6/3 19:00 PHL - PHX. Upgraded at t-4 as a lowly PLAT (via instant status pass as I am traveling a lot now). There were 6 below me and 2 were upgraded at boarding. 25% now for the year (out of only 2 R/Ts. Have 6 more coming between now and end of July.

No dice for me on my MIA-LAX flight a couple of days ago on Monday, 6/3. I was on the 9:35 a.m. flight on the 777-300er. In my 12+ years as an Exec Plat, this was the furthest down on an upgrade list I had ever been. I was #12 of 40 requesting a miles+copay upgrade with approx 300K LPs. YOUCH. The first three on the UG list cleared at the gate. That one stung lol.

Also, the crew on this flight couldn't be bothered to do a second beverage service. When you're on a plane for approx. 6 hours, there should be two beverage services - even if one is just coming around to offer some water. I fly this route fairly regularly and I think this is actually the only time there has been no second bev. service.

Crazy about the upgrade. The call button is there for a reason.

Are you sure your miles+money was processed correctly? That should have put you above all other EXPs, so unless there were 11 CKs on the flight or a significant number of EXPs put in miles+money upgrades, I don’t see how you end up at 12

Yeah, this seems really weird.

but how is one to know if the agent properly requested the upgrade until it’s too late? That’s the problem with AA: IT systems are ancient, and AAgents have to be extremely experienced, it seems, to know how to navigate their idiosyncrasies.

i can think of a number of times when a confirmed Mileage+Copay or SWU was somehow misapplied and had to be reticketed at check in, despite having a confirmed upgrade with selected seats. How is one supposed to know if a mere “requested” upgrade is properly applied?

Here is my frustration as a Platinum Pro vying for upgrades. I book well in advance, and request upgrade at time of booking. My non-status son is travelling on same flight. He is given option at time of booking to request and confirm upgrade for a relatively small dollar amount ($74). He is approved for immediate upgrade well in advance by paying the $74. My reservation does not offer cash option for immediate upgrade due to my status. He is holding confirmed seat in First, while I have to wait until day of flight, hoping for gate upgrade? Very disappointing. Am I missing something here?

Paid upgrade offers like that are offered to everyone regardless of status or not. Being a PLT Pro does not exclude you from offers. But if by "request upgrade" you mean a miles/co-pay or SWU upgrade, then yes, as soon as your request an upgrade using one of those instruments then you will no longer see the buy-up upgrade offers.

As we move closer to the strike of the FA's you will be seeing a diminish in service. I can tell you the FA's are ready to strike, I have many friends who are seasoned FA's at AA, and they have all taken part time jobs because of a strike, and the FA's will strike.

Don't put in an upgrade and you will see the offer.

The auto complimentary upgrade shouldn't stop from getting a cash upgrade offer. All of my flights that I don't book F outright have an offer as soon as they're ticketed. Albeit the offer in the beginning is a joke, like $943 for MIA/DCA. The poster should see an offer but not all offers may be the same. To the poster you need to pull up the reservation and wait for 5-10 seconds before an offer appears.

Originally Posted by FlyFreakquently
Are you sure your miles+money was processed correctly? That should have put you above all other EXPs, so unless there were 11 CKs on the flight or a significant number of EXPs put in miles+money upgrades, I don’t see how you end up at 12

I'm fairly certain it was processed correctly, and I double checked that it said "Miles Upgrade" on the app after I called in. I think what may have happened on this particular flight was a large group booking about a month prior. The seat map went from about 28 open to seats to 12 open seats. Upon boarding, I noticed a big group of British travelers taking their seats in Biz that all seemed to be traveling together for some sort of work event. Then, as we crept up closer to departure, it went down to as little as 1 seat available. I also set up an EF alert for C availability 6 weeks prior and C inventory was never released. Also, as another data point, I was traveling with an EP friend who did not request a Miles+Copay UG and he was #16 of 40 on the list.

The request doesn't, however one segment being upgraded does stop the offers in my experience.

I have IAH-PHL-BOS coming up and PHL-BOS cleared at T100, resulting in all offers vanishing.

The app is uber glitchy as well. You have to manually force reload to make them show up some times.

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. I tend to book well in advance, and used to think the date of the upgrade request was a factor in determining clearance priority. I probably made that up, but seem to remember that it was the case at some point in the long ago past.

Seems like the best strategy is to not request auto upgrade at time of booking to see what the paid upgrade offer shows. The complimentary request can be made much closer to the travel date. In your experience, does the dollar amount of the paid offer readjust as the date of travel nears?

I am a bit annoyed with AA that the paid upgrade option is in play. Sort of at odds with the stated/well marketed benefit of "unlimited auto-requested complimentary upgrades" for status members . Would be interesting to know if they hold a certain amount of upgrades back for that purpose, or if it is purely a revenue play at this point.

EXP with 350K rolling.

Recent trips May/June (seems a lot of T-25 (24 hours 50 minutes or so to be exact) upgrades where as April/May was all T-27.

LAX-PHL 2 of u on same res cleared at T-25
ONT-DFW did not clear (J was sold out) but ended up not taking flight around T-20 (so not sure where on the list I would've been)
DFW-EWR did clear (T-25) but did not take flight as did not take previous flight.

LAX-PHL 2 of us on same res cleared at T-25.

Something I wanted to note on my last LAX-PHL res.

At T-27 there are 4 seats open 1A 1C 5A 5F. At the upgrade time (T-25) 3 people clear. My companion and I and 1 other single. My companion and I are placed in 5F and 5A. and the single is placed in 1C. I get that the upgrades always seem to default to the back for the first person upgraded. (hence me 5F) and generally 9/10 times I'm solo so it hardly matters where I'm assigned but when a companion is on the reservation and 2 seats together are open in J why does the system have to give the 2 single seats to the companion and I and then break up the pair into a single seat for the other single upgraded?

In 2024 there's gotta be a better way to this. Now we got from being together in 8 A/C (a flight where 99.9% shot no one is taking 8B) to being apart from each other. I get it, its a first world problem but now I have to bother the person next to me as to whether they would like a window seat or not. Of course I am not expecting anyone to move it is what it is right and no sweat will be lost, but it would avoid that whole scenario.

This week 3 out of 4:
TPA-DFW-AUS was rerouted due to maintenance issue to TPA-MIA-AUS.
TPA-DFW (would not have cleared), but TPA-MIA cleared at rebooking
DFW-AUS (cleared T-26), rescheduled MIA-AUS was #1 for 1 and cleared at gate.
AUS-MIA (#2 for no seats, nobody cleared)
MIA-TPA (cleared T-100. Departed with many empty seats in F)
EXP ~360K rolling LPs