If you cross reference a couple of the currrent threads you find a crackdown on inventory requests for blocked upgrades, the disappearance of visible E seat inventory from booking engines, and a general commentary on increasing difficulties in obtaining advance upgrades on aircraft with significant unsold inventory. It all adds up to a crackdown on upgrading, which is the "holy grail" of the elite FF system. Could it be that in the current vacuum (the new CEO is not an airline guy), certain marketing types who have not forgotten the "smack down" a few years ago, when the attempt was made to severely limit elite benefits, have devised a quiet way to get there anyway? It sure smells that way. In the payback column, forcing upgrades to the airport will simply expose more of what's left of the regular customers to the system weak spot. With so much traffic going through Philly, elite members will enjoy the benefits of the careful attention paid to such details as upgrades by the caring and motivated staff in that terminal. Last one out, hit the light switch, please.

I hope not, upgrades in an their various forms are one of the prime reasons I have stuck with US for so long.

Upgrading as an elite is *the* coveted perk, IMO. It's what separates US from the LCC's that have parked their campers in US's backyard while they steal market share daily.

Shifting more flying to regional jets (sans FC) and making upgrades harder to get for the fewer and fewer flights that have mainline service is a recipe for disaster. They may as well paint the A-320's in JetBlue colors and hand them over now if this is the new direction. :td:

My upgrade success this year is up from last year. More and more of them happen at the gate, which seems to be a trend.

I don't particularly see limiting advance upgrades as a huge degradation in elite benefits ... and actually some elites might find shifting more of the upgrades to the airport from advance to be an advantage (e.g., those elites who frequently change their flights at the last minute).

I see three distinct issues here.

1. If the company is actually selling more FC tickets because of a fare rationalization or finding customers willing to pay for the seats, FFs looking for upgrades have no reason to complain. Even if some afternoon and evening flights have fewer available E seats, knowing that there will be misconnects, that is fine with me. It's not like United, where Employee Class routinely has prevented FFs from sitting in the bigger seats.

2. As Deelmakur keenly observed, the movement to more gate upgrades is counter-intuitive from an operations standpoint. The airline has made it clear that more technology and fewer employees are the key to obtaining profits and viability. Automated upgrades might be accompanied by rules that require seat selection at online or kiosk check-in only, thereby eliminating many phone calls. To me, that would make sense. Requiring more upgrades to be processed by increasingly overworked gate agents costs time and money the company says that it does not have.

3. If this is an attempt to obscure and delay upgrades, it will result in lost business. The aggravation factor in addition to past mistrust will alter travel patterns for some frequent flyers.

Well said, Atlantic Beach. In fact, it is so counter intuitive that it almost has to be contrived. My recent anecdotal experience has been that, absent traditional peak times, front cabins have featured more employee (uniformed commuter types) and operational (like those who ask if drinks are free) occupants, as well as a number of flights with open seats. I suspect this has more to do with someone's philosophical view than undue pressure for revenue seats. What they learned the last time was that many of us will take a connection if there's a better chair for us. Evidently, that's been forgotten. My observation has been that when a front cabin had sold half its seats, upgrade inventory was suspended. Leisure routes were somewhat different, but the downsized and redeployed 757 fleet largely addressed that. That left a percentage of open seats until flight time that would have been greater than any historical percentage of purchased full fares (USAirways' high water mark on that couldn't have exceeded 20%).No, this looks like somebody's clever idea. My money is on triple B.

Maybe something to be brought up at RoachFEST....

Now that someone has mentioned it, I too realize that my advanced upgrades have been off what they used to be. However, I'm near 90% at gate upgrades, other than going to Vegas (curse those F8 757s :mad: ). That being said, I really don't mind upgrading at the gate, my concern is the flight timing and general availability. An upgrade to me has always been a perk so as long as they fill the seats at the gate with Roaches it doesn't matter in the long run. However, if they are letting empty F seats go unfilled - then there is a problem.

With fewer and fewer agents, processing the upgrade list on the day of departure has got to be near the bottom of their priorities. Why they've taken a process that can be handled the night before and put it on the shoulders of the gate agents on the day of departure is beyond me. I have no problem with US holding back seats for last-minute FC purchases, but when an A320 shows 7+ in the F bucket the night before a 10 am flight on a Wednesday morning, they are making more work for the already overworked gate agents.

I have always contended that these things are meant to be punitive. If that's the case, they want you to sweat at the gate. My fear is that the CEO, lacking airline experience, has to rely on existing management for these kinds of decisions. What's there a) never got over being "crammed down" on this issue a few years ago, and b) in the great tradition of inmates running asylums, are this guy's primary information resource.

Being in ALB and not staying a Sat night on trips, I buy more and more B fare tickets. It is hard not to buy the expensive stuff. For example, I pay over $600 for a ALB-PHL 212 mile flight and that is with a nice corporate discount.

For people like me, the upgrade policy is better, although it hurts for my leisure travel. There are more P seats left. I can book 3 days in advance and still get the FC seat.

I my eyes, they are holding down the E inventory not so much for the people buying the FC ticket (and paid envoy connects) but for the A/Y/B people.

Remember when all upgrades came out of the same bucket. It was only a few years ago when the make the 2 seperate buckets.

They are putting the cheap seats at the bottom of the list.

Upgrading as an elite is *the* coveted perk, IMO. It's what separates US from the LCC's that have parked their campers in US's backyard while they steal market share daily.

It's what separates US from UA! If UA goes to free upgrades for US preferred flyers (to a much better product!) or even their own, and/or if UG on US becomes such a hassle, then US will lose a lot of business.

Without getting into specifics of various past issues, US Airways fails to understand that many elite flyers have NOT forgotten the underhanded way in which US tried to implement the draconian changes to the DM program along with some other questionable moves.

For many the veil of trust is forever torn, never to be mended. I can remember no time that the company has ever admitted making a mistake on any issue. Which to me begs the question "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

To be fair to US Airways, Arrogance and the customer be damned attitude has never been in short supply among the legacy carriers and sadly US Airways despite is near unbribled arrogance in certain instances is much more humble than the others IMO.

At least they are willing to meet with us at RoachFEST '04, which is more than you can say for the others, especially Delta who despite the nearly 25K spent have yet to accomplish what we have with virtually ZERO dollars expended.

I just made CP for the first time, and for odd reasons had to book a flight on NW for a last-minute trip. It was a decent experience, so I tried a r/t on their website, which kicks usairways.com off the information super-highway down to a state secondary road. While there's the nice calendar feature on usairways.com/Travelocity, almost everything else I'd like to see is included on nwa.com.

With CP covered through Feb 2006, I figured I ought to check out another program that's only screwing over employees, not flyers. (I date a laid-off NW employee.)

I really hope that the RoachFest and US goes well, but I also don't want to end up in a situation where I feel locked to an airline that doesn't give me back percieved value compared to other options I could take, since at the end of the day it's my money being spent and my time being used to travel. I remember the 0 status miles on cheap fares shift and was one of many who wrote to them to express my displeasure. I've seen the recent change on the 757s and the systemwide/transatlantic upgrades degrade and disappear for US2/3. CEOs may come and go, but cockroaches last forever.

Hey deelmaker, thats me asking if drinks are free. I dont trust them. ;)

I have always contended that these things are meant to be punitive. If that's the case, they want you to sweat at the gate. My fear is that the CEO, lacking airline experience, has to rely on existing management for these kinds of decisions. What's there a) never got over being "crammed down" on this issue a few years ago, and b) in the great tradition of inmates running asylums, are this guy's primary information resource.


I think this is exactly correct.
I have had the same experience 3 times over the past 3 weeks flying. I usually do not rush to the phone on the 7th day before departure to upgrade and in the past have had no problem upgrading 3 or 4 days before. Over the past month I have been able to upgrade NONE of my flights in advance. Almost all have been upgraded at the gate and once while I was sitting on the plane already. Last week at MSY I asked the head at the check in counter what was going on and he had no clue. He couldn't understand why they were not opening up the inventory since there were clearly plenty of open seats.
It seems odd timing to essentially delete all of the upgrade inventory after announcing unlimited upgrades for all elites. Kind of kills the marketing effort?

It seems odd timing to essentially delete all of the upgrade inventory after announcing unlimited upgrades for all elites. Kind of kills the marketing effort?

No doubt another wise decision by the same genius who brought us the amazing popularity of First Class GoFares and then promptly ripped out half the FC seats in the 757.

Hey Gadget, I figure you're the guy who puts all the extra little bottles in his pocket. It's guys like you that cost us the XO's. Now I'm back to potato chips for breakfast. Actually my favorite was the young lady sitting next to me a few months ago who, when she discovered you don't have to pay for booze in First, took the 3 bucks, and tipped the stew (I mean F/A). She took it.:D

It seems odd timing to essentially delete all of the upgrade inventory after announcing unlimited upgrades for all elites. Kind of kills the marketing effort?

What do you expect from the same folks who brought you the "status nazi" ("No status miles for you!").

BBB and his cronies are still pissed about that, and if you think about it, this is an even more underhanded way of going about it (since most flyers don't do things like check for E bucket inventory and the like).

Plus, the premise is flawed. Upgrade me now, or do it at the gate, but I still get the seat (and just get pissed off that I have to stand at the gate waiting for it).

Like Deel, I figure it's punitive. That's okay, because when I start faxing consumer affairs domestic trips on OAs, perhaps someone will figure out that they need the Roach $$$ more than the roach needs the upgrade.

I havent been drinking much on flights recently. Heck, especially on US since I have flown one non-shuttle segment this year. But when I am, none of the little bottles gets out alive. None left for the pockets.

On SYD-LAX on UA in business a few years back the FA asked my friend to hold a nearly full bottle of bordeaux for a sec while she fixed an overhead. He had been drinking a wee bit and when he hands the bottle back she looks at it, looks at him and says, "why dont you just keep it". Ah, those were the days, no scrambling over the little bottles.

Maybe the Inventory folks read FT, after all .... :)

Checked and saw the cleared UG for my Jul 7 CLT - SEA evening flight; geez, haven't seen one @ 7-day window for weeks! It's a 321, F7 P7 A7 so seemingly plenty of room up front. Very different from the battlefield UGs CLT-SFO-CLT last weekend; on the return, even with F7 P7 A7 showing seven days out, I could not UG until the last minute. The prior weekend (June 18-20) CLT-MSP-CLT, I got the UG several days out but my companion CP did not (I forget the bucket availability numbers now). And I don't even want to get into the time (late May) when E inventory was available for the return and no UG until I pointed it out to a nice check-in agent.

I'd continue to fly US even with no UG, but hey, UG'ing is a game and I like to play. I only wish the rules they make are more consistent (like before) than what they've been the last few weeks. Maybe it's peak summer travel, maybe it's punitive on the cockroaches, maybe pigs fly - whatever, just bring back the E bucket numbers so we know what our odds are, please.

UG'ing is a game.

Ain't it the truth! I burned 20K miles to upgrade my LAX-PHL flight today, figuring (quite accurately) that I would not score an upgrade even at the gate. It just wasn't as much fun. No thrill of victory. No agony of defeat.

Ain't it the truth! I burned 20K miles to upgrade my LAX-PHL flight today, figuring (quite accurately) that I would not score an upgrade even at the gate. It just wasn't as much fun. No thrill of victory. No agony of defeat.

Hey SS-

What this your practice run for Roachfest? :D

See you on August 7. You called shotgun, didn't you?

LOL! I'm planning to do it the roach way for Roachfest. Will sweat it out to the bitter end to see if the upgrades clear.