ExpertFlyer Now Makes It Easier To Search for Systemwide Upgrade Space

Updated: March 23, 2026, 3:18pm CDT

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Table of Contents

Tiers
The Old Way
New Search Capability
Final Thoughts

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ExpertFlyer is every frequent flyer’s best friend. The subscription service provides access to data that helps travelers stay one step ahead of airlines through fare and award availability searches, seat alerts, delay codes, and more.

If you’re an American Airlines frequent flyer, ExpertFlyer will be especially useful for you, as the service offers more features for American flyers than Delta, United, or Alaska. And now, as part of a recent refresh of its product, ExpertFlyer has introduced a new, top-tier subscription that includes detailed systemwide upgrade searches and alerts, making it far easier for American flyers to search for and book when available.

Tiers

To access the new search functions for systemwide upgrades on American Airlines, you need the elite tier, which costs $19.99 a month. ExpertFlyer previously offered only a $10.99 premium plan, which is still available, but has now added the higher plan, which includes expanded systemwide upgrade searches and a constantly updated list of tracked routes.

The Old Way

To help you understand how important ExpertFlyer’s changes are, let’s look at how you previously had to look at systemwide upgrade availability.

Prior to this rollout, you had to search route by route, day by day, and if you wanted to set an alert for a particular route, you could only set it a single flight at a time. Systemwide upgrades are notoriously hard to use to begin with, so many travelers needed to be flexible with both the dates they want to fly and the routing.

For example, let’s say I wanted to go to Barcelona (BCN) in early October. In the old system, I had to search route by route, such as New York (JFK) to Barcelona and Philadelphia (PHL) to Barcelona, and als by the specific dates for those flights. If there was no upgrade availability, and I was OK flying anywhere in Europe at that time, I could repeat the same process for other routes, such as those to London (LHR), Amsterdam (AMS), Frankfurt (FRA), or Madrid (MAD), to name a few.

This was an extremely cumbersome process, and you needed quite a bit of knowledge about where American flies in Europe and which cities it leaves from in the U.S., something many flyers may not know.

Hot Tip:

ExpertFlyer still allows you to search flight by flight if you want to, so the older functionality is still there and useful in many circumstances.

New Search Capability

ExpertFlyer’s new search functionality for AA at the elite tier allows you to search across a wide range of dates, locations, and availability, making it much easier to find upgrade space.

You can now search from and to these locations:

Anywhere
Asia
Europe
Middle East
North America
Oceania
South America

You can also search by a specific airport name, but ExpertFlyer has only loaded long-haul destination cities (such as Paris (CDG), Santiago (SCL), or Sydney (SYD)), so you won’t find any small cities in the U.S., like Tulsa (TUL), New Orleans (MSY), or Orlando (MCO).

To search, head to the tab labeled “SWU Search” on the left side of the screen once you’re logged in.

In the search parameters, enter where you’re traveling from and to. Using the example above, let’s say I wanted to get to Barcelona but there were no upgrades available directly to Barcelona. In the from box, I can put “North America,” and in the to box I can put “Europe,” and the system will then show me every upgrade available from North America to Europe, regardless of the destination. If Paris is available, it will show me that. If Frankfurt is available, it will show me that, too.

The idea is that you may value a flight across the ocean in business class over the specific route, and when you land, you can just take a train or short flight to your actual final destination.

ExpertFlyer SWU Initial Search Screen — The search box. Image Credit: ExpertFlyer

For your dates, you have the option of searching in the next 60 days, 90 days, 120 days or 330 days. If I didn’t want to fly anywhere in Europe but only to Barcelona, regardless of the date, I could set it from North America to Barcelona, and it would show me any available flight to Barcelona (only) within whatever date range I select.

Keep in mind thatjust because you input a wide date range doesn’t mean that there will be actual upgrade space available on any flight. For example, on a search from North America to Oceania (which, in Americans’ case, would be flights to Sydney, Brisbane (BNE), or Auckland (AKL)), even for the next year, there are no flights with upgrade space available. Routes like these may not actually have any upgrade availability, so while you’re searching for many dates, it may simply not be possible to find a seat to upgrade to.

Hot Tip:

The wider geographic range you search for availability, the more flexible you need to be with your travel plans. Europe, for example, is a large area, and London is many hours away from Athens (ATH). Keep this in mind when searching large regions.

If I were flexible and didn’t care where I wanted to go, I could set the destination to “Anywhere,” and it would show me all flights with upgrade space, whether that’s in Europe, South America, Oceania, or anywhere in between. ExpertFlyer also includes long-haul flights to Hawaii (HNL, OGG, KOA, LIH) in its searches, which would be any wide-body flight leaving either Chicago (ORD) or Dallas (DTW) to the Hawaiian islands.

ExpertFlyer List of Flights with SWU — An example results list. Image Credit: ExpertFlyer

Once you search, the system presents all flights with space to upgrade immediately. If the flight you want is listed, you can either call American or apply your systemwide upgrade online. It should clear immediately and place you immediately into the upgraded cabin.

The system shows you when it was last updated, which is based on aggregated data from other users’ searches, and how many upgrade seats are actually available. To double-check in real time whether the flight you want truly has an upgrade seat available, click to verify and ExpertFlyer will automatically search that flight, even if the last search was a couple of hours or days ago.

Coming improvements for ExpertFlyer (currently in beta) will allow you to select multiple flights on a single screen and set alerts with just a few clicks. Whereas you previously had to go flight by flight, being able to set systemwide upgrade alerts by just selecting the flights or range of flights you want will make the process dramatically easier.

ExpertFlyer Alert for Multiple SWU Flights — A sample search result. Image Credit: ExpertFlyer

Final Thoughts

The new ExpertFlyer improvements make the tool a must-have if you’re an American Airlines flyer and use systemwide upgrades. Gone are the days of having to figure out where American flies and searching flight by flight. ExpertFlyer’s new improvements allow you to search a large range of dates to entire regions, making the process of redeeming your systemwide upgrades for confirmable seats almost seamless.