FlyinMike

Hello fellow lowly golds. Just wanted share experiences with MCE thus far this year. I was PLAT last year, but missed it by 12k miles and dropped to gold this year.

Most of my flights are PHX/SJC and back during the consulting herd rush hours. I've yet to miss out on the free MCE seats and even get the coveted exit row window/aisle on the A319 about 75% of the time. I nearly missed it today and thought I was gonna be stuck in an MCS (Main Cabin Sardine) window seat. Luckily, on the 319, they block 8DE until ~7 hours out, so I snagged 8D for the 4:00 flight home today. Still batting 100% on MCE - although bulkhead on the 319 is not the best place to be, but my consolation prize is that they should still have BOTH Woodford minis when they get to me

Last year as a PLAT, I got exactly 2 sticker upgrades to FC and did ~38 segments in MCE. This year, I've had 1 sticker uopgrade (PHX-SEA no less), so aside from the slightly higher bonus, I'm failing to see why I would try to reach PLAT this year. Since MCE is the new F, I've resigned to flying there and using the stickers to see my name at or near the bottom of the screen at the airport. At this point, I would be OK with AA letting my use the stickers to secure an MCE seat in advance (as long as they don't require 1 for every 500 miles).

What are your thoughts and stories?

Gig103

To me, not knowing how much effort it would take to stretch to plat, I would still consider these reasons
1. How often do you travel with others on your itinerary (are you splitting up with last minute MCE and does that bother you)?
2. How often do you fly internationally in economy? Plat selection at booking for that would be very nice, as would the oneworld sapphire benefits like security priority and lounge access.
3. Lower priority but not having to set reminders for getting your OLCI MCE upgrade, knowing you have it early and it's probably not a middle seat.

jliehr

_kurt

I have never taken advantage of this benefit so I can't really say. I am tall (and picky) so if reserving MCE in advance is too expensive on my first-choice flight, I'll pick a different flight or fly a different airline. Now, booking into MCE and taking a chance on an upgrade to first as Gold, that is worth it for me.

FlyinMike

Great points here.
1) I travel with the family about twice a year - usually on EX US A321s, so can't take advantage of MCE there as no kids allowed in exit rows. I've bought all of us F tickets a couple of times when the price difference was small.
2) Never - all my travel for work is domestic, and I can book W on long flights if I do travel international
3) Reminders is a bit of a pain, but dealing with it for the time being - 80 - 90% of my trips are between PHX and SJC.

So it sounds like for me, PLAT won't be worth it (read mileage run) unless I have to travel for work enough to reach it. EQD is never the problem as I had more that $8k last year and only made gold.

slpybear

0 for 3 so far in 2019. Looking poor for my chance on the return flight BOS-DFW on Thursday.

Flying out of DFW means almost no chance for MCE or sticker upgrades for this Gold.

MathMusic

I haven't travelled much this year, but had no problem going 2/2 on MCE. I usually check as the other elites hit their upgrade windows so I can snag their seats.

HiAperture

Exactly this, even if there aren't any MCE before check in, some almost always open up when higher elites get upgraded, or decide to make a free confirmed flight change. Even flying with my wife we are well over 50% on getting side by side MCE seats for free. If it was just me flying I can't think of a single time I couldn't have snagged a MCE seat for free.

Unfortunately at my last flight on an LUS A321 I was so focused on seeing if I could standby for an earlier flight, that when that didn't pan out by the time I checked my original flight row 22 MCE was open, but the seating must have been under gate control as it refused to confirm my seat change. I was already in the second row of main cabin so I decided I would rather stay there and get off quickly anyway so I didn't bother the gate agent.

I did get the thrill of being 18th and 19th on the upgrade list as a gold with stickers, with only one clearing the list! Oh well.

swag

I haven't flown AA much in the last 12 months, but in the years prior, my MCE success was near 100%, even on elite heavy routes like IAD-DFW on Thursday afternoon when 50+ pax are GLD or better. The key is persistence. Checking in exactly at T-24 to try to beat the other Golds, and if I don't get my MCE aisle then, checking regularly, maybe hourly until T-3, then several times an hour after that. Plus ExpertFlyer seat alerts help.

This is for traveling solo; when traveling with a companion, getting two MCE together is much harder.

AAdamE

I set a timer to remind me of check in because the App doesnt notify you and you won't get an email reminder until a few hours into check in.

Austin787

Back when I was Gold, I got MCE at check in most of my flights. There were 2 flights, AUS-ORD and ORD-BOS where MCE was mostly full at check in with only middle MCE seats remaining, and no one was upgraded. But those flights were the exception rather than the norm.

carlosdca

+1
100% of the times I am able to get an MCE seat.
Closer to departure time, seats usually open up if at OLCI none were available.

The only time I got an upgrade to F as GLD that I remember of was in the early 2000s, SAN-JFK redeye on Dec 31st, I had the pleasure to sit on those 757 brown leather seats

KBMIFlyer

I have only missed once on mainline, and that was when I was rebooked on a DCA-ORD Friday evening flight when an earlier flight was cancelled. I will only move up to MCE if I can get an Aisle, but on almost all of my flights that is not a problem at 24 hours.

Being small airport based, I get a lot of ERJ''s, so the only MCE seat worth it is the exit row "A" seat. I get it about half the time. ORD-BMI is so short it really doesn't matter.