No, if there's space up front then AA will typically offer the cash buy-up upgrade offers online and in the app. But these can come and go depending on the loads and as the flight gets closer.

Just to close the loop for future reference.

I was 7th on works and missed out. Tried to buy up to F at the club and at the gate - there were 3 seats left there while J was full.

At club i was told my ticket was ineligible for upgrades.

At gate i was told you can't upgrade to F from Y. Period. Cash or not. Thought was weird since they let the seats go empty, and they had offered an upgrade from Y to F as recent as T-24

On flight 1853 mia to bgi last night. I am platinum. There were three seats available for first possible. My app said upgrade requested. Nothing happened. When I finally got to the gate I looked at the waitlist. I was 12 out of 29 people for the upgrade of 0 seats. Closer to takeoff, I was bumped to 17 out of 29. On this 737 max only 18 first. Being in row 2 of MCE, the food did look decent in first. I had the Asian chicken salad for $11 which was tiny.

Monday night, DFW/ATL. Number 8 on a list of 119, A321. A few CKs also in coach. In good company for turned into a four ordeal getting to ATL.

I'm on AA661 PHL-LAS on Sunday evening, basically T-100 right now. I'm a low-LP EXP. EF shows C7 J5. I totally get that just being EXP doesn't mean you get upgraded at T-100.

The odd part is that EF was showing 10 unoccupied seats (on the seat map) for the past few days, but now it's up to 15.

Of course it's possible a party of 5 cancelled in the past 24 hours, but unlikely. Still, I've never seen anything like this.

Open seats on the seat map can be meaningless. Case in point. I checked the seat map at T-100 for a DFW/ATL flight. 7 open seats on a 321. I ended up number 8 on a wait list of 119.

Could a kind soul with EF walk me through determining which flight has a better chance of upgrade?

Monday Apr 10 AA 117 or AA 300? Both are J7 I think

HI all. Trying to decide if I should purchase an upgrade for my return on this SFO-ORD itinerary.
4.11 flight 2397 - they are trying to sell me this for $985, no thanks.
4.12 flight 2614 - they are offering this leg for $376. Normally I would probably still pass on this, but this flight is on a 7M8, and I have heard MCE on the 737 Max is pretty tight for that long of a flight. Any advice on this one? Looks like a decent amount of seats are still open. I just recently started flying this route again, so not sure how EP-heavy the SFO-ORD flights are these days.

Thanks!

There is absolutely zero chance I'd ever pay $376 for SFO-ORD. Granted, $376 could mean something completely different to you than it does to me, but to put that figure in perspective:
I've bought up to PE on an international flight for $190
A non-flagship transcon upfare is often $242
Going from Y-->J on a flagship route is often $291

Not worth it for a 3 hour flight

I understand the imperfect relationship between a seat map and seats for sale, but it still seems weird to see 5 previously occupied F seats suddenly become unoccupied.

I'm happy to check but I don't have all the AA flight numbers memorized...

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...804cf174d3.jpg
JFK-LAX 4/10/2023

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fe6d2b5554.jpg

James

Thanks James

JJeffrey those are the two flights, considering they're both J7 is there any way to figure out which one will be more likely to upgrade?

If an upgrade is very important, than the later flight would probably be a safer bet. This is also a Monday night which is not as elite heavy as other days/times, so I think your chance of success is pretty high regardless. To verify this, look at the seat maps for the two flights and whichever one has more J seats remaining and fewer MCE seats taken will probably be a better indicator of upgrade success.

Yeah I'm aware of everything that you mentioned in your post, I guess I should specify: "Is there anything that this EF data tells me that I can make conclusions from that I couldn't already from the departure time and seatmap?"