I am a AAEXP. Have miles that I decided to try to use for upgrades. Am flying HNL-IAD or DCA in July, then to LGA a few days later, then LGA-HNL a few days after that. Trying to upgrade to business in lie flat seats. Now you need an itinerary with a confirmation code and you need to call, but I called with the itinerary on hold and the person at AA told me that they price upgrades per leg. I was told that the upgrade for HNL-DFW from main cabin to business would be 150,000 miles. On the return, DFW-HNL would be 165,000. This is just for the upgrade! Any help for strategies to lower this outrageous mile cost would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, unfortunately this is now the only way to upgrade with miles on AA flights. Upgrades are priced dynamically, segment by segment, and the pricing can change frequently from day to day.

The only way to check the upgrade price is after you book the ticket, just pull up your reservation at aa.com or in the AA app, you will see the upgrade offer.

The usefulness of upgrading with miles on AA flights has largely gone away as the pricing is now completely out of whack and outrageously high (your flights are a prime example). See below for lots of discussion on this devaluation:

American Airlines 2025 Overhaul: Upgrade with Miles

Thanks so much. If I can't upgrade with miles I am going for a different itinerary, so I can't check back with itinerary with lie down business. The planes with the lie down seats from HNL don't have exit row seats, so I book an itinerary where we can book exit row seats, at least.
Any ideas on what I can use my miles for now? Checked with hotels in NYC and it was even more outrageous (450,000 for four days at the Westin)
I am hampered with using miles for flights that originate in HNL so am thinking about paying for flights to LAX or SFO and then using miles for TATL. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

With all respect, if you have been hoarding AA miles hoping for a big score, then you have made a bad bet. AA has shown that they will continue to devalue miles (along with status benefits) in favor of $$$.
Good luck.

FYI I have used my miles for business class tickets to Italy, other flights, and for other uses, I just have a lot right now I want to use.

I fly to Europe every year. In the past I have used miles to upgrade, but that has become cumbersome. "C" bucket seats sell out shortly after the flight is loaded. The last time I upgraded with miles was in 2018. I got my tickets in January for an October flight, then all kinds of chaos happened in my personal and business life that made me regret locking into tickets so far in advance. I then changed strategies.

Now I just pay for BC a few months ahead of travel when my schedule is more stable and predictable.

What do I do with my miles? Give them to deserving good friends. All tickets are given freely to long-term genuine friends with no compensation other than intangible good feelings from helping someone who needed to travel and could not otherwise afford to buy a ticket. (Eg: College student with no family resources going to a job interview.) (He got the job.) Coach tickets are fairly easy to get with miles, even at very short term.

Understand that mileage redemptions are dynamic and can change by the day, up or down. If you want the lie flat, you're destined for the popular HNL-DFW routing. If you end up redeeming for the trip outright with miles, keep checking redemption rates on your flights because if they drop you can call and get the mileage difference refunded.

As an EXP did you get any SWU certificates? If so then you can search routings with the inventory available to upgrade the full one way routing (versus mileage upgrades which are for one segment at at time).

I recently purchased (with money) (to fly in a couple of months) BCN-PHL in PE, returning PHL-BCN in business, AA tickets, bought on AA (Europe/Amadeus) website, all on AA metal.
I don't see any place/option to upgrade, not with miles, not with money, not bidding; not in the app, not on the website. Not on the US locale of the AA website, not on the .ES locale. Not in Change Your Trip ("this trip cannot be changed online. call to change your trip"), not on the seat map, ...
Are some AA fares NOT upgradeable? Or is my advance, largely-discounted fare something that AA isn't interested in letting me offer to upgrade .. yet?
How does paying to upgrade already purchased-and-ticketed itineraries work these days?
thanks,

You have to call and give them the confirmation code. Then they ask which segments you want to upgrade and they give you the mileage requirements for the segment you want to upgrade. It's ridiculously cumbersome, not to mention really expensive miles-wise.

You can do this in the app or on the web by opening your itinerary. If upgrades are available, it will show.

IME the upgrade offers are still hit or miss for itineraries that originate outside the US. At least half of my paid flights on AA originate in Europe or Asia, sometimes the offers are there and sometimes they're not.

So nothing to do with your fare being ineligible or too cheap or anything like that, just AA IT being AA IT.

not stating anything everyone else already doesnt know.. but ever since AA rid the 25K plus $$ for OW international upgrade.. I have either
suffered in Y... or purchased J .. the upgrade offers have been in many cases more than using the actual miles to buy an award ticket in that class

AA has much better domestic F pricing with miles than their competitors.

They also offer a surprising amount of reasonable J flights to/from Europe from the East Coast on AA metal. Truly, you need to check every day since pricing changes dramatically, but I haven't had trouble getting 65K or lower awards each of the last few summers.

Family of 4 i got us all into J LHR-JFK in June, 2 SWUs and 2 25k miles + $350 awards. Right before the door slammed shut on the latter. Since then I got myself into J JFK-LHR for 60k miles- which is not so dissimilar to 25k + $350. But I had to bite my nails until 2-3 days before departure for the "price" to come down from ~180k miles. Agree this was a major F-U from AA- and now my one AA cc resides in the sock drawer (Exec MC for AC access.)

Or the seasonal HNL-ORD.