ABFreqFly

Air Berlin have changed the way they do upgrades. It use to be that a Platinum or Gold Members could call at anytime, request upgrade and usually within 24-48hr, pending availability you got a confirmation of upgrade. Now you are waitlisted and only find out if a positive outcome and only 48hrs before flight. So chances of upgrades now is very unlikely on popular routes. So no idea now how to use the thousands of miles and vouchers that I have pending. I fly every few weeks TXL-ORD.

In fact flying ORD-TXL a few weeks back I had been waitlisted for a week. When i went to board the flight I was told there was a seat for 37K miles, not the usual 25K miles. I appreciate its more miles its on the spot but i had been waitlisted for a week. Because my flight was on a Sunday and the waitlists are cleaned up on Friday evening (CET time) an easy solution was just remove people of the waitlist - problem solved - this is seriously what they told me. They will also never release the crew seat in business class.

AirBerlin's long haul fleet have no crew rest area. When they are overbooked its so funny to see the crew scramble to protect their back 3 seats for what is only a 7hr flight :-)

Have been platinum for 4 years and really struggling to see the advantage of AB Platinum anymore.

ralfkrippner

Hi and welcome to our little corner of flyertalk, ABFreqFly !

Thanks for the info - does anybody here have addtl. info regarding changed upgrade policy?

gkl

To be honest, I don´t see much change. Before, they basically did a "manual" waitlist marking people call 8-weeks, 4-weeks, 2-weeks before the flight and if availabilty allows they upgrade their Platinums (and Golds). Now they got rid of the labour-intensive process and do it with a proper waitlist which looks much more fair to me because you have a clear priority with Platinum on top, etc.

They want to sell the seat for $$$ which is what they are here for, if availabilty allows your upgrade will clear. Seems you are Platinum, so your chances are good. If you don´t get the upgrade, somebody paid more for it.

(recently booked 2 upgrades for my upcoming DUS-LAX-DUS)

sydunipete

This must be new. In mid-May with one phone call I booked a Y seat, upgraded it to J and got seat assignments. Points were deducted and booking shows business class confirmed.

Often1

How shocking. A for-profit business trying to sell its premium seats before giving them away.

Arnur

This information is not correct or at least not complete. You can still get a confirmed upgrade to business class as long as seats in fare class U are available. However, AB usually only releases two U seats per flight. My experiences with the waiting list are similar to yours, I have never been successful. Day of departure upgrades by contrast use C inventory, i.e. any business class seat unsold (minus the crew seats) is available, but at a higher cost in terms of miles.

Concerto

If I buy a normal economy revenue ticket, albeit in a low fare bucket, and I upgrade using TopBonus miles (if I'm lucky enough to find seats), do I have to pay extra taxes and surcharges? Still not totally sure about that one.

ralfkrippner

In this case there should be no addtl. surcharges or taxes -

- except when flying via the UK where there might be higher taxes and fees if you are travelling in a higher class of service.

sydunipete

I didn't. My flight was JFK-DUS.