EP with 400k LP.

4th on the list from CLT-LGA last week.

8th on the list from LGA-CLT today.

No seats available on either. The $97 upgrades on this route are doing the trick for AA.

My percentage dropped from 70% last year to below 50% so far this year.

JFK - ATH for 5/12 at some point ~7 days prior to the flight as I received no notification but saw my upgrade went through on the app since checking last night.

Flight had been J5 the past few days after going down from J6 last week. LP ~300k

5/5 afternoon & evening EXP barely 200k

DSM-PHX A319 - 6/20 with 1 available, saw it cleared about an hour before boarding so stopped paying attention. Boarding with lowly Group 1 (after FC, lol) and the scanner gave an extra beep and spit out a new boarding pass. GA told me I was upgraded, everyone ahead of me were in pairs and didn't want to split. Not sure how that's possible with 5 ahead of me, must have been one person seated in back with a companion on a different PNR and thus not on the list. No complaints from me except boarding after the rest of FC in the bulkhead row, but fortunately there was space in the front bins for me.

PHX-FAT CR7 - Upgraded at T100. Guy in front of me in the boarding line looked confused when the GA called "boarding first class", looked around and walked up to the scanner only to get buzzed out. Clearly hadn't heard about the new boarding groups, so he also had to slum it in Group 1 as I had earlier. Then right before the door closed he got a battlefield upgrade and moved to the front. No bin space for him though...

Better upgrade chance to LAX from CLT or PHL?
 

I'm flying from the East Coast to LAX at the end of July. As an EXP, which route do you think I have a better chance of an upgrade clearing on? CLT-LAX or PHL-LAX? Both have 10 empty seats in first class right now. Thanks!

This far out there's virtually no difference, I'd just take whatever schedule is quickest or otherwise works the best.

And here I thought I was the only one.

400k+ LPs....and I just finished #4 for 0 seats on a Tuesday morning PHX-LAS flight.

So many empty seats 2 weeks ago....

I think complimentary upgrades will slowly die out unless you're a CK.

What did the buy up offers look like? I have to imagine they were similar to the LGA-CLT $97, which isn’t a bad price to lock in at if you’re a non-elite already stuck paying for a seat, bags etc.

$117-177. No way am I paying that for a 1hr flight. :)

Thanks! I assumed that PHL might have more originating elites, and that CLT might be better due to what I assumed might be a higher proportion of connecting passengers without elite status.

MIA-MSY - upgraded at T-26 hours and was then able to do a confirmed change to an earlier flight which booked directly into F. Flight left with one open in F.

MSY-DCA - no upgrade on AA's favorite hate machine - the A-319. #4 out of about 15 on the list. Nobody cleared.

DCA-IND - upgraded at T-25 hours. Flight was booked 8/12 ahead of time. Must be the grand prix in INDY doing that.

Why is that aircraft hated? I flew DCA/MSY/DCA last week. EX DCA was on an A319. It was fine to me. Return flight was on the CRJ-700. I was in first both legs, but gosh, that was a miserable flight for people in the back on the MSY/DCA leg.

8 first class seats. worst ratio of first to coach of any aircraft on domestic routes.

Ah IC. Well I paid since I paid for the upgrades to first, wasn't much of a factor for me. But now that you mention it, I paid <$150 for the upgrade. Perhaps if there were more seats the upgrade offer may have been <$100. Who knows, right....I am so glad I did the upgrade to first ex MSY. Those CRJ-700s Should not be on any route >1 hour.

****Edited to add***
Ohhh, perhaps the small size of FC is why an upcoming trip DCA/ORD/DCA on one of these A319 has upgrades starting at $446 O/W. Supply and demand I suppose...

3 FC seats were available LTO>PHX on Wednesday for a Thursday flight. 2 seats went to a passenger and her husband who were Platinum by way of meeting the Southwest Airline status challenge(yes, I personally know these passengers). The upgrades came prior to AA publishing the upgrade list for the flight. We are Platinum-Pro and were 2,3 on the list when the seat inventory was listed at 0. It was a short flight so no big deal but I am wondering if AA is giving these challenge passengers a taste of upgrades as an incentive to keep booking AA flights.

As in they were ordered higher on the list? I’m assuming that they were upgraded prior to the list being published right?

Perhaps it was a situation where they were on separate PNRs whereas you had two passengers on a single PNR. If that was the case, then you would get skipped over to the extent only one seat is released at a time.