Stripe

Both of my recent international requests cleared. JFK-FCO and LHR-JFK earlier this month, and there were two of us traveling. But both cleared 2 days before departure, which was a bit nerve-wracking. From my observation, there are many fewer seats available for advance upgrade at time of booking. That itself would be a minor problem, if the upgrades eventually came. But it sounds like more folks are missing their upgrades completely. In that case, AA must be selling more J (good for them) or there are more SWUs chasing fewer seats (probably true).

UA-NYC

(raises hand)

But hey - in addition to hopefully getting them on my cheapo CDG trip this week, I've been impressed enough by AA to drop $10K on two upcoming C tickets (immediately upgraded to F on all 3 777 legs).

Pedro M

My upgrade request for my wife and me for tomorrow's ORD-FCO flight just cleared this afternoon. However, it's better than my last int'l flight where the upgrade cleared at the gate, right before boarding.

pssteve

At the gate seems to becoming the norm, 2-4 days early the best you can hope for and at time of booking the rarest.

anabolism

I try to use ExpertFlyer to find flights with upgrade space before booking.

Thanks for the update, I didn't know that.

Luckily, my local AC is happy to take requests for help via fax or email, so I could fall back on that if need be.

Good for you! Which route, if I may ask? (Personally, I'm a big fan of upgrading C->F between LHR and LAX.)

sdsearch

How successful have you been with that of late? Booking how far in advance and to what destinations?

When I was looking for a flight (to almost anywhere in Europe that AA flies) for September back in June/July, I couldn't find upgrade space to anywhere in Europe before booking. (I did note that there was upgrade space available to Japan, but I didn't want to get there this time.)

So while that is my goal too, what am I supposed to do, stop traveling because AA has severly cut back on upgrade space being issued well in advance?

I was able to find upgrade space in advance on a trip to GIG, return from EZE, in fall of 2011, but that was only on the daytime return from EZE, which ended up getting cancelled after I'd booked, fortunately they took that upgrade I'd secured in advance and rebooked me on a flight that had originally not had upgrade space in advance. But that was the last time I was able to get upgrade space at the time of booking.

sdsearch

Actually, that's J to F on AA. C is the upgrade inventory, and you can't double upgrade (and C to F would be a double upgrade, since if you have C that means you've already upgraded to Business from Coach).

(I do realize that what AA calls J some other airlines do call C.)

paulmcgrath

I've just applied an EVIP to an upcoming trip I have. It's going to be my last AA flight of the year so I've asked for the domestic segments to be upgraded regardless of the TATL.

The agent had some difficulty applying the upgrade and put me on hold. She came back (15 mins later!) and said that it was because of a 'married segment'. When I look at the reservation now the EVIP has upgraded 3 segments (domestic) and americanairlines.ie and the Agent both say that the TATL is still waitlisted.

Has anyone had similar experiences? I'm a little uncomfortable given that I've never come across 'married segments' before and don't want to miss out on the TATL upgrade.

Stripy

I'm not sure that the difficulty people are having using SWUs is down to the increased number of SWUs in the system. I've been watching an number of routes I know quite well on EF (I have all 30 alerts looking for C inventory) and there has definitely been less availability than I remember in the past. LAX-LHR (136/137) has seemed very short of C inventory compared to last year. Yes, it could be that someone's grabbing the inventory before EF performs its scheduled searches but I doubt it. I think AA is just loading less C inventory, presumably because they doing a better job of selling premium tickets (or at least believe they have a better chance of selling them than in the past). The new planes may have something to do with this...perhaps they think that the new premium cabins will sell more premium seats?

jfk747

I flew 55k ended up getting 16 total.

Stripe

An eVIP/SWU can upgrade a maximum of three segments. If you used one to upgrade three domestic segments on a trip then you will not be able to use it to upgrade a fourth TATL segment.

I had them pull SWUs to upgrade the domestic segments to/from Europe on a trip earlier this month, before the TATL segments were upgraded. No problem getting the rest upgraded when the seats became available.

But the new planes and the new seats aren't here yet.

Stripy

I'm looking at C availability all the way into next year...by which time the new planes will be in service.

paulmcgrath

Thanks Stripe but I'm aware of the process. It's just strange that the upgrade is still showing as waitlisted on the TATL and cleared on the 3 domestic segments. Another AA agent has confirmed this is the case too. Do I ask for it to be removed from the last domestic segment to ensure it clears?

smashr

Any recommendations for TATL routes which historically have confirmable C space in advance? Looking at a potential end of year MR, and would prefer not to sweat out the upgrade(s).

Thanks!

Ross0

NRT and SCL generally have decent C space.