Air New Zealand Air Points - Got a $122 ticket to LAX! Upgrade question?

Managed to get a $122 ticket to LAX next week on the grabaseat website for my brother next week and was looking up the seats and only 4 available ones in economy LAX-AKL on NZ5 (08/11). He is NZ Silver and wants to upgrade since no window seats available, but not sure if he should use points or his comp upgrade.

He normally flies to HKG in Y+ so would be better to use the comp upgrade to get into J?

Also, if he puts in for a standby upgrade using points and it doesn't go through, can he then use his comp upgrade? Or is a comp upgrade on a standby basis too?

Cheers!

On a side note, I managed to get a AKL-HKG grabaseat fare for myself so luck must be on my side since only 10 tickets to each destination!!

Grabaseats usually book into F class. I would not be suprized if they but passengers in these classes to the bottom of the list.

Yep, booked in F class. Worth a try anyway, nothing to lose!

Grabaseats usually book into F class. I would not be suprized if they but passengers in these classes to the bottom of the list.

Not in my experience.

Making a couple of assumptions, the comp u/g is the best shot. While both airbucks and comp u/g are standby, the comp u/g has higher priority, albeit there is only a short window before departure for silvers. The other reason is the comp u/g expires if unused whereas the airbucks will continue to have value for longer.

The assumptions are
- don't want to use airbucks for a double u/g (otherwise you'd need two comp u/gs)
- HKG flight is later than LAX one, so if LAX doesn't clear than can try for HKG

That said, if there is a seat for comp u/g there most likely is also one for airbucks u/g so method will not really affect chances. (This is due to being silver - if gold or gold elite the long u/g window for comp u/g changes the odds significantly.)

I've upgraded on a grabaseat ticket before. I did feel a tad cheeky for about half a second.

GAS AKL-LAX, 440 Airbucks were abosrbed and I was checking each way PE seat allocation online two weeks later. :D

Managed to get a $122 ticket to LAX next week on the grabaseat website for my brother next week and was looking up the seats and only 4 available ones in economy LAX-AKL on NZ5 (08/11). He is NZ Silver and wants to upgrade since no window seats available, but not sure if he should use points or his comp upgrade.

He normally flies to HKG in Y+ so would be better to use the comp upgrade to get into J?

Also, if he puts in for a standby upgrade using points and it doesn't go through, can he then use his comp upgrade? Or is a comp upgrade on a standby basis too?

Cheers!

On a side note, I managed to get a AKL-HKG grabaseat fare for myself so luck must be on my side since only 10 tickets to each destination!!

I will see you on the Hong Kong flight. I was also lucky enough.... :)