American Airlines Hawking Cheap First Class Upgrades Minutes Before Boarding—Skipping Over Its Best Customers

American Airlines keeps pitching cheap first class upgrades to coach passengers minutes before boarding, while its most loyal customers wait for those same seats. Flyers report cash offers lasting until five minutes before boarding, with buyers jumping ahead of passengers waiting to use their status or earned upgrade certificates. American wants your loyalty and credit card spending, but even at the gate, it’s still holding out for another cash sale. American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta and Alaska Airlines pilots all get first class when deadheading to a city to work a flight. Each airline has its own rules for when pilots qualify, but it’s most obvious on American when a pilot clears a first class upgrade at the gate ahead of passengers – even though their pilot policy isn’t as generous as United’s. I argued that upselling once a year coach passengers to first class for tens of dollars is a bigger reason that elites no longer get frequent upgrades. The airlines have decided they’ll take $26 or $40 from that infrequent customer rather than deliver the promised benefit to a $50,000-a year flyer. 25 years ago airlines sold only about 10% of domestic first class seats, with the rest going to upgrades, awards and employees. Two years ago Delta said they’re now selling about 88% of these seats, leaving very little for upgrades. There are some routes and days of the week where upgrades are common – leaving some routes where upgrades are basically nonexistent. American Airlines has been working to catch up on revenue. That’s why they’re leaning into more premium seats and experiences. It’s also why they placed additional restrictions on basic economy fares over the past year, eliminating all mileage-earning and dropping elite benefits like seats and upgrades. They don’t want to lose out on a dollar. However they’ve also emphasized the value of the AAdvantage program and argued that it’s better than peers. Indeed, for years the only reason to stick with American Airlines despite cuts to product, policies and experiences was for AAdvantage. But as they work to squeeze revenue, they’re cutting into AAdvantage benefits. While it’s Delta where I’ve seen $26 upgrades and I’ve never seen American go below $40, they’ve gotten more aggressive in continuing to upsell coach passengers even when customers are already at the gate. Here’s a report of American Airlines still holding back seats and pushing them for sale one hour and eight minutes prior to departure – shortly before boarding begins: They are now selling upgrades with just 28 min until boarding. by u/matt-h989 in americanairlines Flyers report upgrade offers two hours to departure on Philadelphia – Paris; shortly before departure New York LaGuardia – Dallas (the buyer was an Executive Platinum, #3 on the list, so he jumped the two ahead of him); multiple ConciergeKey passengers report missing upgrades this way . There are even multiple reports of passengers buying these last second upgrades only to find seats were no longer actually available (and so they lose their original seat, wind up in a middle, and have to push for a refund – though I’d argue they’re entitled to involuntary downgrade compensation). A passenger flying New York to Delhi jumped on an offer of $640 to upgrade from coach to business class about 60 minutes prior to boarding. They were number three on the upgrade list with just one seat available. He’d been waitlisted for a systemwide upgrade for two months, and that seat went to him as the buyer instead of others ahead of him waiting on an upgrade. Systemwide upgrades truly do get leftover seats. They were always only the seats American couldn’t sell. But the definition of sell has changed. Any amount of money now trumps, and that holds even when passengers are already waiting at the gate now. That’s a far cry from when American started selling first class seats to coach passengers at check-in – “Load Factor-Based Upgrades” – where they’d only do it if they projected clearing every elite customer waiting for a complimentary upgrade. Now Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey, paying with an earned systemwide upgrade, isn’t enough. A Dallas – Miami passenger saw a cash offer until 5 minutes before boardnig. Basically the sale was on until the AgentAssist software program starts taking over gate duties including clearing last-minute upgrades. Selling first class seats at a discount isn’t new. It’s the combination of low low prices, and purchase opportunities that continue up until the last moment, while top elite passengers hold out hope for their upgrade. American doesn’t promise upgrades on any given flight! But they heavily market elite status, and their cobrand Citibank credit card (which they’re driving to generate $10 billion in revenue from) as a key way to earn that status. The number one benefit is upgrades. There’s now a real disconnect at the airlines between the marketing promise and reality, and it’s going to start compromising interest by the airline’s best customers in remaining loyal and spending on their cards. Topics on this page