nineworldseries

I mean, I'm sure everyone is already aware of this strategy, but I'm quite pleased with myself, so I'll share my story of buying two F upgrades for $194 on a transcon flight this weekend CMH-PDX.

I was originally booked this Saturday on CMH-CLT-PDX. First has been sold out CLT-PDX for weeks. No upgrade CMH-CLT at my 72 hour opening. Lord, I don't want to go to Charlotte, either. I've never been there, but I read the horror stories and have just always avoided it. Really not looking forward to a 2200 mile segment in PE while I watch F eat sundaes in the next row after I fought for scraps in the CLT club.

Email comes this morning begging pax to change the flight. YES! Click on the link, and no earlier flight options for 7/2, just 7/3 and 7/4. So I just checked to see how much it would be to straight rebook, which normally I wouldn't do only 2 days out.

Original ticket was $176, new flight CMH-DFW-PDX was $194 more ($320 total). 7 open F seats on the first leg and 8 on the second one.

The calculus seemed hard to ignore. $194 for 1746 more loyalty points, avoiding Charlotte, and arriving in PDX 2 hours earlier. Almost instant upgrades to F after the ticket confirmed, both ways, just icing on the cake. Holy Jeez, I LOVE American Platinum Pro. Looking forward to charcuterie and short rib instead of misery and CLT cheese cubes on Saturday!

Herb687

Am I missing something? What's the strategy here?

VegasGambler

I don't get it either. First, you're allowed to rebook without the email. Second, once I got the email, I would have at least called to see if they would have let me change itineraries without paying the fare difference. If you have a preferred routing, and it's not showing, it's always worth asking about.

More importantly, if the new itinerary is preferable, why not book it originally (almost certainly for cheaper than the price paid 2 days out)

EXP100

I guess the "strategy" is to see if there are alternatives to your original flight to better have an upgrade chance. Yes maybe, but most of the time you wouldn't get the pricing that the OP got. In this sense he was just lucky.

nineworldseries

Yeah, I usually just assume that the app buy ups are the best deal for snagging F apart from upgrades, and I won't take the time to reprice 48 hrs. out, but now I'll be watching like a hawk.

So i guess my new "strategy" is buy the cheapest acceptable flight usually 11 months out, wait until T-72, if I don't get upgraded, search for open F inventory and refare if acceptably priced, then see at confirmation or T-48, then rinse repeat until hopefully I'm confirmed in F. Yeah, probably won't work all the time, but it might work again.

nineworldseries

If I recall, the CLT routing was like $117 and the DFW routing was much more, probably not far off of the $320 I ended up paying 2 days out. CLT routings are always cheaper from CMH. Wonder why.

nineworldseries

Double post

ijgordon

Well 11 months out is never going to be the cheapest flight, so you’ll probably always find a better price at some point.
But that aside, I’d never assume there will be a better option, so certainly plan to take your booked flight. And these days a half-empty FC cabin can disappear if another flight is cancelled and they re-accommodate the paid F pax and then all the EXPs go ahead of you on the standby list. (I can’t recall if there’s a way to confirm availability F upgrade space within the window since AA stopped publishing R inventory on ExpertFlyer.

Net, sure, always keep an eye out for “better” flight options, sometimes there will be and sometimes there won’t be. But that’s a very loose “strategy.”

VegasGambler

Well, OP's fare did double in price. If you have flexibility, a better strategy would be to look at loads at booking time, and monitor them as the travel date approaches, to avoid the large price hike from changing so close to departure.

NYC Flyer

TL,DR: paid $370 for CMH-PDX o/w flt and got upgraded as PlatPro.

VegasGambler

Yes but not all at once.

$370 is way too much but 2 easy installments of $185 is a great deal!