noobalert

Thanks for the constructive replies.

1) Sounds like my odds are maybe best LAX>DFW>ORD, does that sound right? I'll only have $16K EQD by then.
2) Any insight into NRT vs HKG for the Asia side?
3) BSE118 - is there a website to count those routes as you did or do you just have to search for all the days in a week and take notes?

PS. MillionMiler/Beachfan pretty much summarize my sentiment. I don't want this conversation to get derailed by a likely intractable argument, but I did say bamboozled, not defrauded; It just isn't a good faith way of doing business to advertise that these SWUs can be confirmed at booking when in reality there's maybe <3 such seats for that daily route for the next six months and one has to pay for a subscription to a 3rd party website to factually confirm that. Sounds like a SWU is defacto a lottery ticket for a free upgrade rather than an actual upgrade. But I get from C17PSGR why they do it.

no1cub17

TBH I'm surprised you found 5 dates/flights with C inventory. That's pretty generous of AA.

triplefives

0 for 2 both times on HKG-LAX. Both times were around busy holidays so somewhat expected.

DWFI

It's not about the destination so much as the city pair, or even more, the equipment used.
I think you'll have better odds on LAX-PEK, DFW-PEK, DFW-ICN than any of those. If you must fly to NRT or HKG, I'd guess that, ceteris paribus, you're probably best off on DFW-NRT followed by LAX-HKG. Too few J seats on the 787-8 ex ORD to bet on that unless you're booking close-in (IMO). Strong bet would also be LAX-HND if you're traveling in the period where AA is using the 52 seat 777-300ER (instead of the 28 seat 787-9).

nov11

IME, mid-week LAX-PEK/PVG has the most C availability, some even a few months out (LAX-PVG was available all of summer when I checked a few weeks ago). DFW-PEK/PVG is a close second, and the occasional LAX-TYO. LAX-HKG used to be easy with C available a few months out especially mid-week but this seems rare now.

noobalert

oh wow I didn't realize how many fewer business seats there are on the 787

YoustonFlyer

C class is definitely harder to find at booking these days.

LAX-HKG is significantly easier than DFW. I've only cleared 2/5 upgrades on DFW-HKG. Most recently I was 9/36 on a Friday flight where only 1 cleared. I was flexible and the flight was oversold so I volunteered and took my chances the next day where they cleared 5 people and I was 3/25. On LAX-HKG I'm 2/2, one of them was at booking but that was back in 2017.
I've got my fingers crossed for LAX-HND on Thursday. It's all 7's on the availability and EF shows 10 seats available, but they have not opened any C space as of T-72. For my upcoming NRT-DFW on Sunday it's J1 so that's pretty much guaranteed to not clear.
In late February my Sydney flights are already J2 and J5 so I won't hold my breath for either of those upgrades.
PVG and PEK are definitely some of the easier upgrades.

Welcome to the SWU games, may the odds be ever in your favor.

noobalert

Good luck thursday! Stupid question, does J5 mean five seats unoccupied in business?

Mwenenzi

J5 on what? Expert Flyer?
Answer depends on the source of the "J5"

ijgordon

Technically it means that AA is willing to sell 5 more business class seats at the current time.

That may not exactly match with the number of unsold seats due to over/under booking, and it often won't exactly match unoccupied seats on the seat maps.

Finsup72

I'm 5 of 6 on SWUs over the last year (2x DFW-NRT, 2x LHR-JFK, 1x JFK-SFO J to F). My DFW-NRT RT cleared at booking 3 months in advance.

YoustonFlyer

I get all my information from expertflyer. J5 would mean AA is still selling 5 tickets in J fare class (the highest biz fare bucket). The most EF ever shows in any fare bucket on AA is 7, so if you see a 7 it could be way more. Once you see lower numbers you know the cabin is likely starting to fill up.

Also I cleared lax-hnd last night about 36 hours before departure. Lucky me! Looks like the biz seat map went from 9 open seats to 1 between last night and noon today, I assume on a big wave of upgrades.

donotblink

Does anyone know why ExpertFlyer is showing Rows 15 and 16 on the 767-300? If I recall correctly, there are not any seats between 13 and 17. I find this strange because for row 14, they just don't show any seats at all, so I would have thought that they would have done that for 15 and 16. I've also noticed that AA appears to always block 12 A, B and H on domestic routes which is annoying.

3Cforme

Under the Air Carrier Access Act carriers are obligated to provide certain kinds of seating (some bulkheads) to disabled parties when they self-identify at the gate -- whether or not they have that seat/seat type reserved. That is not new.

https://www.transportation.gov/indiv...accommodations

donotblink

Well, I guess my point, which I admittedly forgot to mention, is that they also block row 17, which are the best Y seats on the plane and row 32. In total that's 7 premium MCE seats and 7 regular seats.