As a Gold DM, I did not get upgraded yesterday. It was the first time since March that I wasn't able to upgrade (36 segements in a row).

I wasn't happy at the time, but in retrospect realize how lucky I am for flying US. God help us if the merger goes through.

OK, if you were a AA Platinum or equivalent UA VFF, could you even get close to making the same statement?

hey Bill, what route were you on and what time of day???? Just curious. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Originally posted by ITRADE:
OK, if you were a AA Platinum or equivalent UA VFF, could you even get close to making the same statement?

I saw it happen a couple weeks back. There was a CLT-SAN flight which sold out in F a day or two before the flight. The A-320 had some paid F class passengers, several Chairman's and a couple Golds. From what I was told, the wait list for F class was 28!!!

I've only had problems on busy routes, Friday afternoons, last minute changes, etc.

But I've had very few problems upgrading.

You have been doing very well. My wife is Gold, and rarely gets upgraded on long and medium haul. You have to watch your dates and equipment, where you can. It's a lot different from Chairman. Fly those miles (segments), and move up!

It was a Monday flight, PHL-BTV, with departure around 4PM. (The actual itinerary was BTV-PHL-MIA FLL-PHL-BTV) This is unusual. There were 4 seats showing as being available at checkin in FLL, but they wouldn't assig them. On arrival in PHL, they told me in the club that all F seats were taken and that there were 2 CP's who weren't going to make the cut! Unusual for such a small market like BTV...

Almost all of my travel is leisure, so I have some flexibility. However, my wife does BTV-ATL quite a bit and occasionally has a problem getting upgraded on afternoon ATL-PHL flights.

Besides peak time afternoon and early evening flights and some LAS flights my upgrade percentage as a Preferred Plus and now Gold member for a couple of years has been around 90 %. That includes flights from and to main hubs like CLT,PIT and PHL. I have not been in coach on coast to coast flights for years besides one segment to LAS and that has been only because I gave my seat to my partner because I had been spoiled in ENVOY that year a whole lot. So in terms of upgrading domestic flights and I constantly fly on cheap and very cheap tickets I do not think there is a better airline for the 50.000 second tier elite level in the USA.
Of course international meaning transatlantic flights its another story.I have been only upgraded twice out of operational reasons in around 50 roundtripps and even there new enhanced upgrade policies are very restictive.Besides the new wonderful systemwides you have to pay at least a B class fare to upgrade for 20.000 miles one way to ENVOY. Basicly you have to pay around 1.000 $ instead of 400 $ from Europe to the East coast to be eligible for the upgrades. On that American is better where you can actually upgrade on any published fare for 25.000 miles one way.


[This message has been edited by eurousair (edited 11-09-2000).]

My average for this latest trip is 75%. Got my friend and myself upgraded standby (3rd & 4th on list) SEA-CLT. CLT-FLL was full in F (and Y). Called at midnight for the return FLL-PHL-SEA and got the confirmed upgrades staright away.

Some flights seem to be pretty full with revenue pax.