Originally Posted by
BenA
[*]As I understand it, there is no upgrade list on Alaska within T-24; you need to be proactive with chatting with airport agents if you want the upgrade. This is apparently a sore point with AS elites and may change around the end of 2010, so this information may be out of date by the time you read it.
Originally Posted by
RobOnLI
This part also isn't correct. There is definitely an upgrade list under T-24. Most airport stations print out the upgrade & standby lists and post it at the counter of your flight. DL elites can be put on this list at airport check-in or by the Board Room.
There is an airport upgrade list. The AS GA at SNA showed it to me yesterday. I was not on the list but she showed me the number of AS elites already on it and convinced me it would be pointless to add me. Apparently DL elites are ranked behind all AS elites.
Originally Posted by
RobOnLI
The "Upgrade your flight" link *only* appears if upgrades are available. Otherwise that link will not appear at all and you will know right away whether you can be upgraded or not. ...
DL elites can be put on this list at airport check-in or by the Board Room.
The sore point right now with AS elites is that anyone doing OLCI with U inventory available can snag the upgrade. AS currently doesn't have a process kick off when U becomes available to upgrade the first eligible MVP Gold or MVP elite. So if a DL elite checks in and U just opened up, the DL elite can grab it. This is what many are unhappy with and this is what AS is fixing in the next month or so. Supposedly as AS fixes this bug they will also add automatic addition to the upgrade list for DL elites. I haven't heard if they are adding automatic upgrade processing for DL elites, though.
This appears to match my experience on Monday. No upgrades available at T-24 but I used a kiosk upon landing at SEA to see if I could change my Y seat assignment. This was about two hours before departure and there was an "Upgrade to First Class" button. Click it and it says it will check availability and let you know how much it costs. After a couple of seconds it moved me to F, no charge. I'm guessing I got lucky and snagged a U seat that had just opened up. (FWIW, NW had this same "bug", as did CO, but CO eventually fixed theirs.)
Upon check-in in SNA for my return flight, the kiosk had the "Upgrade to First Class" button greyed out and F was indeed full.
It's not clear whether or how DL elites are automatically added to the airport upgrade list. On my outbound, my first flight was on DL so DL checked me in on the AS flight. The AS phone agent the night before said I was on the upgrade list.
On my return, I checked in on alaskair.com. When I called after OLCI to inquire about the upgrade, the agent said that I was not eligible for an upgrade because I was on a DL ticket. That was clearly wrong, but because F was sold out at that point there was no point in pushing back. I was never added to the upgrade list.
On both flights AS had my DL status correct.
For now, DL elites have to be pretty proactive to get the upgrade. IMO the old system of AS upgrade certs we had at NW was simpler and worked better. I was 100% using those.