Upgraded
 

My first post on this site, so I apologize if this is the wrong thread to post this question.
My wife and I recently flew to Hawaii and back using our reward miles. As Gold members it would seems we were put on some kind of upgrade list. We did not get an upgrade on either flight and remained in our economy class seats… no problem.
What I found interesting was that on both legs we were seated next to two rows of extra leg room seats that were unoccupied.
When we got home I contacted AA to ask what constitutes an upgrade if we were not put into these extra leg room seats? I was told those seats were held for people that wished to pay the extra for them.
Is it me, or is it that if that is the philosophy you would never get upgraded.
Any insight from anyone?

As an AAdvantage Gold member, you can select a Main Cabin Extra seat when you check in for your flight, if available, at no extra cost; it is not considered to be an upgrade.

To add, if booked in a MCE seat, you also get complimentary cocktails. (In the app, these are the orange seats, not the green seats).

The “upgrade list” is to upgrade to First Class. It is based on your status, and the number of accumulated loyalty points earned over the last 12 months. The more LPs, the higher you will be on the list.

Thanks for the info.

I’ll be sure to check this out for my next flight.

So an upgrade to extra room seats is not on the cards, but to first class is? Seems a bit wacky?

See above...

Not at all. Upgrades are, by definition, to the next class of service, not to MCE seats (which as mentioned by TWA884 you were already entitled to).

All the info is contained here, under the “complimentary upgrades” section.
https://www.aa.com/web/i18n/aadvanta...s-members.html

Today I was:
:

# 3 out of 12 for 1 F seat TPA-CLT on a 331
# 3 out of 8 for 1 F seat CLT-ATL on a CR9.

Dellhi Upgrade chances
 

For those of you who have flown on the JFK - Delhi non-stop flight any personal experiences (positive or otherwise) in getting an upgrade from premium economy to business? Am flying at the end of January, think it's well beyond the peak travel time but how often is business totally full? I am exec plat, already requalified so assume I have a reasonable current mileage and would be using a SWU. Based on this assume I would be well placed on the upgrade request list.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

A SWU should go through for a high LP Exec Plat as long as they are keeping it on the 789. If they downgauge to a 788 a lot harder.

Keep in mind that there is no difference (at all) in upgrading from PE to business as opposed to upgrading from regular economy to business. So unless you really just want to pay the extra for PE (or someone else is paying for it), just grab a good MCE seat for now and hope your upgrade clears.

I just did a roundtrip (booked BOS-JFK-DEL roundtrip for $735/person, 3 passengers -- ended up flying PWM-LGA / JFK-DEL roundtrip after taking advantage of a schedule change).

On the outbound, it looked real bad - every flight was selling out in J and F (down to F0J0 and a full seat map) a few days in advance. But I watched each flight on the app and 1-3 seats were clearing most days with some apparent last-minute change-ups (i.e. passengers switching flights or misconnecting). We got very lucky and, about 30 hours before our outbound flight, a bunch of seats popped open (and it went from J0 to J7), and I cleared along with one of my companions before it went back to J2. My other companion cleared at the gate (and 6 ended up clearing due to some misconnects). That was a Wednesday night a few weeks ago.

For the flight back JFK-DEL, also on a Wednesday, we cleared the SWUs at booking several months in advance. The flight ended up being wide open in all cabins.

I chose seats 12J, 13J, and 13G both ways and it was a good part of the cabin to be in -- very low foot traffic/noise but easy access to the lav behind 15J.

It's a 77W

Pretty sure that the 788 doesn't have the legs for JFK-DEL.

It switches to the 789 on Nov 25,2024

Yikes. Not as bad as a 788 (in terms of % of J seats overall) but still a big cut from the 52 J seats on the 77W.