Question - 126 HKG-DFW SWU Upgrade Chances
 

Please pardon what might be an amateurish question; I haven't had the opportunity to use an SWU in well over five years, having fallen out of EXP until this year.

I'm on 126 HKG-DFW tomorrow, 19 September. Currently 30 hours prior to departure. EF shows F0 A0 J5 R5 D5 I4 W7 P7 Y7 B0 H7 K7 M7 L7 G7 V7 S7 N7 Q6 O3 E7. Seat map is consistent: F is full, 6 available in J, 55 available in Y. My EQDs are quite high right now, around 45K, so I'm assuming that, all other things being equal, I'm at or near the top of the list.

When can I expect them to start releasing J seats for SWU upgrades?

Call the EXP line. They should be able to release a J seat to you immediately upon booking.

Never heard of that before. Can you explain?

Thats not how it works, in order for an SWU to go through the airline needs to release C space.

Yes, I remember that they used to be able to do this years ago, when I was last EXP. Called. "I'm sorry, it's not available right now, and we cannot do anything manually. It will process automatically."

HUACA.

"I see five seats available. Let me speak with my supervisor." ... "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do manually. I can see that you are on the list, but we must wait for the system to process it. There is nothing available for upgrade at this time."

Update: Now showing J2 R2 D2 I1. This flight no longer appears on my online itinerary. Perhaps they're in process. Calling now.

Apparently something malfunctioned when the computer was processing the upgrades, and that flight dropped to the bottom of the itinerary. EXP phone agent found it, straightened things out, grabbed a seat for me, and queued it for reticketing. Upgrade is not going to happen on my connecting flight, 1456 DFW-BOS. EF seating chart shows F full, and only three open seats in Y. It's a 738.

OP I just checked and it’s C0. There are 3 free J seats so hopefully you’ll get a battlefield upgrade. Good luck!

So it was C1 when you called?

For the first two calls (described above), EF didn't show C at all. For the last call, I didn't check EF before calling; I was concerned that I couldn't find the flight in my itinerary. Just checked EF; C still not there at all. J2, R2, D2, I1. Seating chart shows three empty/unassigned eats in business.

You are aware that you need to use the “Award/Upgrade” function to search, right?

AA usually release C seats 30-40 hours before departure, so the poster above means that if there is a C seat, insist that the agent process it, instead of waiting for autoprocess (which is when you may get skipped)

Sounds like the OP's upgrade already cleared but when he pulled up the reservation at aa.com it looked a little wonky (very common when your upgrade has cleared but hasn't been fully re-ticketed yet) which the agent was able to fix.

Exactly. Thanks for your help, advice, everyone! That flight's just too long to take in Y for my butt. If it didn't clear, my backup plan was to redeem points and refund the AA ticket (which was refundable).