orbitmic

Nothing 'wrong' if it were the case but the truth of the matter is that upgrade rules are far more complex and airlines typically tend to resent providing details that could then be held against them by some furious loyal frequent flyers who don't accept that someone with lower status than them has been upgraded (and by that I don't mean you specifically at all, but just some random proportion of us). Don't you think it is normal that an airline might choose to upgrade someone whose outbound flight was cancelled or whose arrival was delayed by a missed connection even if she or he has lower status than you or me? Or don't you think that if you or me were upgraded last week then maybe someone who is 'only' gold could get their turn this week even if our flight is indeed overbooked again?

I think it has all to do with two things: managing discretion and managing expectations: discretion because (at least European) airlines see no need to have a formal and transparent policy on opups and prefer to see them as 'free rewards' they can distribute as they say fit on the day. Expectations because your aim is to get people who are 'happy to have been upgraded' rather than 'unhappy not to have been' and if you do publish that you will automatically get the very angry plat/gold/silver customer coming to the gate to say 'I AM silver how COME you are not upgrading me??!' which I witness on about 80% of flights I take with any US airline. I'll add that I do know that the reason mentioned by OFTEN1 is, I know considered true by a vast majority of FTers which I entirely respect, but I personally don't buy it. To me, most people who want to fly J and have a chance to would buy a J ticket (or even more so have their employer do so) even ifthey knew their status would put them high up on the opup list, because it is incredibly difficult (impossible) to know in advance if opups will be done on a flight (even if it is zeroed out) and because we all know (unless anyone is totally dellusional) that a typical flight can have a lot of people with the highest status on and there will probably not be upgraded seats for everyone. This could of course be different in the context of 'space available' upgrades such as the ones US airlines operate on domestic flights, but I'm talking of opups here.