Coach passengers can sometimes upgrade to business class to Asia on American Airlines for as little as $350. Delta has that beat, offering upgrades on flights from Europe to the West Coast for as little as $299.
Delta makes upgrade offers, and if you don’t take the offer there’s a good chance that the price you’re offered will change. There may be offers right after you book your ticket. The price might drop 30 days prior to departure. It might drop in an offer presented to you during online check-in. Some Delta customers have become used to checking for their upgrade offer once per day, even.
Domestic upgrades are even cheaper. For years United Airlines has been known for selling these cheap. They were ahead of the curve in being willing to take almost any amount for a first class seat before awarding it as a complimentary upgrade on domestic flights. Their $59 upgrades are known as TODs or ‘Tens of Dollars’. The upgrades have even been marketed highlighting the number of people waiting for free upgrades you’d be jumping over. That’s common now with American, too.
Flyers are reporting just how cheap American Airlines is offering to let them buy up to first class after they’ve purchased their coach tickets. Buy a flight, skip paying for first class and you’ll often – but not always! – be offered that first class seat for less than the difference in what it would have cost to pay for it in the first place.
Short flight, but I think this is the lowest upgrade offer I’ve ever seen
byu/kwp302 inamericanairlines
Here are some sample upgrade prices being offered to passengers. The lowest prices tend to be on the shortest flights, often operated by regional jets, and often when cabins are mostly empty. That means there’s the greatest chance of an upgrade – but only if American can’t convince customers to spend more at these low, low prices. There’s an irony, the lower the price the better the chance of upgrade – and the greater the airline’s desperation not to honor upgrades.
- $59 Akron – Charlotte
- $57 Philadelphia – Providence
- $40 Dallas – New Orleans
- “I’ve gotten a $35 before”
- $64 New Orleans – Dallas
- $52 New York LaGuardia – Toronto
- $64 Columbus – Charlotte
- $49 Boston – Washington National
- $42 Miami – Orlando
Twenty years ago front cabins domestically were about full with about 10% paid fares. Delta was first to drive sales of domestic first class up over 70% using a variety of pricing tactics including small dollar upgrades. That’s the biggest reason upgrades have been so hard to come by for elite frequent flyers. Your loyalty isn’t worth $59 to your preferred airline – even if you’re spending $20,000 or more per year with them.
One reasonable strategy is to just lean into discounted first class buy up offers. Pay for coach, even if you want first. Then wait for an upgrade offer. If you don’t get one, cancel the ticket and as long as you didn’t buy a basic economy fare just use the flight credit to buy the first class seat you wanted. But you’ll often wind up sitting up front for much less.
From my wife’s experience AA works best when you already have some status. She (and I if I’m on the same reservation) get it reasonably often–maybe 1/3-1/4 of the time on domestic flights. For foreign, that happens but is quite rare.
If it makes sense to me, I take the offer to buy a seat up front when they make offers like this. Especially on AA. I look at it as way from keeping a deadheading pilot from the seat.
Excellent article. If AA doesn’t want to suffer cannibalization from this self-generated arbitrage, the airline will need to figure out a way to much more meaningfully reward (with miles) the revenue F passengers who are willing to pony up for a sure thing on the first go. Although I somewhat doubt that will happen under the current senior management team.
@LTD,Esq – “Especially on AA. I look at it as way from keeping a deadheading pilot from the seat.”
You would think. But if they need that pilot there, yer out, even paid. They get first.
That’s still a very expensive cocktail. I’ll take the free upgrade, or my free drink in PE.
AUS-DFW, not worth it. CLT-SMF nope.
AA did reward customers with additional miles for upfront cabin purchases, before the new Loyalty Points implementation.
It was an extra “something” for my proactive additional spend and that I did appreciate it. It felt like there was at least some recognition for passengers actively purchasing upfront.
Gone now though. All about straight $$ spend only.
These upgrades are so cheap, because even at those prices they largely aren’t worth it. $54 for Austin to Dallas? Come on. Who needs anything greater than spirit like legroom and service for that. The problem is, that these regional jets are used for some longer flights too, so the first class cabin exists, but few are searching fares in F between Austin and Dallas.
@Alex – sure makes for cheap checked bags!
When would these offers be made? Same Day? Never received one. Fly AA mainly coach awards europe.
Well as a TikTok influencer, I just dress nice, wear a suit and tie, and the gate agents upgrade me to first class every time 🙂
This has been going on for years and I like it when I get a good offer. I’ve even had success getting the lower-priced ones to trigger certain credit card benefits.
I’m surprised that people think these upgrade fares are cheap… These are like 40-50 cent per mile upgrade costs… Just like general Mileage Run rules, don’t talk to me unless it’s around 10 cpm.
For my flight ORD back to MIA on Friday mid morning I was just now offered upgrade for $237. That’s not $40.
I’m exec plat but the upgrades have been sparse lately. I may have to go back to paying $75 +15k miles per leg. That’s what I used to do before status. I assume they still have that.
That’s great, but on in-demand routes, the upgrades costs are crazy. Example, I’m flying DFW – LAS on Sep 7 (coach cost: $940). Upgrade cost is $175 out, $353 back, so for the two of us, $1056. It was $1400 a few weeks ago, so it’s coming down, as it is, I assume, for everyone on my flight, until someone bites. I prefer to fly at convenient times, and without stops, so obviously have to pay for that.
Currently 14 of 16 open seats outbound, 12 on the return. If nobody bites, I’ll probably be position 15 on the upgrade list, with my Exec Plat. Moral of the story is, status is meaningless on mainline daytime flight, they’ll do anything to sell those seats before just giving them away.
On my upcoming flight from FLL to PHL I was able to but an upgrade for 140(280 RT). Certainly worth it.
On my next upcoming flight PHL-PBI I was offered 440 Southbound and 284 North bound. Hard pass!!
FWIW I am EXP.
I fly the JFK-SNA route monthly on AA. If you book a roundtrip J ticket a few months out (which is cheaper than one ways), the added ticket cost to move from Y to J is around $500 each way and I earn about 9000 LPs. If I try to snag a buy up offer, the cost is usually around $400 each way. So I may save $100, but lose the LPs and risk not getting an aisle seat that I want. I can also use trip credits to pay for a J fare, where you have to pay cash for the buy up offer. For me, the juice usually isn’t worth the squeeze if J is priced reasonably.
I once got $70 for AUS-MIA. A no-brainer for a 3 hour flight, much longer than many that you mentioned.
Recently got $250 for JFK-LAX Business… and ended up getting op-up into First lol
It’s become a game of roulette about accepting a purchased upgrade offer vs waiting for a complimentary upgrade.
I read several months ago that AA would soon begin awarding loyalty points on the upgrade fees.
Have there been any updates on the possibility of this happening?
But do you get loyalty points when you buy a 1st class upgrade in this way? I thought AA said they were going to make that possible this year but I haven’t seen any evidence that you earn loyalty points for purchasing an upgrade.
AA lies when they say that for EPs upgrades are processed at the 100-hour mark, when available. The upgrades ARE available–but they’re still being sold at that point. Status has become almost meaningless. I’ve been EP for 12 or 13 years running, and every year before the advent of LPs more than 90% of my flights were upgraded, sometimes as many as 95% in a few years. And now? For the year so far 35%. What a sham.
@DaninMCI repeats the horey old myth about dressing nice to score a free upgrade. And it works every time, no less!
I guess 0.0001% of his/her target audience of TikTok airheads might swallow that guff.
I’m a 3 MM (almost 4 MM) EXP and I finally threw in the towel. I just buy based F on price and schedule. Being in Dallas I usually end up on AA but if there is enough difference in price I will make a connection on DL or UA. For international it is paid business class and strictly on price, even if it involves a connection. I have no loyalty whatsoever to AA anymore. AA might as well abandon the whole Aadvantage program. I’ll spend $20K on airfare this year and the AA program has absolutely no effect on my decision calculus.
Well as a TikTok influencer, I just dress nice, wear a suit and tie, and the gate agents upgrade me to first class every time
This has been going on for years and I like it when I get a good offer. I’ve even had success getting the lower-priced ones to trigger certain credit card benefits.
I don’t believe this. How lovely to be an influencer, but nicely dresses people don’t get upgraded anymore. It’s about points and status.