What are the chances of an upgrade?

Given the abysmal numbers for premium cabin traffic lately, I would think you stand a very good chance.

Obviously no one can give you any guarantees you'll be upgraded. It's simply much to early to give you a definitive answer. It doesn't matter if 14 available Business class seats are available now, what matters is how many are still "open" in the days closer to your departure date, how many people will request upgrades and where you are in the "pecking order". You have to remember that Executive Platinum and Platinum members get priority on upgrades over Gold members. Platinum members can get upgrades as early as 72 hours before departure while the earliest a Gold member can get upgraded is 24 hours before departure. The great unknown is that regardless of a person's elite status level sometimes seats are "held for revenue" and not released for upgrades until the day of departure. You just never really know.

By putting your name on the upgrade list you've done all you can. You'll just have to wait (and hope). The only way you can "ensure an upgrade" is to either purchase the business class seats or use miles now to book the upgrade (which you said you don't have enough).

Sorry if this isn't exactly the answer you wanted but it's reality.

"The only way you can "ensure an upgrade" is to either purchase the business class seats or use miles now to book the upgrade (which you said you don't have enough)."

Does this mean there is some way to use our miles to book the upgrade from economy to business? We have about 200,000 miles between the two of us. I thought I could only use miles to book the initial travel and then REQUEST the upgrade. Is it possible to contact the airline and use the miles now to BOOK the upgrade?

Thanks for your help!

We do this on all of our flights on AA to Frankfurt. We have been successful on all but one flight segment over the past 3 yrs.

Sometimes we have been confirmed as much as 10 days before the flight but the majority of the time we don't find out if the upgrade has gone thru until a day or two prior to the flight.

Right now, it sounds like your chances are pretty good. All you can do is continue monitoring the number of Biz Class seats available and hope for the best.

Well, I went back and reread both of your posts and obviously misunderstood what you were asking.

If you have already used miles to get Economy Class award tickets then you cannot be upgraded to Biz Class with more miles. You can only upgrade with miles if you have PURCHASED a qualifying Economy fare.

With 200k miles, you should have head enough to book at least one way in Biz Class depending on availability.

You might want to contact someone at AA's Advantage program and see if there is anything you can do at this point to use your miles for a Biz Class ticket.

You might also want to go to www.aa.com and review the chart for Award Tickets.

http://www.aa.com/aa/pubcontent/en_US/AAdvantage/partners/airlines/americanAirlines.jsp#travelawards

With AA you can use miles (a) to upgrade purchased coach tickets (see below) or (b) for a straight award - 100K miles per person for an "all partners" business class award to Europe OR a "Oneworld" business class award that requires the use of 2 Oneworld partners besides AA, which for the OP would allow, e.g. ORD (AA) LHR (BA) FCO (IB) MAD (IB) ORD using AA from Chicago to London, British Airways to Rome, then Iberia from Rome to Madrid and Madrid to Chicago, for 90,000 miles each because the Oneworld award based on mileage flown, and that route (or its reverse) is less than 10,000 flown miles. The distance table is here: http://www.aa.com/aa/pubcontent/en_US/AAdvantage/partners/airlines/oneWorld.jsp

The chances are decent there would be award seats available using the Oneworld approach since there are more flights between Chicago, London, Rome and Madrid to choose from.

For the mileage based upgrade, you purchase an eligible coach fare, then spend $350 and 25,000 miles each way per person to upgrade to business class (i.e. $700 and 50,000 miles round trip p.p.) but ONLY on AA equipment. Presumably if the OP is wait-listed for upgrades, the latter course was chosen. With that many seats still open, I suspect the upgrades will clear; however as stated there are no guarantees. They probably won't clear until much closer to fly date.

I thought I could only use miles to book the initial travel and then REQUEST the upgrade. Is it possible to contact the airline and use the miles now to BOOK the upgrade?

This statement confuses me. Have you purchased coach tickets and asked for the upgrade, or have you booked a flight using miles and now want to upgrade? The latter is only possible if you ask to have your (coach) miles reinstated and then obtain a business class award.

If the former, then you can phone AA and ask if any "C" booking class seats (coach > biz upgrades) are open yet, and confirm you're still on the waitlist. They won't tell you where you are on the list you are, however.

But given that you could do your whole trip as awards with the miles you already have, you might also look at the option of paying the cancellation fee for the existing reservation and booking the whole thing as a Oneworld award. You won't get a refund, just a credit against future AA travel, but it would be a bird in the hand and - just IMO - a much better use of your miles than the miles + copay upgrade route.

We've purchased our tickets and asked for an upgrade. I'm calling the airline now...thanks for the input!

Boo...airline said we may have to wait until check in to hear if we're being upgraded