ExPlat with about 250K LP

10/14/25

MEX-DFW
737-800
#1 out of 12 for 1 seat and cleared 40 minutes before the flight. Most, if not all, of the other seats were paid based on monitoring the flight leading up to the departure date. AA was peddling the last available F seat for $221 right up until T-24. On my DFW-SFO connecting flight, I bit on the $140 upgrade offer.


10/23/25

SFO-LAX
E175
Cleared at T24. There were 9 on the list for zero seats leading up to boarding.

LAX-OKC
CR7
#1 out of 14 for one seat, and I cleared 45 minutes before the flight. Most, if not all, of the other seats were paid based on monitoring the flight leading up to the departure date. AA was peddling the last available F seat for $191 right up until T-24.

Four out of my last four flights in F, one a paid upgrade and the other three complimentary.

CK with ~600k LP

aruba to clt on 10/23 - 30 on list, two cleared including me in spot 1

clt to DFW on 10/23 - 62 on list, only one cleared and I was no 3 - I suspect that they were pilots as there was one other ck on the flight and they were already in first.

Yep, on trunk routes there's often at least one pilot deadheading.

I love the way AA shows their appreciation to CK members! CK sits in coach, and Delores Johnson, going to visit her grandchildren, who flies twice a year on whoever is cheapest, paid a $156 upgrade fee to sit in F.

Are odds of upgrade increased if you're on a multi-leg journey and the first 2 legs are in J and F (last leg in economy)? Wasn't sure if it really comes down to primarily status (this is also an award ticket, and I'm only Gold at the moment)

No, the fact that you may be in paid business on other segments of an itinerary has no bearing on your upgrade waitlist position for any flights you're in economy. As always the list is sorted by status then rolling 12-mo. LP within each status tier.

ExPlat with about 250K LP

11/1/25

OKC-DFW 737-MAX8

Cleared at T26 despite several seats being opened up until that point. At boarding, there was one seat left for two on the list. There was only one poor elite member in coach on this flight. In my experience, this is the type of flight that tended to clear earlier. However, they waited until the day before to clear me. the upgrade offer was $291 on the app right up until 24 hours before the flight. This seems kind of high considering how short the flight was and how many seats were still available.

DFW-GJT E175

Cleared at T24. there were several seats available leading up to the departure, and again this was a situation where I generally got upgraded earlier in the past. They were offering upgrades for $166 right up until the day before the flight, but they didn't seem to get many takers. At boarding, there was nobody on the upgrade list with one seat remaining. That remaining seat went to a uniformed flight attendant who was the only person on the standby list. That was probably a nice treat for the flight attendant, because I don't think they get to do that very much anymore.

11/7/25 AA6381 SFO-LAX: 2 and 3 out of 13 on the list for 0 seats.

11/7/25 AA3011 LAX-PHL: 4 and 5 on the list out of 22, with 6 clearing at the gate.

11/11/25: AA1826 PHL-SFO: 2 on the list out of 18 for 0 all day, and then 3 seats opened up at boarding.

PLT with rolling ~100K LP

11/10: PIT to ORD, 4 out of 17, no seats available
11/10: ORD to BNA, 11 out of 25, 1 cleared at gate (ORD was a mess on this travel day, was happy to just leave on-time)

Both legs were offering upgrades as low as $54 up to 72 hours out.

I travel primarily through PHX, LAX, and DFW in that order of prevalence. I do fly through ORD a few times per year and the cheapest upgrade offers I see are always the short flights out of ORD. On my upcoming OKC-ORD-MEM flight in JAN, AA is offering $74 and $52 respectively. I almost never see anything that cheap going through DFW and rarely that cheap going through PHX.

PLT with ~75k rolling LP. Myself plus companion cleared to F about T-12h for this mornings ORD-MCO.

Several months ago, I requested an SWU upgrade from J to F from JFK to LAX. It cleared a few days prior to my flight earlier this week. I didn't receive any email or other notification; I just saw a new seat assignment when I checked my reservation before flying on QR back to the US.

This is probably an anomaly but today on AA5 DFW-HNL there was a last minute equipment swap from 772 to 77W. There were 13 people on the list with no seats available but then everyone got upgraded.

I was already in J but I got to sit in the first class cabin. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again.

TPA-MIA today. #12/35 for 1 seat.
~270K rolling LPs. This is getting tough!

Have I successfully jumped in upgrade priority?

I booked my EXP CEO and myself on the same PNR since I didn't have time to fool around with AA's absurd two factor authentication and just wanted to get the darn tickets booked so I could get on with my Friday night. Will I now get upgraded based on his EXP priority rather than my PLT priority?

What's funny is that I've taken many, many flights over the years where I've flown F while boss is back in steerage. Whether due to me having higher status on separate PNRs or me just buying first. I suspect my CEO has no idea what a Loyalty Point is. He only hit EXP because of the recent change that retroactively awarded LT EXP based on miles accrued years and years ago.