Yes. However it is heavily variable on destination, time of year etc. What date?

Yup. Worth writing to Customer Relations. They actually have some power (although they may just give you a boilerplate reply). Chat agents cant do anything about things like this.

do you know what that email address is by chance?

No email. Just go to Contact American here: https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=#/ and select Compliments and Complaints

17 open seats out of 30 from the seat map. Main Cabin Extra has several open seats. None of this guarantees anything (as it is possible that people havent selected seats, but it doesn't look like a packed, elite heavy flight right now).

4 seats always makes it harder, but it seems like you have a decent chance. The benefit of miles + copay is that you only pay if you clear, so definitely waitlist.

For the "one companion on the same itinerary upgrades with your status", does that only apply for the upgrade queue at the gate or does that apply to the "upgrade clearance time" before the flight? My wife and son are one itinerary, my wife is EXP and our son has no status. I am on my own itinerary on the same flights as a PP and my upgrade confirmed this morning (about 72 hours prior to the flight as the mythical upgrade window I've heard tales of). There are still 8 seats left up front, including many next to each other, why would my wife have been skipped over for an upgrade if she and my son would have been considered EXP with an upgrade window of 100 hours? She chatted in and gave them the above story and is being given the "upgrades will occur in the appropriate time window" boilerplate. Are there hidden/held seats that are showing available when I look and they won't upgrade them because they can't sit next to each other?

available open seats for sale up until the gate doesn’t guarantee that they are all upgradable inventory as well. Most likely AA released C1 and your wife got skipped due to only 1 seat being available and AA will not autosplit PNRs thankfully. You were most likely number 3 and you got the seat.

Thanks for the quick reply. I was thinking it was some very specific set of circumstances that led to this but the optics on it are definitely not good for AA. In fact my wife, exasperated with the support agent, sarcastically mocked something to the effect of "maybe I should just settle for plat pro to increase my chances of getting upgraded". I guess I'll be getting the kid on my itinerary next time so she has a better chance at the upgrade. We usually put him on hers because she carries higher status so if there are adjacent seats they have a better chance to get upgraded.

It is possible these don't get filled with PLT and GLD in the coming days then, and I don't expect they'll get sold based on how empty it is on this leg. They may be at the top of the list when we check in for the flight and the "empty" seats are still empty. We'll make sure to complain to the appropriate customer support lines, maybe get a 1000 miles out of it lol

Just for clarification. The times you mention don't make sense for a flight in that direction. Is the time and flight origin and destination correct? I ask because we just ticketed the morning flight from ORD to LHR in October with a confirmable upgrade at time of ticketing so I will keep an eye on this.

AA90 is high season flight that departs in the morning and arrives to LHR late evening. I don’t think I ever seen AA to keep this flight during slow months like November, Feb, March. Out of 4 non stops that they offer during full schedule months, this day flight to LHR is always first to be discontinued until next high season.

We've taken this flight many times since we tend to travel off-season and this has been the most reliable for confirmable at ticketing upgrade. In te- reading the post I do see the flight number mentioned but referred to as lhr ord as opposed to ord lhr. Just wanted clarity on that.

We've taken this flight many times since we tend to travel off-season and this has been the most reliable for confirmable at ticketing upgrade. In te- reading the post I do see the flight number mentioned but referred to as lhr ord as opposed to ord lhr. Just wanted clarity on that.

DCA-BTV cleared at T-48 as Plat. 9/13 this year for upgrades.

This is a first.

Tomorrow tpa-dfw cleared yesterday
dfw-phx cleared this morning
Thursday phx-sea cleared at T-48
Friday sea-dfw cleared at T-48
dfw-tpa cleared at T-96

Not one battlefield upgrade on deck.

Holiday week, practically no paid business travel this week so upgrades are plentiful.

So what exactly are you going to complain about?? You clearly have no clue on how the upgrade system works. She and your son didn't get upgraded because they only released one seat, so you where next on the list. If they open up two seats at the same regardless of when, she and your son will get them not a plt or gld. You are only hurting your chances by putting your son on your reservation and not hers. Also complaining to AA customer service for following their established rules only gives the rest of us a bad name.