I just remembered that Southwest flies that route as well. Three airlines fly it non stop and I connected on AA.

I priced out the four airlines for next Thursday 3/2 and here are the cheapest options in the equivalent of main cabin.

United $134 (I would have to pay for checked bags and would have a regular economy seat)

Frontier $49 (I would have to pay for bags and would be randomly assigned a seat. I could purchase a better seat)

Southwest $134. (bags fly free! I would be at the bottom of the cattle class boarding caste)

AA $129 through DFW. Free bags, free MCE, and a small chance of an upgrade.

I might actually try frontier next time. At $49, I could pay for my bags and pay for a decent seat and still be around AA.

DCA-MIA tomorrow morning and 9th (150k PP) on the list for 1 seat. :(

Looking on EF, every DCA-MIA flight up to the 7.45pm departure looks borderline sold out, I know the food festival is on but kind of surprised at that.

Upgrade results from my 30-segment top-up flights this week - EXP with ~300K TTM LP:

LAX-PHX: Cleared sometime the day before
PHX-LAS: Cleared at T-100
LAS-LAX: Cleared with PHX-LAS, slightly before T-100

BUR-PHX: Did not clear, 2/29 on the list, #1 cleared at the gate
PHX-BUR: Cleared at T-100

Yesterday IAD-DFW and DFW-SNA as PP wound up something like 17th on the list. No one cleared on IAD-DFW. 4 people cleared on DFW-SNA. What's odd is that I've flown this route two other times over the last two months and cleared IAD-DFW at the window or earlier both times. Although I guess it was a different day of the week the other two times

Yea, day of the week can mean ​​​​everything when it comes to upgrade odds on any given route.

Note to self - don't fly Thursday apparently. I at least had an MCE exit row both legs

Apologies for quoting as I read IAD as IAH and was chiming in about my IAH experience. My bad….

Anyhow….

I flew PHL-CLT-IAH this past Thursday and I was 0 for 2 on UGs equipment was A321 and 737 respectively. I was 14th and 9th on the list. Nobody cleared at the gate.

I’m waiting for the return flight now (Saturday) directly to PHL on the dreaded A319. I’m 5th on a list for 0 available seats.

As IAH is a UA hub I didn’t think it would be a difficult UG. I whiffed massively on that assessment.

I have MCE for all flights and noticed on my way down here lots of platinum pro bag tags in the back. I was excited to qualify for it with LPs as I was just regular plat before but see now that all the newly minted preferreds and the sale of upgrades via TODs pre flight free UGs are going to be tough sledding. While I used to enjoy all my free upgrades on US and now AA The more I sit in MCE though the more I realize I’m not missing that much 😁.

MIA - GIG or GRU - DFW upgrade question
 

Hi you’ll
i made it to Plat-Pro this year and never have had any luck on AA upgrades ( except once on Plat). Anyways, I have a trip planned for March - MIA to GIG and GRU to DFW. My question
1. is there any possibility for complimentary upgrades on this flights ( or AA policy is NO complimentary upgrades for South America?)
2. Someone mentioned about copays and award upgrades- how does this work?
3. I leg for GRU-DFw is award miles - will AA upgrade on award tickets?
4. I can get 1 system wide upgrade ( for the plat pro status) , saving it for a trip to Asia later

thanks in advance
Prem

Anyone know which days are the best upgrade chances for:
LAX/SNA -> JFK
JFK -> LAX/SNA

I assume red-eye on both is best as well.

I got upgraded on a Tuesday morning flight on LAX-JFK from Y to J as a platinum Pro with around 140,000 loyalty points.

It was a complimentary upgrade. The crazy thing is that I had actually attempted to apply a miles and copay upgrade about a month before the trip. There was no open space for that upgrade, so it was waitlisted. The upgrade went through about 24 hours before departure, and I just assumed that it was the mileage upgrade clearing. But when I looked more closely, I saw that it was a complimentary upgrade. They never charged me my $75 or took away my $15,000 miles. And it showed as complementary on the app. So, they had a perfect opportunity to take my miles and take my money, but they gave me the complimentary upgrade instead. I lucked out in many ways on that flight. The other great benefit to the upgrade clearing is that I had access to the flagship lounge at LAX and the Greenwich* lounge upon arrival.

Why would you have access to the Chelsea lounge? Pretty sure you would get the Greenwich on Flagship Biz.

Yes you are right. It was the Greenwich lounge.

Flew DFW-AUS this morning. No one got upgraded (all 20 F seats were full several days before departure). There were 39 on the upgrade list and I ended up number 6. I’m at 215k LPs. I didn’t think there’d be that many folks traveling to Austin in first on a Saturday morning!

Wow thats nuts for IAD, that shouldn't be an elite heavy route at all I'd have thought.

Chance of upgrade on waitlist
 

Hi,
I’m ExP with 230k LP… just requested an upgrade from premium to business with miles and co-pay for JFK to DOH. Flight is in about 4 weeks. Checks showing the flight is J7 C0. Before I applied for upgrade app was trying to get me to upgrade for $900.
Hoping will get the upgrade with miles.