I do agree, although my first message was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Major business routes like PHL-BOS probably always have tons of elites.

I am OKC based and avoid DFW when possible, and my regular destination airports are YUM, SFO, SLC, BIL, BZN, PSP, LAX, and DEN. I fly on Tus, Weds, and Sat, and I have about 70% upgrade success. I fly through PHX and LAX for my connections whenever possible. I've never missed an upgrade to BIL, BZN, or YUM, and I have only once missed an upgrade on OKC-LAX. (On that flight, I was #5 on the upgrade list behind a family of four with the same last name and four seats available.)

Avoiding Dallas definitely ameliorates a lot of the upgrade woes. I fly a lot between the mid-atlantic region and LA and have found Ontario to be a promising airport for upgrades. I know never to expect an upgrade from PHL-DFW/CLT but the CLT-ONT is usually pretty light and there are enough frequencies on DFW-ONT to thin the elite ranks (unlike Burbank, which seems to have a 30 person list on any weekday flight).

Not so much elite heavy but leisure travelers taking upgrade offers to get out of hell. Strangely and to my delight MIA/DFW last Saturday (788) cleared at T-48. Very hard route to upgrade on with that a/c.

Anyone have experience with AA 716 CLT-MUC? I'm booked with waitlisted SWU on a WED in early November. Business Class appears to be empty and ExpertFlyer shows J7/R7/D7.

One of the easiest upgrades in the system. This is one of my go-to routes when looking for C space in advance.

Unfortunately though, if there's no C space available now, it's unlikely that any will open up before about 24-48 hrs before the flight, even with a wide open business cabin. Just AA SOP.

I was in a similar situation, requested a SWU LHR to JFK with only one seat taken in F. In spite of this I didn't clear till the day before, nevertheless there were only two of us in F. Needless to say it was an extremely pleasant flight ; - )

512
 

Ord sea

#2 on the list. 1 seat remaining. Chances?? Will they move me up if it’s open when the door closes

More than once, I've been upgraded after I had already taken my MCE seat and only a minute or two before the door closed. I got a notification in the app of a seat change and a new boarding pass with a new seat assignment displayed. After I swam upstream to take my seat, a flight attendant found me and handed me my new paper boarding pass.

T-52 on two segments ONT-DFW-MSP, J7 (12 open on seat map) on flight one, j7 (8 on seat map) on flight 2, upgrades going for $97.. no complimentary upgrade yet, guess they really are trying to sell these upgrades

EDIT: upgraded T-26, waiting for DFW-MSP to clear, still J5
EDIT 2: upgraded at T-24 for DFW-MSP

Anyone else having problems with EF today when checking for U/G on both AA and BA.

What kind of problem? Working fine for me on a few searches this morning. Looking for upgrade space EF only works on AA metal flights, not BA.

Definitely something funny going on as I can't pull up seat maps on EF this morning.

Relatively new to the AA upgrade game. I'm Platinum and looking at seatmaps, my thought is that my competition for the upgrade is those seated in the MCE seats. Sitting at T-72 with 8 open in FC on B738 BOS-MIA, MCE about half full, including both exit rows wide open. Rest of the plane is also lightly loaded from the looks of the seatmap.

Anybody have any thoughts on whether MCE occupancy is my competition for the upgrades? Is this basically a race between my upgrade and the cash upgrade offers?

BOS-MIA on a Thursday is going to be tough, even for Exec Plats.

I do think MCE seat occupancy provides a decent, yet incomplete, picture of your "competition," but you really need to consider those buy-up offers. There may only be 15 elites currently in the back, but that's wholly irrelevant when the people sitting in 23B and 30C get the "upgrade your flight to Miami" email from AA in 3 hours and realize they don't want to be stuck in the back for a three hour flight.

F will dwindle down to zero in no time due to FCM/TOD offers. There is about a 1% chance of maybe 1 high LP EXP getting 1 comp upgrade (if left).