enviroian

Irregular operations? If I’m paying F fares I can afford to book whatever airline and/flight to accommodate me. When I have had a canceled flight being an EXP hasn’t done anything. I don’t understand this logic. An EXP today is what a gold was 5 or 7 years ago.

IADCAflyer

Sure, but six open seats in F?

IADCAflyer

Sure but why even proclaim to have upgrade windows and upgrades if you're not going to upgrade the very people who you enticed with the benefits of upgrades?

Zacnlinc

After mulling this one over and seeing the replies after my post, may the FFP will be morphed into those that are exclusively for those that buy non-Y fares to reap the more lucrative benefits. If you seeking instant upgrades to the next class of service, you need to be at " level, etc. Otherwise, Buy it...And we'll toss more accolades your way!

Let's face it... We're at the mercy of AA. I'm banking on cashing in on F for as many family/friends willing to travel on my bucket-list trip when cashing out.

born sleepy

Also in DL Fortress ATL... and when I moved there I was a UA 1K. UA's ATL service then was spotty and too often on a beat-up old RJ, so I was able to get AA to match me to Plat. Never looked back, though there's sure been times when I've thought GRRAARRRGGGHH I WILL NEVER FLY AA AGAIN!!!11!!!11! but that passes. All airlines will F you over eventually, and they all play these TOD upgrade games. I would never get better than maybe gold on DL and with so many diamonds there, I'd never get upgraded.

FWIW I was able to use two SWUs to upgrade MIA/TLV then TLV/JFK, though I suspect the only reason the latter cleared at the last possible moment was due to some unlucky J pax stuck in the monstrous TLV queues who could not make it to the gate in time. So SWUs do on occasion clear. At least AA does not force you to up-fare a coach ticket to be eligible to use a SWU like UA does, or did back then. I also used an EXP benefit to add 20,000 LPs to my account, so re-qualifying for EXP is within reach, as I did not anticipate needing any more SWUs for the near future.

I think now AA/UA are pretty much equivalent. When AA did the loyalty points thing I was temped to see about a UA match, but their FF scheme isn't any less based on spend and credit cards.

cova

Did your companion pay the $315 and take the offer?

wanaflyforless

The combination of paid F and status got me home the next day instead 3 days later during a meltdown. I got the last seat on a zeroed out flight. There were no seats still available for sale on any airline heading my direction for a few days.

Also I am able to reach AA much easier even as a PLT member than with no status. While status is not what it used to be, the difference still matters.

halls120

Do you remember what PT Barnum allegedly said about suckers?

PES_B1

Maybe this is a strategy AA copied from their good son CZ? CZ will only push generous /cash options for upgrade if you meet these criterias, 1) you haven't flown J/F with them in the last 24 months 2) you are a non-elite(not even sliver)

vasantn

Just a single data point, but so far this year I'm 13/14 on upgrades, with 10 clearing at the 100-hour mark.

Antarius

I'm doing similarly well. And that's including my gf who's also cleared the companion upgrade.

redtop43

I'm a pure leisure flyer and have gone overseas once in my life (on DL/AF). I made EXP in 2019 for the 2020 year by a combination of credit card bonus EQM's and buying some F tickets, and since the CC bonuses when down and the EQM requirement up, I thought it would be my only year. Of course we know what happened and it became easy to keep it for 2021 and 2022, and for the 1/1/2022-2/28/2023 period I'm flying a bit less and using award tickets more, but a few premium fares and lots of gift card purchases will keep me at EXP for 2023-24. After that I don't know. While F is far more comfortable than Y, I don't miss the free drinks (I rarely drink and anyway I guess I can get booze in MCE if I want) and I often don't eat on planes. I could stand to lose more than a few pounds, so a Y seat is a bit cramped, but I'm always in MCE and usually the best MCE seats so MCE isn't so bad, but I'm about 70% on upgrades this year. That said, I have one SWU from last year and I'll get five more this year and I'm really not sure how I'll use them. I probably won't burn them the way someone else did in another thread on a 90-minute flight. Anyway, I'm not frightfully upset at bad treatment as an EXP, but I might be if I were flying overseas a lot and wasn't able to sit in J or at least PE.

MikeBOS

This is completely at odds to my experience. I've been PLT for 15+ years and can count the total number of upgrades I've received over those years on one hand (something like 2-3). I was EXP before that and had a decent upgrade rate, but in recent years have found PLT upgrades nearly impossible. When my "stickers" were converted I had 67 unused, and not for lack of trying; I attempted upgrades on every flight. For me there is value in PLT status but it is not the upgrades (in recent years, just being able to get through on the phone without waiting hours has been, by far, the most important one to me).

FlyingEgghead

I thought AA had a rule of only selling TODs when there aren't enough pax on the upgrade list to fill the cabin. That is, the buy-ups would not be at the expense of elites (except perhaps for an elite who buys a ticket after people have used TOD offers). Has that changed?

Sheikh Yerbooty

With just a smidgen of schadenfreude, one could well rewrite the headline of this post to read “How I expect to fly in a class I didn’t pay for, and how I got upset about it when it didn’t happen”.

Said it before, will continue repeating it until blue in the face: The practice of US “full service” carriers to fill every vacant premium seat by upgrading people who didn’t pay to sit there, is one of the most counterproductive things they ever did. It only breeds entitlement, which quickly devolves into resentment, pettiness and jealousy. Particularly in this day and age, where entitlement is quickly becoming a disease quite a few frequent travellers are suffering from. I call them Gold Karen’s.

Just for clarity, I also include the SWUs (or whichever name they go by) in the category of “of the million stupid things airlines have done, which one ranks the highest”. They don’t breed loyalty, they breed resentment when it doesn’t work as advertised.

PS
I can only recommend being a “free agent” and not giving a toss about “loyalty”. You can be damn sure no airline has any loyalty towards you as a customer, but very much expect you to be loyal to them. I haven’t paid the slighest attention to miles and programs the last 10 years, and am so much the happier for it. Not least because I don’t have hundreds of thousands of miles I don’t know what to do with; when you’re on the road for 100 to 150 days a year, about the last thing you want to see on your time off is another bloody airport/airline/hotel combo.