Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - SAA flight for a United Premier Exec

Hi all,

I'm a United Airlines Premier Exec, and have booked some flights on South African Airways from JFK-JNB on 12/20/09 and JNB-JFK on 1/2/10.

My current seats are in Economy, and I'm wondering if anybody has advice on how best to upgrade these.

Namely, is there a way to pay for an upgrade, or pay/trade for upgrade certificates, or use my United miles in any way?

If there's any more info I'm leaving out, please let me know!

Thanks so much!

Hi all,

I'm a United Airlines Premier Exec, and have booked some flights on South African Airways from JFK-JNB on 12/20/09 and JNB-JFK on 1/2/10.

My current seats are in Economy, and I'm wondering if anybody has advice on how best to upgrade these.

Namely, is there a way to pay for an upgrade, or pay/trade for upgrade certificates, or use my United miles in any way?

If there's any more info I'm leaving out, please let me know!

Thanks so much!

On both of the flights you mention, there are no upgrade fare bucket seats available ("I"). This is according to the ANA tool.
On the way out, there are C seats available, but I think the only way to get one is to pay the difference in fare (not really an 'upgrade' as such).
On your return trip (1/2/10) the flight is completely sold out (according to seatcounter), so no possibility to get into the front cabin at all. :(

Unfortunatley SAA does not allow upgrades using miles with any airlines miles except their own.

This is pretty hard to do as they have such limited seats available for upgrade on most major routes such as the one you are talking about.

I thought SAA upgrades go into 'E' class? I know this is what happens with my tickets? 'I' Class is for a Mileagekeeper award tickets.

...
I thought SAA upgrades go into 'E' class? I know this is what happens with my tickets? 'I' Class is for a Mileagekeeper award tickets.

You may very well be right in that. It certainly used to be "I" for Mileage Keeper as well as for upgrades but I can now remember reading somewhere else as well that ug's had changed to "E". I have not been able to use either (MK or UG) for over 2 years now due to availability (and I have used my miles to book 2 F returns CPT/FRA/VIE on LH as a * award for Christmas :)).

The advantage of it all being in "I" was that one could use the ANA tool to chech upgrade avaiability. I am almost sure that ANA checks for "I" bucket seats.

This is in a United Thread (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus/1014246-saa-flight-united-premier-exec.html), as well. I realize we don't like cross-posting, but this one does seem to touch on both airlines...

Will