Star Alliance - Any chance of upgrading due to award ticketing in first but accepting business seats?

Wondered if anyone had experience with this scenerio:

I booked two *A award tickets (my wife and I), requesting first class. I had to accept many segments in business (as no FC available), which I was happy to do, as this was a "pushing the limit" award travel (could technically be called a RTW, but I called with all segments ready to go from my research and got it booked as 2 first class award tickets).

My question is, since the whole flight is booked as a first class award, is it acceptable (and on record) to ask at the check-in counter if any FC seats are available to be changed into?

The reason I ask, is I had a similar situation on a flight from PHL-CDG a couple years ago. I had to change my departure date by one day for an important event, and I lost the FC ticketing, and had to accept coach seats. When we arrived at the counter, just being conversational, I found out we were still "ticketed as first" and she changed us into FC seats (which was really strange, because I was credited the miles difference back into my account). Same situation coming back, I asked, they confirmed, and we were upgraded.

My flight segments are as follows. The ones marked *** are the ones I am curious if I can request the upgrade at the counter, if there is availability (the others are either "Executive First" on the AC flights, already first class on LH, or SQ 2 class aircraft).

YYZ-NRT (AC)
NRT-BKK (TG) ***
BKK-SIN (SQ) Only a 2 class aircraft
SIN-JNB (SQ) ***

JNB-FRA (LH)
FRA-YYZ (AC)

Hi,

In the written rules it expressly says you cannot get upgraded at the airport on a points ticket. Also, I just happened to be making modifications to my trip to Asia yesterday,changing it to First Class, and also back thru. Europe. For my last leg LHR-YVR, I could only book in economy. I asked the (very helpful) Aeroplan agent this very question, and he told me the same thing: No airport upgrade possible, even if there is space available in Executive! He said all upgrades have to be done thru. the Aeroplan office. He recommended I keep checking for space on the Aeroplan website (I use the ANA tool) as it can change daily, so that is what you should do. Space often opens up as little as a few days ahead of flight time.

Cheers,

Exbrit

Even with some F segments in a ticket the coupons for your flights are issued in the class you are booked. You need to have the ticket changed. For that you need to have award space available first. Then the program you are using needs to allow these changes (sometimes there is a fee - 50 Euro on the LH M+M).

In general, I believe from reading others experiences not my own, the booking carrier will tend to book (and pay) for the tickets in the class that you are travelling (i.e. C) rather than putting them into F (which would mean paying extra money to the carrier running the service for no added benefit). As such this isn't very likely at all. Of course a carrier might choose to ticket you in F for a C seat... but its not very likely and wouldn't make good business sense.

I had done something like this in the past. A C award with one 6 hour segment in Y. Through negotiations with the airline (who was not the issuer of the ticket) I got put on a space available upgrade list and Mrs DUF, Micro DUF and I ended up in C.

SIN-JNB are only 2 class a/c (at leats they were in the past and a few weeks ago, when I flew the segment the last time).
NRT-BBK are sometimes 2-class, sometimes 3-class a/c. As it was laready written, if you are ticketed C (as you were booked in a 2-class a/c) and TG chages the last minute to a 3-class a/c, you are in C.

In the written rules it expressly says you cannot get upgraded at the airport on a points ticket.
Whose rules? The OP didn't state what FFP they're using, and the check-in personnel for airline X won't know or care. All they'll see is your fare class and whatever it says on your PNR.

I've gotten bumped up on an award-in-C-but-booked-in-Y ticket on AC, which (as you note) is explicitly not supposed to allow this. Obviously your mileage may vary and you certainly have no right to expect an upgrade, but politely explaining the situation at check-in certainly won't hurt: most agents will be sympathetic.