friends:

A question. I am a SP, and, travelling back from Gatwick to Charlotte, checked in at Envoy class, intending (optimistically, although i had registered a few months before) to try to use one of my two standard upgrade coupons. The woman at the desk asked me if I wanted to upgrade with miles or with a coupon. "A coupon," I smilingly replied. "That's fine, Sir, consider this a complimentary upgrade; save your coupon for another flight." So, free guest pass to the lounge, double miles (rather than 1.5x) for the transatlantic flight.

So, my question. Is this normal? [and, no, save the smart comments!] and does this mean that one perhaps should not use the electronic ticket thingies domestically, but, instead, go to the desk on the off-chance that a ticket clerk will be nice?

[my, and our, thoughts to the families of the pilots on the Beech today}

marcus

You will probably not get the class of service bonus for Envoy as the agent more than likely booked you in an upgrade far class. You'll more than likely get your regular miles plus your 50% for being Silver Preferred. Only the regular miles will count for status.

As for the upgrade - sometimes they will see that coach is waaaaay oversold and that the Envoy cabin is empty. If the agent looked at the upgrade waitlist and saw little or no CP and GP members looking for upgrades, there is little harm in getting you out of coach. Your experience is very rare and I would not count on it happening again. Congrats though, and enjoy Envoy! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Welsome to FT too! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I'm not sure how rare it is.

I flew LAX-PHL-MAN on Monday, and was given a first class upgrade on the domestic route (I don't know how or why) and Envoy class upgrade transatlantic. I was wait-listed to use a voucher for the hop across the pond, but they didn't end up using it. That said, the Manchester flight was oversold by approx 40-50 people. Monday was a public holiday in the UK, so I imagine lots of people like me were trying to get back to work for Tuesday morning(flight arrived at 08:30, at my desk at 09:00). My status was SP (I should be GP when my miles post), but the flight was absolutely full - coach and envoy.
The compensation offered for those not flying was a $600 travel voucher or $400 cheque. Of course the earliest next flight was 24 hours later...

I'm not sure how rare it is.

I flew LAX-PHL-MAN on Monday, and was given a first class upgrade on the domestic route (I don't know how or why) and Envoy class upgrade transatlantic. I was wait-listed to use a voucher for the hop across the pond, but they didn't end up using it. That said, the Manchester flight was oversold by approx 40-50 people. Monday was a public holiday in the UK, so I imagine lots of people like me were trying to get back to work for Tuesday morning(flight arrived at 08:30, at my desk at 09:00). My status was SP (I should be GP when my miles post), but the flight was absolutely full - coach and envoy.
The compensation offered for those not flying was a $600 travel voucher or $400 cheque. Of course the earliest next flight was 24 hours later...

In either case, upgading like that is rare. While it has happened to me once and my wife twice, go figure, the odds are very low it will happen when you want it to again.

gareth - even though you were 'up front', do you have some sense of how full it was in back?

Our common experience on the board is that 'free upgrades' coming back from Europe are pretty rare - mostly because the check-in agents are generally contract employees who have the fear of God instilled in them by managers if they dont pull coupons for upgrades.

It sounds like you got an operational upgrade. But even still, given that you had the coupon, etc, its surprising they didnt take it.

Hard to say how busy it was "down back" because, well, one is gently ushered away from the coach section.

And hard to tell by the Gatwick terminal either, because, with three US flights leaving at roughly the same time, the queue snaked round and round, out the terminal door, up the M25 to Heathrow, and back again. The woman at the Envoy desk, though, seemed more "managerial" than her colleagues. Given all of that, with my coupon in hand, I too couldn't believe she didn't take it. I mean, even if they were full in coach, and prepared to upgrade me, not sure why not take the coupon anyway.

I must remember to sprinkle myself with that "eau de lucky ******* " more frequently . . . .

best, gareth

thanks for report.

I should clarify - there is generally one actual US employee on the premises to oversee the operation. Theres a wonderful one at FRA who I believe came from PIT. Forget her name (Michelle?) but when I would tell the others that 'Michelle told me to..' they would say 'if Michelle said so then its ok'.

So its not ALL contracted employees.

It was a great gesture. But seriously - why not take the coupon?

I am on 2 oversold PIT-FRA flights in the next few weeks. I would be shocked if my SWUs arent taken.

My daughter and I were upgraded to Envoy on 8/13 Gatwick to Charlotte flight. We waited in the long line that snaked around and were told we had been upgraded when we checked in. We couldn't figure it out - It was great though! We are just regular dividend miles members...
Amy

Yes, Santa there are random upgrades!!!


Y is oversold? Goodwill goes a long way. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Preferreds in coach that are going to get bumped to Envoy anyway because Y is oversold? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif

The odd Silver and his/her companion who show up at the exact moment they need/find they are oversold by two in coach and undersold by six in Envoy? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif


... just don't plan on them. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I got a random upgrade on LH a few years ago for absolutely no reason, just shear dumb luck. Of course, they were oversold, but I had ZERO status with LH or even UAL. So, just walked up to the contract globeground agent at the right time. He did go get 'permission,' if I recall correctly.

I have been upgraded on U trans-atlantic, but that's with some connections.

This may sound extremely paranoid,
but I wouldn't post this sort of thing here--the employee at the airport did this for whatever reason but who knows what the Crystal Palace would do to her if they found out. LGW staff could get a serious dressing-down...

I had a recent comp upgrade on a UA Asia flight (either they forgot or just didn't feel like taking my SWU) but I'm not going to bring any attention to it, that's for sure.

I'm far too honest for that. I phoned up Dividend Miles and 'fessed up to the fact that my voucher hadn't been used and that I hadn't seen anything deducted from my upgrade bank for the PHL-LAX-PHL legs of the journey. They told me that I'd got lucky, and not to worry about it.
At least my conscience is clear.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gnarly:
I'm far too honest for that. I phoned up Dividend Miles and 'fessed up to the fact that my voucher hadn't been used and that I hadn't seen anything deducted from my upgrade bank for the PHL-LAX-PHL legs of the journey. They told me that I'd got lucky, and not to worry about it.
At least my conscience is clear.</font>

gnarly -- It's not you that's going to get in trouble. All they can do is make you send in the upgrades (if that). The agents who didn't take the certs can get in serious trouble or worse yet, fired. I've had many GAs recently do a nice thing for me and INSIST that I not report it to ANYONE.

In any case, welcome to FT!

From what I have read over in the UA forum, UA does this all the time, if they are overbooked or even if you are 1k and have a bad hair day, they will do an operational upgrade.

I did roundtrips to Gatwick in both of the last two weekends. All 4 transatlantic segments were packed in coach as I recall. The most recent roundtrip was swithched by a day in both directions and they were still able to upgrade me with one days notice so I assume there was room in Envoy even at that late time. If you look on the UA and AA boards there are threads about which routes and times this is most likely to occur. It does happen, but one shouldnt count on it (I paid 120,000 miles for my upgrades http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif)