Ansett Australian Global Rewards - Possible new GW upgrade policy??

Posted from MEL GW club... I dropped by e-check in, and in 30 seconds had my Y boarding pass for seat 7E on AN's "Less Room Throughout Coach" 733 config, and asked at the desk if I could go on the upgrade list. Thought I'd get a knock back on my absurdly cheap N class ticket, but no.. she says she can't do it as I have my UA*G number on the bp. I give her my AN card, and she's "that's cool" then she tells me they have no seats. Well no surprise as the e-check in seat map showed 1 seat in Y free(!). So I say thanks and she says "look let me hold on to it for you until a bit later and i'll check again"
So I come read some email etc, and then I am paged back and she has a J boarding pass (woohooo) but then tells me "I've been a bit naughty, and I'm not supposed to do this, but I took the last J seat for you over one of our own Star Alliance Gold members"(ouch!) "And we're only supposed to upgrade members of Global Rewards and GW Club members - but I felt sorry for you because you have all those points in your account." she went on to say that she'll prob. get abused by GR for what she did but she put lots of notes in the PNR about it saying she authorised it as a manager.

When I said "oh, I've done this a bunch of times before and noone's ever said anything to me" she was very interested, and asked where, and I said MEL ("Really?!"). oops.. I hope that doesn't mean a crack down for fellow pax!

Anyway she was really nice about it and what could I say?

Will be interested to see what reception I get in BNE and SYD tomorrow when I try again http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

So just FYI. Oh and there is a lot of business here and the staff attitude is _not_ doom & gloom (yay!)

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

Goodo Richard,

Any trip reports on the way? I think you said that you might take pictures of the -BZL cabin with your digital.

Cheers,

Justin

Here's an update from SYD:
In BNE, upgraded without a comment
in SYD, upgraded after checking with a colleague ("As long as you have GR points you can"). BP out of MEL and BNE say D class, out of SYD says N class (I wonder what CoS I will get mileage credit for - hopefully MEL-BNE, BNE-SYD will show as C class).

I took a digital pic for QantasAllTheWay to debunk the "Banana in Business Class" bunk. On BNE-SYD this morning we had energy drink, an egg/ham/spinich thingy, fruit bowl, 2 thick (I mean really thick!) pieces of toast, juices etc (or cereal/milk choice).

I saw -BZL yesterday doing AN208 MEL-OOL, not sure if I will get it today. I'll post more if I get on -BZL, and will have my cam handy! Absolutely.

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

Okay, I did get on -BZL from SYD-MEL (AN23) and it was a good flight. Too busy to take any good cabin pics though ( :-( ) but I may get it again on AN17 next week (as it flew that sector today).

J class is decent. Around 36-38" pitch with real J seats, but manual ones. Recline is very nice (much better than UA domestic F, for example). Seats are comfy, but appear to have AN fabric (though the greens do look AC'ish). Y looks the same with maybe 32" pitch (a bit hard to tell).

Service was great. nonrevs sat in row 5 and they got served last - none of this "employee class" stuff at AN http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

Richard,

36-38" seat pitch in J? The 762s have 40"
Does the aircraft feel better than the other 762s (ie. newer)?

How are the crew taking the bad speculation?

Will we have trip reports?

Cheers,

Justin

Okay maybe it was 40" - I didn't have a tape measure :-) It was definately better than the A320 or (shudder) 733 J pitch. I took a pic of the seating, but it didn't come out very well due to glare and angle.

The crews, in the air and on the ground, were fantastic. No mention about strife and great attitudes all around.

Too many posters of Toomey's ugly mug around the place though telling us how Absolutely Committed he is to us. Shudder. It's almost like big brother or something http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Small trip report to follow.

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

Okay, here's some pics:

Ansett J class MEL-BNE salmon lunch (http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~richard/ansalmon.JPG)

Ansett J class BNE-SYD breakfast (no Bananas!) (http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~richard/bnesydjbfast.JPG)

Ansett J class SYD-MEL "Refreshment"/Snack (quiche) (http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~richard/sydmeljsnack.JPG)

VH-BZL J cabin as seen from seat 4A (http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~richard/bzljseats.JPG)

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.