Notification times for upgrades
 

I am an "infrequent" flyer (about 2 to 4 flights a year) and garner Aadvantage miles and loyalty points mostly by purchases. For this year I achieved executive platinum status and currently have almost 400,000 loyalty points. I almost never purchase economy class tickets and hope for an upgrade. But with EXP status and upgrade notification of 100 hours, I decided to purchase a coach seat (not award ticket) on a PHL to DTW flight. There were two business class seats still open and it was less than 100 hours to go. I figured I would buy the ticket and then, almost instantly, get upgraded due to my status and being inside the 100 hour time period. I mean, if there was another EXP ahead of me, the seats would be gone already, right?

Apparently I am quite ignorant about upgrades for those with AA status. On another thread I saw the following:

"The chance of 2 random EXPs on the same flight having the exact same LPs is statistically impossible". [unless both has 0 LP], in which case you should not expect an upgrade at all. It is difficult enough for EXPs with 250k LPs these days.

So apparently I misunderstood. I am guessing that in the run up to wheels up, AA is trying their darndest to get other already ticketed passengers, of any stripe, to purchase an upgrade to business, or are hoping that someone will come along inside the 100 hour period and just purchase the business class seat outright.

If that is the case, why claim that upgrade notifications may be as early as 100 hours before departure?

I also read of a case here where a passenger purchased a ticket. Then got an upgrade. Then, just before takeoff (boarding or wheels up, not sure which) had the seat taken away because a couple who had requested an upgrade together decided to split and take one upgrade, so they took the upgrade away from the first passenger and kicked him back to economy. (same seat or different, I don't know.)

This brings to mind an incident my father experienced back in the 1980s. He was commuting, weekly, from New York to GRR via Northwest Airlines. One day, while in his business class seat, he was told the seat had been assigned to another passenger and was asked to move. He refused. (This was at least 30 years before the Dr. David Dao United Airlines incident.) Staff came onboard and he was threatened with forced removal by law enforcement officers. Dad stuck to his guns and refused to move. They finally let him keep the seat. After he got home, he wrote a letter to Northwest Airlines and ended up getting some sort of compensation in the way of airline miles. Nowadays, I suspect they would have carried out the threat of forced removal and he would have been painted as the villain and maybe faced Federal charges.

There is nothing wrong or deceitful with claiming the EXP upgrade window opens at 100 hours. AA has never claimed or advertised that you are guaranteed an upgrade at 100 hours out, only that that is when the complimentary upgrade window opens for EXP's.

If the cabin is wide open then yes, your upgrade might clear at T-100, but if there's only 1 seat left for sale in business then no, AA obviously isn't going to give that one away for a free upgrade 4 days out.

I've been upgraded at T-100 many times. Yes, it doesn't happen often nowadays, but it can still happen.

It's not impossible to have upgrades at 100 hours. It just won't happen if American thinks there's a chance that that seat will be sold.

I have an upcoming flight on Sunday for which I've been watching the seat map closely. It's continually had ~9-12 seats open in First. This morning, when I checked at T-96 hours, I saw that one seat in First was taken, and one seat in Main Cabin Extra was freed up. I assume that seat went to an ExP.

Complimentary upgrades have been getting harder and harder to get as the years have gone on and airlines have pivoted heavily toward monetizing upgrades; this isn't just an AA thing. Look at how Delta markets their MCE equivalent as upgrades for Medallions, for example.

Thanks, NYAlanCat and JJeffrey for your insights! As I said, I am not a frequent flyer.

I know Amtrak will also try to monetize upgrades and encourages passengers to bid.

Only flying 2-4x per year and spending enough on an AA CC to get 400,000 LPs is such a poor spending ROI. You’re better off putting that spending to work on a transferable points CC like the Citi Strata, any Amex, Venture X, or Chase Sapphire/Reserve, unless you have a specific need for the redeemable AA miles, and even then they are wayyy better spent on partner intl award travel outside of North America.

It seems my upgrades at the 100 hour window are on routes from non AA hubs to other non AA hubs...
but then again... every time I actually do get a upgrade.. I go buy a lottery ticket...

What is this upgrade you speak of?

For me, complimentary upgrades have become rare the last few years. The few times I got an upgrade, each cleared between T-28 and T-16.

If only my upgrade rate would match my getting random selected by TSA for extra screening rate...lol

I regularly fly a regional route where I get over 90% upgrades on early morning flights as a Plat. However, I have never once received my upgrade before T-24. There could be a total of 15 people on the entire E-175 and they will not release upgrades before T-24. It is nuts.

Just the last fews days, four legs, #1 on the upgrade list for each leg with about 400k rolling.

DFW-MIA, 2 seats of 20 available from 24 hours out, upgraded 5 minutes before boarding, was offered paid upgrade till then.
MIA-SXM, 0 seats of 16 available from a week+ out, no upgrade, never offered a paid upgrade.
SXM-CLT, 2 seats of 20 available at 24 hours out, but sold by 2 hours out, no upgrade, never offered a paid upgrade.
CLT-DFW, 6 seats of 20 available at 24 hours out, upgrade cleared at 24 hours out, was offered paid upgrade until it cleared.

They should absolutely hold off on upgrading as many people as possible as long as possible on E-175 flights. As one who occasionally buys tickets very close to departure, the availability of an A seat in F on an E75 makes a difference as to whether I will buy F or not.

I have no beef with AA upgrading people to F once everyone who might want to buy F has been given a chance to buy F. Upgrading people ahead of time runs the risk of a potential paid F purchaser choosing a different flight or different carrier.

And, again, on an E75 where some F seats are MUCH better than other F seats, this arguably matters even more.

Wells Fargo has a 2% cash back card. Assuming the 2-4 flight per year person has spent 400k to get those LPs, I would argue the $8k would do much more than EXP status. Yes I know you can do fake hotel bookings, etc to get more LPs, but OP is not a frequent traveler so that would not make sense either.

hello. Hopefully this isn’t too far off topic but I couldn’t find another thread and wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to start a new one since my question is related to upgrades. I followed the steps that I found on google and it didn’t work for me. Would someone help me determine if a flight has availability for SWU. I’m flying flight 34 on 1/30/26 from AKL to DFW. Where do I look when booking the flight? Can I see it if I use the app?

Thanks in advance.

This thread may be of use.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...-strategy.html

It's not just the status - I also use the miles, since I pay for my travel out of pocket.
I really have no use for some of the LP perks. I've used the awards for day passes to the lounge or cash vouchers which I can then use to pay for tickets.. I've looked into just using a cash back card - at one time I used them until the bank put a limit on how much cash you could actually get back per year - this was about 30 years ago. Don't know if that still is restricted. At that point I switched to AAdvantage Mastercard. LGA and JFK are a real pain for me to get to, EWR and PHL only slightly less so. ABE is the regional airport near me and AA is about the only airline there with worldwide coverage.

Cash back spent on tickets ends up costing more than using miles, from what I've seen, unless that's changed in the last few years. I use the miles on business and first class flights to Europe or Asia.

That will all come to an end when I retire and no longer use the card to pay for all my business purchases.