US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Any leeway given on 500 mile upgrades?

I did a search for this and only saw that there was no leeway given for the old 800 mile upgrades. I have a CLT-SRQ flight this Friday that is 549 miles. I assume that I would need 2 upgrades, but thought I would ask here first.

549 > 500.

99 out of 100 times it'll cost you 2 upgrades.


Reminds me of the 818 mile flights from DCA to TPA. 2 800 mile certs for that one, too. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Thank you for the quick reply. I know that some airlines allow an extra 50 miles over the stated upgrade allowance. I guess US is not one of them.

BWI2MCO97 said her training showed a 25 mile tolerance.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum51/HTML/004552.html

I think CLT-PBI is also 549 and it cost me 2 upgrades.

Its going to cost you 2 upgrades.

I flew from BUF to CLT, which is 546 miles and it cost 2 upgrades. I continued from CLT to SRQ and it cost another 2 upgrades.

It sucks to use 4 upgrades from BUF to SRQ, a 1094 mile trip, but thats the system.

Any recent experiences with short hops & e- upgrades? I'm on a full fare/corp discounted fare of $847 r/t !! EWR-CLT this Wed (only 528 miles). I'd hate to have to use 2 certs to upgrade, have they lessened the rules any??

I have a quick ? i have around 6000 miles (ill have more after i go to phoenix this xmas) how miles do I need to purchase an upgrade from Pit to San?

Welcome to FT! In the future, if you want to ask a different question, you may want to consider starting a separate thread. For instance, this thread is talking about the amount of mileage leeway on electronic upgrades.

However, in answer to your question, you would need 20,000 miles to get an upgrade using miles. You may want to check with US to verify if the 20,000 mile roundtrip upgrade award is good on all fare types, etc. Of course if you are Silver Preferred, Gold Preferred, or Chareman's Preferred, you would most likely use your e-upgrades instead of miles unless you wanted to absolutely guarantee the upgrade. However, I personally have never used miles on US to upgrade a domestic trip, always using the e-upgrades or the old paper upgrades which don't exist anymore. Another option is on Ebay you can buy DS0080 upgrades which are confirmable one day in advance, or ds0079 upgrades which are space available on the day of departure. Just go to Ebay, and do a search for US Airways, and you should find several of them. Personally I would buy the upgrade on Ebay before spending 20,000 miles unless it was a very special trip w/friend or family, etc.

[This message has been edited by jetsetter (edited Nov 16, 2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jetsetter:
Welcome to FT! In the future, if you want to ask a different question, you may want to consider starting a separate thread. For instance, this thread is talking about the amount of mileage leeway on electronic upgrades.

However, in answer to your question, you would need 20,000 miles to get an upgrade using miles. You may want to check with US to verify if the 20,000 mile roundtrip upgrade award is good on all fare types, etc. Of course if you are Silver Preferred, Gold Preferred, or Chareman's Preferred, you would most likely use your e-upgrades instead of miles unless you wanted to absolutely guarantee the upgrade. However, I personally have never used miles on US to upgrade a domestic trip, always using the e-upgrades or the old paper upgrades which don't exist anymore. Another option is on Ebay you can buy DS0080 upgrades which are confirmable one day in advance, or ds0079 upgrades which are space available on the day of departure. Just go to Ebay, and do a search for US Airways, and you should find several of them. Personally I would buy the upgrade on Ebay before spending 20,000 miles unless it was a very special trip w/friend or family, etc.

[This message has been edited by jetsetter (edited Nov 16, 2003).]</font>

Thanks for the welcome..not to drag out this post but i Just searched EBAY for Upgrades ( http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=US+Airways+upgrade&catref=C0&socolumnlayout=3&lotr=1&from=R2&BasicSearch= ) now how much do the upgrades usually run? and should i be sketchy about the upgrades that start out art 9.99?
Thank You Very Much

You shouldnt be sketchy about purchasing them for 9.99 on ebay, those are probably space available only upgradeable the day of departure. If you only need one, let me know. I have an extra that i wont be using before the end of the year. However, be wary mine and probably the ones on ebay for the 9.99 expire dec 31,2003. HAppy travels and let me know about the upgrade.

When you look at the Ebay listings, the key thing to look at is the code on the upgrade and the expiration date.
DS0079=Space-available standby upgrade only valid day of departure at airport; and
DS0080=Positive space upgrade booked in G class confirmable 1 day prior to departure by reservations, or if G not available, can standby at the airport.

Most of the bidding action on Ebay takes place near the end of an auction. Something could start out a $.01, and climb much higher. There is a way in Ebay to search for closed/completed items which you can do to get an idea of what they have sold for historically.

Interesting there are none out there now?

Also does anyone know how so many of these ds0079 and ds0080 get in to ciruclation, are they given to corporations?

There are at least six or seven out there on ebay now. You need to be careful with your search (USAir or "US Air" or "US Airways").

CLT - TPA twice in October 518 miles. Only one upgrade each time. It may not be 50 mile buffer but looks more like 20 or so.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MikeM6090:
CLT - TPA twice in October 518 miles. Only one upgrade each time. It may not be 50 mile buffer but looks more like 20 or so.</font>

As has already been pointed out, it's 25.