Upgrade on AA flight
 

I recently bought a full fare economy ticket on a domestic AA flight and ended up with a free upgrade to first class. Before buying my ticket, I checked the price for the restricted fare economy ticket, and the price was high, so I checked the full fare economy ticket price and it was the same as the restricted fare price. So I bought the full fare economy ticket. When I got to the seat selection portion of the reservation process, I saw that I had gotten an automatic upgrade to 1st class on both the outgoing and return trips.

Has anybody had this happen lately? Anybody know how I ended up with the automatic upgrade? I'm pretty happy and I'd like to make it happen again :)

I don't know, but when you find out, please let us know!

When I've purchased last minute full fare tickets for work, I've been automatically upgraded to FC.

They are usually very expensive.

Don't know about AA, but on CO, often you can get a guaranteed upgrade to First Class when you book a full-fare Y. You know before paying.

We had full fare seats on America West and were not upgraded even though there were empty seats and we paid $700+ to fly from Las-Denver.

Glad to hear that J_Coreaa - good for you:) Nice to hear positive flying experiences like that.

If the price for full Y was close to that offered for the "restricted" coach seat, chances are the plane was oversold in the back, so the upgrades got handed out to those who had paid the highest Y fares, absent an elite member of the AAvantage program who would get bumped on a high economy or full fare Y ticket automatically.

AA has a fare category called "Y-UP" which is a Y fare booked into "A" seat inventory, i.e., first class. Look at your boarding pass and see if your fare code had Y and UP in it (not necessarily in exact order, could be something like "Y14UPxx".)

Are you an Aadvantage member? Special bonus points for paid Y or FC seats.