I recently flew American regular economy from Philadelphia to Boston on an Airbus A321. While American Basic Economy fares prohibit choosing any seat more than 48 hours before departure, regular economy fares charge for any remotely decent seats. Having heard American giving mixed signals about free self-upgrades to Main Cabin Extra after the door closes, I chose the forward-most complementary seat that I could find, hoping to try my luck at a free upgrade to Main Cabin Extra.
I arrived at the gate 34 minutes prior to departure, and Group 1 was already boarding, a symptom of American’s obsession with D0. After boarding with Group 6, I placed my rollaboard in the overhead compartment above the Main Cabin Extra seat I hoped to move to and proceeded to my middle seat in the middle of the economy cabin. Once the gate closed, I asked a flight attendant whether I could move to Main Cabin Extra seat 5B without explicitly mentioning “Main Cabin Extra” anywhere in my question. Without hesitation, she agreed, and I moved to 5B with my personal item.
There was an empty seat next to my originally assigned seat, but in 5B, I was sandwiched between an overweight lady and a jaded businessman. The businessman, who was probably quite unhappy about the last-minute change, situated his elbow on one of the middle seat armrests for the entirety of the flight. Given that the man seemed like a frequent flier, the utter disrespect for flight etiquette was most likely a passive-aggressive way of expressing his displeasure at my self-upgrade.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that I was granted a free upgrade to Main Cabin Extra, especially knowing that some readers of One Mile at a Time had been denied their self-upgrade requests. However, I do think that the short duration (~1.5 hours) and the low load factor of my flight played a significant role in my successful upgrade to Main Cabin Extra.
Readers: Have you tried to upgrade yourself to Main Cabin Extra? If so, how did it go?
On Your Way Now 