While domestic upgrades are nice, upgrades on long haul flights are even nicer. Having a flat bed on an overnight transoceanic flight makes all the difference between arriving exhausted and arriving well rested.
Continue reading: American Systemwide Upgrades: How To Earn & Redeem Them, Maximize Value
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I appreciate these pointers, but haven't been lucky. I selected them for a few years, but opted for points instead thereafter (plus the credit card 5K bonus), because many, many SWU's attempts failed; like, it's just not fun to 'die on the waitlist.' Same goes for UA's PlusPoints (similarly unreliable). Best, so far, is Delta's GUCs and RUCs, and jetBlue's Move to Mint, which actually tend to confirm at booking.
I think the 77W is going to have 70 business class seats after the retrofit rather than 60
I think you should mention one important point: confirmable upgrades availability very very often coincides with saver award availability for international flights. So award search tools can point you to where SWU availability can be found. Then comes the question: are all the issues with redeeming SWU worth it when you can just pay the saver award rate vs cash+swu?
They've become pretty useless. The kind of flight you'd want to use them for has gotten harder and harder. I recently burned one on MIA/LAX, day after X Mas and luckily cleared at the gate. One nice recent change is that the cash upgrade offer no longer goes away if you apply a SWU so at least if you see upgrades being sold for a decent price you can grab one and avoid sitting in coach. But then you have an unused SWU that ends up getting applied to something like ORD/ATL or RDU/LGA.
Lucky
have you noticed that you can be higher in status than someone with two SWUs down but AA will only open up one upgrade to clear and bypass you to someone with lower status but with only one SWU down? This has happened to me a few times (I don't have 100% proof) so I wondered if there's an actual policy about moving around status on the list if you have 2 SWU down for the same segment on the same PNR but someone below you only is requesting one upgrade for the one upgrade available.
Not related to this post but related to AA schedule, perhaps below reference is a good topic to cover in your blog.
https://www.reddit.com/r/americanairlines/comments/1pmwwpc/why_no_icn_flights_last_week_of_january/
Sorry. Not meant to make it a reply. But this happens to me all the time when I use this website's mobile interface - too touchy.
Having to wait and worry over 'cleared at the gate' is so freaking lame for any status-earned top-tier upgrade-certificate with any program.
I think the advice is good. I used a SWU from HNL to LHR but booked through ORD instead of DFW.
New to AA EXP and SWUs. Picked them as my 175k LP benefit. Never see any availability, I'm about to cross over 250k LPs and was going to choose SWUs, but I think I'm just going to take the Admirals Club membership.
I'm 1K and Diamond Medallion also--my interest is in confirmable upgrade space with my family in advance on long haul. Ironically it seems the Delta GUCs are the best for that.
These SWU are worthless. You can never plan ahead and find inventory. Once again a hyped benefit which only causes ill feelings for the most loyal customers
They used to be golden but now these things have become worthless to me. American Airlines is a once true love in my life that is slowly making me hate them.
Like others have said they have become useless. I have 2 expiring and found zero availability 8 months out even on flights with 100% open business and first class. I used to be able to find space on Boston to lax- those are gone too.
against my better judgement I took four last year. Two will expire and two were used ORD-ATL RT for my house sitter for an upcoming trip. He's not complaining but what a lousy use of a SWU.