American Airlines Makes Changes To How Upgrades Work

by Gary Leff on June 6, 2023

Starting June 9th American Airlines is making some minor changes to how complimentary upgrades work that most AAdvantage status members are going to like. Upgrades when traveling on an award ticket will now be available to all status members and will come with higher priority than before.

American Airlines AAdvantage members with status receive complimentary upgrades, if available, on U.S. domestic flights as well as flights between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Bermuda and Central America. Each elite is eligible to upgrade a companion for free as well.

Now that all awards for travel entirely on American are fully revenue-based it doesn't make sense to differentiate between how you’re paying for award travel, with cash or with points.

Complimentary upgrades is how most first class seats not being sold for cash are awarded. Before the pandemic 75% of domestic upgrades were complimentary, 20% were confirmed in advance, while 5% were paid day of departure.

These changes all make sense to me, but it does mean that lifetime elites no longer very active in the program are pushed even further down the upgrade list.

So while American's upgrade changes make sense, it underscores further how badly American needs to update its uncompetitive lifetime elite program.

18 Comments