US Airways Dividend Miles - Upgrade Options MCO-DUB Question?

I am Gold and we are traveling from MCO to DUB via CLT on an H fare on June 13 (9 days from now). It seems my options for upgrading to Envoy are...

1. Wait for GoUpgrade window which is 34 or 36 hours before departure and then call Gold phone line to see if available. I see 6 FC seats available on the CLT-DUB leg. These are normally 500? Is that all correct?

2. I could use 30,000 miles and $300 per ticket to upgrade?

This is my first international flight to someplace other than the carribean or Mexico which isn't long enough from Florida to worry about FC.

Any thoughts or recommendations are appreciated.

Ed

You are generally correct although I don't know if the GoEnvoy charge is $500 or more or less. The only way into Envoy is normally to buy it with either an Envoy ticket (paid or award) or fee. There is a slight chance that coach could be oversold and they would upgrade a fortunate elite rather than deny someone a seat, but that happens somewhat rarely.

Jim

I am Gold and we are traveling from MCO to DUB via CLT on an H fare on June 13 (9 days from now). It seems my options for upgrading to Envoy are...

1. Wait for GoUpgrade window which is 34 or 36 hours before departure and then call Gold phone line to see if available. I see 6 FC seats available on the CLT-DUB leg. These are normally 500? Is that all correct?



According to flightstats there are 9+ envoy seats still available on that flight (assuming it's the 6:30ish pm flight). So you might want to think about saving your miles as 30,000 miles = $200 is not very good value and opt for the Go Envoy window instead. Keep in mind that the route is serviced by a 757 and those envoy seats are not terribly comfortable to sleep in.

However I don't think the GOEnvoy window opens until T24 from the international departure.

Have fun in Dublin

Go Gators

So am I to gather from that response that the GoUpgrade fee is less than $500?





Go Gators

1. Wait for GoUpgrade window which is 34 or 36 hours before departure...

The GoEnvoy window is 24 hours from the departure time of your TATL flight (not your domestic leg from MCO). Wait to OLCI until then and you should be able to pay for and process the upgrade online.

Keep in mind that the route is serviced by a 757 and those envoy seats are not terribly comfortable to sleep in. ^

My recommendation? The GO Upgrade fee isn't worth it for the old style recliners - either snag an exit row (7C has lots of extra legroom) or if the loads are light, see about getting an entire 3 seat block to yourself in Y - you'll sleep just as well if not better and have an extra $500 in your pocket for some Guinness and other shenanigans in Dublin.

So am I to gather from that response that the GoUpgrade fee is less than $500?


The fee is usually $500 for Go Envoy (at least that's the price every time I tried to do it). But I have heard stories about people paying $600 for some routes. I even bought one the night before the flight for $500 but my friend was quoted $600 at the gate. So it's not really clear what the price is for the specific route...

Glad to see there's another Gator on this board...

Go Gators

Edit: if you decide to pay the fee, Amex plat/Cent/RC Visa etc. have $200 airline credits which become useful here. Althgouh they officially state that upgrades aren't covered, US treats an envoy upgrade as a ticket change fee and thus coverable by the Amex credit. Did a GO Envoy in february to ZRH and the credit showed up on my account 2 days later...

So am I to gather from that response that the GoUpgrade fee is less than $500?




I flew PHL-DUB-PHL back in February, and they were asking $600 each way. They open at T-24 from the time of the international departure.

I have seats 6D and E on the CLT to DUB leg and it's the 757 200. Maybe I should just stick with that then pay $1200 for Envoy Recliners.

I think the price has gone up to $600 for many of the routes now. A recent PHL-AMS trip was quoted as such, also flown on a 757. Maybe A330 routes are higher since all those flights have the suites now.

So, the question comes down to what's worth more to you...

1.) Confirming it in advance for 30K + $300 (which is roughly a $500-$600 value)
2.) Waiting til T-24 hoping there are unsold seats that dont go to people waiting to use CP certs or points.

Fwiw your flight is listed at Y2B2 and 0 in all cheaper fares. Which makes me think there's a possibility it's oversold and you might end up being bumped up. Don't get your hopes up too much though, you never can tell (especially for two people).

I've flown on US precisely once DUB-PHL and it was oversold and they were bumping people. It was full in biz and I doubt they were all paid business because DUB is not a very popular business class destination. It's consider more of a "tourist" destination. I definitely wouldn't pay $600 for that business class fwiw but then everyone's different.