Over the past 6 months or so I've had some hilarious experiences with inventory loading figures in correlation with the actual upgrade waitlisting itself.

I've had an upgrade back in Dec, from Y-J. Loadings were showing zeroed out availability in J up to a month before the departure date. But in the end, I did get the upgrade, much to my surprise and joy.

Then a second upgrade in late Feb, on the same flight, loadings were still J9C9D9I6 or more or less in that range up until a little less than a month before the flight. Then it started to drop as the last weeks go by, it started to go down to J5 with constant rollercoasterings around this number in between, which stayed at the latter up till within 48 hours of departure. In the end, the upgrade didn't go through (Asked at checkin and they said J was overbooked). Which kinda came to me as a bit of a shock as the loadings for this flight weren't particularly bad initially and I've had an upgrade with way worst inventories. Bet I just didn't get a "good" agent on the AM hotline this time

A slight factor, which I'm not sure if it played a part in deciding the upgrade for both cases or not was that in December, I dragged the deadline of the ticket until 40 hours before flight departure, only to log onto MMB and see the redemption confirmed about 45 minutes after the ticketing deadline (despite dropping in a call less than an hour before and was told that there still isn't any availability and I shall expect the waitlist to be cancelled shortly). In Feb 60 hours was the maximum I could drag it up to, even though the waitlist was only removed from MMB another 12 hours later. Perhaps the operator back in Dec saw that I was the only one still hanging in there in the waitlist (I can't even count how many times the deadline got extended and other people's would've probably long been expired already) and decided to jump on the gun to release the award for me, especially since the last of the blocked seats have been released and we're less than 48 hours before departure.

Wonder if the same thing would've happened if I pushed for another 24hr extension back in Feb. Perhaps the case in Dec was so extraordinary that it shouldn't even be a datapoint (especially since it was peak season and I'm an AM) and that upgrade redemptions for AM's are after all still close to impossible.

The thing is, those inventory loadings isn't really worth it to sweat over too hard on. It's only part of an indicator to your chances of an upgrade, the rest depends on luck and whether the agent at the call center would be sympathetic enough to give it to you.

Any similar experiences with upgrades you are welcomed to share.

PS: Another ball coming in, this time in June. 7/40 J seats filled so far, wish me luck