No

They have to release upgrade space as well. But, the emptier the cabin, the better your chances

Complimentary upgrades book into the R bucket; however, due to system limitations, R is both a revenue bucket and an upgrade bucket. You can see revenue R using EF, upgrade R is not visible.

Miles and Systemwide upgrades book into C (or A for First on a 77W/321T). They are also revenue buckets; however, you can see those upgrade inventories either on EF or by doing a dummy booking (if logged in) on AA.com.

AA has no equivalent of UA Expert Mode, so if you want to see inventory loads, you would need to use a service like EF or approximate using the seat maps.

A lot of it is determined by what you've done in the prior 12 months.

I am DFW based Exp and have missed very few upgrades (on flights I have booked at least 3-4 days out).
That said my $ amount even with Covid times is about $25k. Almost always Mon-fri flights.
Seems like lots of 321 with 20F seats lately. I like them.

I am EP and I average upgrades about 50% of the time when I fly into these majors hubs, especially DFW. Heck, most of the time, the planes are full and they are asking for passengers to volunteer to give up their seats.
If you are using a major hub as listed, don't expect 100% upgrades and keep your preferred chosen seat.

out of ATL, have never missed a upgrade.. even on award ticket .. for the last few years..
but then again, I carefully book my travel, and travel mostly off peak

I find there can be no rhyme or reason on upgrades for EXP. Lots of factors like a family buying several F tickets or using award miles.

I have 80% Success SJU-MIA-SJU and 100% MIA - LAX -MIA, but I've been focusing 777's. We will see what happens now that AA Gold and PPro's are in the mix... I do find that if I book inside 100 hours, the upgrade comes 24-48 hours from departure. If I book beyond 100 hours, the upgrade is right on the mark. On the 777's I'm booking when 7-8+ seats are showing available in C.

I am not a frequent flyer compared to many on here but did achieve PLT through the 2021 Hyatt Status Challenge. Sharing for those looking at new system with LP. This year in 9 requested flights, 7 have been upgraded, all at T-48. While most are American Eagle, I've felt that it's been worthwhile at PLT level. Will be interesting to see as increase in demand in flights of coming months (with recession of COVID), if this continues.
CMH-LGA (✓)
LGA-CHO (✓)
CHO-CLT (Sunday, even someone boarded as CK was in MCE, no upgrade, 11 of 14)
CLT-CMH (Sunday Night, #2, did not clear)
PIT-PHX (✓, including companion with stickers)
DAY-DCA (✓)
DCA-DAY (✓)
CVG-AUS (✓, complimentary with new policy)
AUS-CVG (✓, complimentary)

Today to lax 1/12/0

AA GLD
2/8 DFW-PHL - Yes, cleared T-24 (Stickers)
2/10 ILM-DFW - Yes, cleared T-24 (Stickers)
2/16 DFW-BOS - No (Stickers requested)
2/17 BOS-DFW - No (Stickers requested)

AA PLT and LP introduced
3/8 DFW-BOS - No, 7 of 19 on WL, Complimentary
3/10 BOS-DFW - Yes, Paid Buy Up in APP.

truly amazed a gold would get upgraded on anything.

It looks like AA is back to not releasing any A upgrade space on any of the JFK-LAX flights more than a couple days in advance. Lots and lots of A0 in the EF upgrade search for a few weeks out.

Kind of annoying. There is no way their RM is modeling that they are actually going to sell a large percentage of them all of a sudden lol.

On my Y flights thus far I am now 3/3 since January as a PlatPro, all hub-hub routes. Not a lot of data points but seems there are still fewer elites in the air, at least flying in/out of ORD. Routes are:

ORD-DCA
DCA-ORD
ORD-PHL

It remains to be seen if I'll be upgraded on the return from PHL.

I'm AA Plat and primarily fly LAX-JFK-- was upgraded on flights in Jan & Feb 2022 (and was upgraded 80% of the time throughout 2021, including the first half of the year when I was Gold). Then starting this month (March) my flights were completely full / no one cleared for upgrade. As a note I flew Monday 6am on outbound (#5/13 on upgrade list) and Tuesday 4:30pm on return (#3/11 on upgrade list). Noticed there werent any of the usual in-app buy-up offers on the return (there was however a buy-up offer of $242 on the Monday outbound flight which I kinda wish I took advantage of...)

Flying back in a couple weeks (mid-week, early AM flights) and will be interested to see how those pan out...