Tuesday 2/1

OKC-DFW E175. I cleared at the window

DFW-MEX 738. I was #2 on the list for three seats. Myself and #1 cleared 45 mins prior to departure, and #3 got a battlefield upgrade. I chose the omelette for breakfast, and it was a decent meal.

Wednesday 2/14

MEX-MIA 737-MAX8. I was #3 out of 14 for 1 seat. I refused to bite on the $146 offered upgrade. I had an empty middle seat in row 9, and the FA gave me a double when I ordered a Woodford. It was a great flight and all I missed out on was lunch service.

MIA-OKC A-319. I cleared at T-26 hours. I am about the leave the gate on this flight, and it is going out with one empty seat up front and 99 empty seats in the back. I have not been a flight this empty since April 2020. Sans upgrade, I would have an entire MCE row to myself.

Overall, I am quite happy with AA on this trip. The catering at the Admirals Clubs in MEX and MIA were quite good. Service was great on the first three flights, and there was a full bar PDB here on my MIA-OKC flight.

Platinum Pro with 192K LP. I am waiting for my most recent hotel stay to post, and I will hit EXP for the first time. Unfortunately, It doesn't seem to be as exciting as it used to be.
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Indeed that route and a/c type upgrades get down to $242. Those seats can be gone in a flash and IME on the MIA/LAX 77W AA never upgrades at T-100/

Recent experience last Saturday (2/10) MIA/DFW 788 when paid upgrade got down to $146 that was low enough to coax me out of my PE seat. Upgrade list at the gate was endless, no one cleared. Same day DFW/PSP 321ceo paid upgrade was around $350 didn't bite took 11F in coach. Number 3 on a list of 55, no one cleared. Last Tuesday (2/13) PSP/PHX CR700 list of about 15, I was number one, only one cleared at the gate. Same day PHX/DFW A321neo upgrade list rolling multiple pages, paid $140 for an upgrade, no one cleared. Same day DFW/IAH paid $65 for an upgrade, one person cleared at the gate. Yesterday Wed (2/14) paid $129 for IAH/MIA E175. 2 people cleared at the gate, about 10 on the upgrade list.

So, out of 6 recent flights you got 1 comp upgrade, paid for 4, and was in Y on 1. How's that EXP status working out for ya? :P But I get it, you probably would have been in Y on all the ones you paid, which I guess is what AA wants.

Except for Southwest A-list preferred, I'm an elite kettle on AA, AS, DL, and UA. Except for SUB, I always use 2% cashback credit cards. I buy J or F outright or scour the app for TOD upgrade opportunities and take them if the price is right. I sometimes get upgraded over EXPs that end up dying at the top of the hill and I LOL at them. Probably 50% of my PNRs had decent upgrade offers that I bit on. Basically using my 2% cashback to fund upgrades on airlines I don't fly much on.

I fly AA for other reasons, one of them being MIA based there are direct flights which are valuable in summer time when storms move in and connections become strained. But no doubt AA is slowly getting EXPs used to the idea that you will either pay some form of co pay or probably sit in the back. But DL and UA are also going this way.

I've shifted a lot of my spend to my Fidelity 2% cash back card for this very reason. This is the way.

I lost CK in March of 2023. EXP now. Since removal of CK, upgrade success has been 0%. Based out of sna/lax/SAN. Most common destinations are PHX, PHL, NYC. Limited international now, but still buy J when going out of states. Spend in excess of $100k since losing CK (had 3-5 $10k+ international trips, and domestic trips generally bought last minute. I used to do maybe 20 international trips in a year)

I fly every week at this point.

ironically, I have booked a number of AS flight (sna-sea, lax/san-ewr) and upgrades clear about 80% of the time.

Typically I am number 10-15 on upgrade list.

Also been horribly disappointed in the coach service and general laziness of FAs. I have done SNA-PHX over 20 times since March and pretty sure no drink service has been completed when WN does it every time.

Needless to say, given the drop in international travel, I will be status matching to AS or DL and using WN for PHX trips.

I do PHX-BUR on AA, drink service everytime, but when I go into SNA or LGB, I don't get much service, so when I go from PHX to Calif, I'm on WN.

It’s almost comical at this point. Currently sitting on CLT-LAS which is taking 5:18 today.

One drink service. Seatbelt sign on entire flight.

I need to fly to TSN and then TPE (or vice versa) in late March but looking to use an SWU on AA.
Looks like my choices are really flying to NRT, HND, PVG, or ICN and connecting. Can connect on a non-OW partner (which is probably required).
I don't have any preference and I can fly any day.
Looks like the DFW to PVG flights are lighter load factor on week days - is this my best bet for an SWU to clear or should I look elsewhere?

If you can depart midweek especially Tues or Wed, then that's typically always your best bet on any AA longhaul flight, not just to Asia.

Also connecting in Tokyo will be much easier than China. Do you have a Chinese visa and/or have you done TWOV before?

I feel like some folks have had luck on LAX-HND now that it's 2x daily, although in typical AA fashion on any of these routes you're probably not going to see much C space released until around 24-48 hrs before.

Also unfortunately there can be some decent cash buy up upgrades offered, but if you're waitlisted for a SWU these offers won't show up.

I switched to AS for my ORD-SEA and SEA-MIA routes for this very reason, and at least the former is an easy upgrade route for AA. It seems like with these app offers, there are just no seats left by the time they open the upgrade window at T-28, which seems to be the new window on most domestic routes now with J < 8 availability.

I'm also seeing when I do get upgraded last minute and don't catch the 24 hour cut off to pick a meal the in-plane F meal choices are limited to the cheaper options. This has happened to me 3x now in the last couple of months for ORD-MIA, where all they had loaded were Charcuterie boards, although I could have ordered the short ribs on that route but alas, no upgrade until the gate. On the morning route, they only had the cheese plate, but I could have ordered the omelet if I had pre-ordered. Not sure if anyone else has noticed this too.

Question- how was CK lately? Because I'm seeing zero seats being released lately and am assuming even CKs are ending up in the back now.

This week Wednesday flew IAH-MIA and was upgraded at the gate. In fact, 5 others were too. AA waited until T-5 minutes to upgrade 6 empty F seats. lol

I'm seeing CKs headed towards the back but some CKs get that as a gift from their corporate travel manager (that's also been gifted CK by AA) so not all of them fly paid premium. Coming up this week I've got 3 flights on Saturday and paid for upgrades on all 3. I just checked and the F cabin on all flights is full. I was just offered $272 for a PHX/MIA flight next Thursday, 3 seats left and took the offer. Not the greatest but was between $695 to $1K over the past few weeks. Clearly, we are living in a new world in which AA will aggressively offer paid upgrades until all seats are sold and any unsold will go into the upgrade pot.