What is your LP total? $250k spend should put you well into CK territory.

As EXP with 300k LPs, I've never been lower than 4 on the list and am usually #1. Upgrades have gotten harder, but I am flabbergasted at your data point

This winter and early spring there has been more SWU space open (to/from Europe) than I remember seeing in at least 10 years. If you can be flexible then it's not too hard to find something. As usual flying midweek is key when trying to grab space in advance.

For example, the very first day I picked in mid April (16th) I see C space on JFK-LHR, JFK-MAD, DFW-LHR amongst others. Get on EF and start playing around

If you all were looking for good options to burn a SWU or cash/copay, last night to London via RDU was a good option. 20 open in Biz class....

My LHR-JFK on 12/29 went out with 5 or 6 empty seats in J.

I will have to look again, as I didn't find much success.

I was looking for PHL-LIS and I found March 11,16, 20, and then nothing after that at all.

I found nothing at all for LIS-PHL

For PHL-ATH I found nothing through May 14, as thats as far as I looked.

For JFK-ATH I found nothing through July.

Well there's a big difference between being flexible and looking for any route to Europe to clear a SWU, and only looking at LIS or ATH.

I've never seen C space open in advance in any route to ATH, so you're wasting your time looking there IMO. These flights only run in the summer and are very popular.

LIS you might find a little in the shoulder and off season, but the later you get into spring not much.

If you have expiring SWU's the key is to just book something now with open C space to lock in the SWU, then you can always change later if/when better options open up.

This. Also, AA runs small 787-8’s on most routes out of PHL, so clearing upgrades is often difficult. Your best chance at getting an advance upgrade confirmed IMO is out of JFK, since they run the 777-200 on non-LHR routes. I’ve had a lot of success in the past with JFK-MAD and JFK-CDG even in the summer. If you go to MAD you could very easily tack on an IB flight to LIS on the same record locator if you book the reservation all at once over the phone.

Also, JFK - XXX is quite often cheaper than PHL - XXX. I am looking at a May trip to Barcelona, and when I first looked, JFL-BCN was almost $400 less than PHL-BCN. The delta has narrowed a bit - it’s down to about $175 last time I looked - but my upgrade chances using SWUs are dramatically better from JFK. Likely going that route…

I've found JFK-BCN to also be a somewhat difficult upgrade, compared to JFK-MAD, which usually has confirmable space in advance. IB still offers hourly service to BCN from MAD, so it's a fairly easy connection (other than navigating the enormity of Barajas airport). Just FYI.

Thanks for the heads up…

Thank you for the tips. If I apply an expiring SWU to a reservation now, what can I change later? Just the routing? I can't change the beginning/ending cities or dates can I?

Is the upgrade waitlist for A the same as C in the sense that if it doesn't clear in advance, it won't until T-27 or so?
The is a R to A upgrade LAX-JFK.

Chance of Upgrade Clearing and Availability (2024 Master Thread)
 

wound up picking the PHX-PHL red eye and got my upgrade notice last night. Flight is tomorrow night. I’m platinum btw. Pretty stoked!

Nice. Congrats. I was wrong about the difficulty.