enviroian

There's no reason to book main if the SWU is available and just book basic like you did I get it but won't your LP earnings be reduced?

CMTinPHL

Well, one reason is an unforeseen issue requires a change or heaven forbid a refund. And yes, less earning.

WannaTheater

I believe they would. I booked a ticket yesterday, and compared the "miles earned" of the BE fare to the MAIN fare, and BE would earn about 1/3 of the LPs/RDMs that the MAIN fare would yield.

enviroian

Truly a YMMV choice. Reduced fare, reduced benefits, increased risk. It's all a balancing act I suppose.

355F1

Yes, but I earn 200k+ LPs on shopping portal/CC spend so I don't really care.

Finished 2023 with 335k LPs with less than 100k earned from flying.

WannaTheater

…. Until you are #2 on the upgrade standby list with only 1 seat left. And wondering… if I only had a few more LPs… would I have gotten that seat 😃

willie--wonka

I haven't been able to find any SWU upgrade availability for my SFO to Europe flights lately, except for a few SFO-LAX or ORD-PHL legs. I have a flight booked earlier this year w/domestic leg upgraded at purchase, but no movement at all on the international flight which is barely 3 weeks out. I haven't been able to find anything significant all the way out through mid-December. Any suggestions? I already have one UA ticket booked for this summer and am looking at others.

JJeffrey

Where exactly in Europe are you talking? Some destinations are relatively easy while some can be next to impossible. Depending on the day of the week and destination it's not unusual at all to not have any C space movement until 24-48 hrs before departure.

I just changed a ticket this morning to depart in about 2 weeks and was able to confirm the SWU upgrade now.

Antarius

This.

I cleared DFW-FRA, MIA-BCN, LHR-DFW in the next week. There is still availability on several routes (in some cases, surprisingly more than recent history) in the next few weeks; LHR-DFW is C7, C7, C1, C7 across the flights in 2 weeks, for example.

willie--wonka

I'm looking, more specifically for SFO-PHL/JFK/MIA, maybe ORD in the summer---CDG. I always fly this route mid-week, usually w/an early morning outbound & a noonish return to avoid traffic on the Peripherique if possible. This year, the Olympics are changing my scheduling,
but I normally do this 3-5 times a year, and look for connecting routes, and lie-flat upgrades so can work the day I arrive. I know that AA no longer uses the lie-flat positioning flights from SFO-PHL/JFK-CDG that used to be my favorites, but I'm having trouble now finding anything on the transatlantic legs. It doesn't seem productive to put so much spend or so many miles on AA, if the new SWU's become unusable for my purposes.

norcalfiend

I don't think it's fair to say the new SWUs are becoming unusable for the reasons you mentioned (the valid complaint I've seen is diminished instant award space) - you're just looking for award / upgrade inventory to a place that will likely be the most in-demand destination in the world given the combination of summer business tourism, the general Paris business-travel, and the Olympics and that too only ~3-5 months in advance. It's no surprise you're not finding anything - while SWU inventory has been cut back and tougher to find, I don't think your expectation is reasonable.

I was upgraded on ORD-CDG last May on a waitlisted SWU that cleared ~5 days before departure but wasn't able to find instant availability - however as many report if you pick the right flight it often will clear a week before departure. Also I'm a little confused on what you mean by AA not using lie-flat positioning flights from SFO-JFK (and then later CDG) - that's a premium transcontinental route that still has a First and Business Class (both with lie-flats)? PHL agreed does not have those options.

SFTNYC

Advance availability for SWUs to Europe in summer is rare, if not non-existent (regardless of day of week). Add in PHL/ORD being operated on 787-8/9 with smaller business cabins and my guess is you won't see anything released until much closer to departure. Every so often you may see some availability on LHR mid-week on 777-300ER-operated flights with the bigger business cabin but that's about it (if you could route SFO-JFK/DFW/MIA-LHR-CDG or something like that). Unfortunately if you want to secure space in advance, the only reasonably good availability I've found is midweek in the off-season, but almost never on 787-operated flights.

chicagoflyer1976

I was able to find plenty of SWU space for travel to Europe in August, but can't find anything for September, except for some LHR>JFK, but later in the day so can't really connect onward.

JJeffrey

CDG has always been one of the toughest Europe routes for SWU use. Even in the winter where LHR, FRA, MAD, MXP etc. will have lots of availability, CDG will be zero. It's just very, very rare to find any C space to CDG in advance.

And since you're looking in the summer then it's especially not surprising that you haven't found anything.

As noted above, if you're willing to add an extra connection via LHR, or just fly to other destinations then take a seprate ticket or train to Paris, then that will increase your odds tenfold.

If the only reason you are spending on AA cards is to get SWU's, and the only reason you're getting SWU's is to use them to Paris on AA metal, then yea, I would probably reevaluate your strategy there.

willie--wonka

Thanks for all the replies, but I won't take any LHR flights since catching Covid last Sept on a CDG-LHR flight, where the bus to the plane out on the field at CDG wasn't there and all Group 1 spent 30 minutes crammed in a warm, humid, unventilated stairwell. I was the only person wearing a mask(unfortunately a surgical mask & not a N95). There were no rebooking emails, texts, or anything else at LHR. BA was only giving out hotel/shuttle/food vouchers. Since I couldn't lose the extra day going back, I finally found someone to write me a LHR-Vancouver/SFO ticket.
I did get home almost 8 hours late, and AA did finally refund me for my business to economy downgrade, but BA has refused to pay the EC 261 refund. Alaska got my bags to me 7-10 days later. I have been flying sfo-phl or jfk-cdg consistently at the same time of year for almost 17 years now and did the same routings for more than 10 years previously as a United 1K. Since I usually travel w/serious luggage for many reasons, adding too many extra stops is often too risky for me to do so. And I do know that August is always easier, since most of France shuts down for the entire month. This yea will be different, since the Olympics are changing many things, for flyers & French residents. Pre-Covid I always flew more than 100,000 miles from SFO to CDG every year. Since I'm a UA million miler, I'm thinking about a status match back to UA this year. I would just like to finish out this year closer to milliion miler on AA.