before the flight?

Missed my first ever SWU since I’ve been EXP since 2010. Was on ORD>LHR last Wednesday. Was J0 a few weeks out (what are they thinking with these 20 seat J cabins that sell out weeks in advance). Went to J 1 day of, the. J2 c1, but I wasn’t fast enough. Checked in, was number one on the list, still one seat. But about an hour before the flight, that seat disappeared. Someone must’ve purchased it. Was pretty upset but was in premium economy so not terrible.

If this is the first SWU you have missed since 2010 I'd say you should be quite happy with the run you had!

Regards

Really enjoyed the seat and hoping to score the same on the way back tomorrow. Yesterday AA98 had J7, today got ExpertFlyer alert with C4, called immediately and got imho somewhat cold response and "nothing we can do but wait." This was about 28 hours before checkin.

A few hours later called again, different agent and very different experience. Initially was also told that I'm on the waiting list and need to wait but I kept saying that I can see C availability and was asked how. Oh "that app". Well away she went to study things and got back much later that "it's an airport operation" which left me confused as I was able to get it cleared a week ago, no idea if that was supposed to happen or not. After the call provided feedback "1 - would like to talk to her again" so good job there despite taking a long time.

Anyway, checked in online right when possible and hoping for the best (C3 now.) Going to do some more study on this "airport operation" since the two experiences left me a bit confused.

That said I really appreciate the contributions here, managed to see my place at #9 for ORD-SFO and #3 for SFO-CLT on the screen so that's impressive. But did enjoy seat 23F on both of these flights, again thanks to this forum.

It's still C3. I'd call again.

It's actually now C4 and I called as the web app showed that I'd lost my assigned seat in PE. When trying to choose again "AA apologized for issues with seat assignment." But apparently I still had my original seat.

Just before calling it went to C2 and now it's C4 again. Over the phone heard again that they can't do anything as I've been placed on the airport upgrade list.

C0 now about 8 hours later, J1 so pretty sure I did not get one.