My best seat upgrade ever has been all of my flying in 2010 for my daughter and for me. We both became Executive Platinum on American Airlines in October 2009; we flew over 130,000 actual miles. We were both Platinum for about fifteen years.

We have not flown in coach in 2010. We have been upgraded on every AA flight that we have taken this year; our domestic flight upgrades (including Canada)were confirmed between 100 and 1 hour before the flight departed. We used system-wide upgrades or EVIP upgrades for our international flights.

So far in 2010 we have been upgraded on these routes (we usually take a trip each month): DFW to Honolulu, Maui to DFW, DFW to Orange County, Orange County to DFW, DFW to Paris, Paris to DFW, DFW to Maui, Maui to LAX, San Diego to DFW, DFW to Maui, Maui to DFW, DFW to Paris, Paris to DFW, DFW to Anchorage, Anchorage to DFW, DFW to Salt Lake City (this upgrade is the only one that cleared at the gate), Salt Lake City to DFW, DFW to Calgary, Calgary to DFW, DFW to Anchorage, and Anchorage to DFW.

AA has been extremely kind to us over the past twenty years or so with many operational upgrades (op-ups) and voluntary bumps. In the "good old days" in the late 1980s and early 1990s, AA would upgrade us on international and domestic flights if we just asked. We have been op-upped to or from Europe at least twenty times. Our last op-up was in the spring of 2009 when we volunteered for a bump from Paris to DFW; instead we flew business class from Paris.