Sjondorn

So, three times (2x within Europe, 1x to China, taken every time) I booked my flight last-minute. Every time I got a paid upgrade on the way back, literally arriving to my e-mail right after arrival to the destination. That kinda doesn't look like overselling to me, I wonder if there is somekind of a rule on that, lol?

Ed Size

Is it gotten worse? I checked for upgrades to BKK any given day from today till July online - not a single seat is available. Just a few weeks ago you find plenty of them.

Is the availabilty better if I contact the platinum desk?

WilcoRoger

I flew down yesterday - there were some 4-5 empty seats in the front. Why AY shouldn't release them is an enigma. If I were you, I'd ring the Plat desk.

Ed Size

I just called them, it seems they have some seats available if you want to upgrade them - if you want to pay your booking only with points no availability till May (thats where they stop to look).

So the question is, pay 900€ each and upgrade with points(with the possibility of a downgrade) , or pay 1400€ each and get a guaranteed seat plus the points.

FFlash

I've been burning my points and vouchers like crazy to upgrade Y longhauls and I am tempted to draw conclusion that they are really doing something "restrictions but exceptions"

A loooot of half-empty C (can see the seatmaps) are showin X=0, 1 or at best 2 available upgrades in AY web upgrade tool. Clearly restricting, probably due to the soon-to-start bidding for biz seats.

But the interesting part is the "exceptions":
They seem to allow fairly good upgrade availability after all reading the reports here and my own experience:
Mostly my flights have been told "no availability, waitlisted". But then, they seem to clear quite well which makes me thing exceptions:
-I am Plat, they want to afford me the space to keep me happy.
-Availability showing zero, an agent in the Plat line cannot open the space, but a day after it clears, making me think there is a supervisor who checks the lists and sees a Plat member and clears it.
-A white card holder will be waitlisted until biz bidding is over and cleared only after if space available

My 0.02€ guessings...

reflektia

I've same experiences with this. Upgrades clear quite fast when they are waitlisted. Also I've had similar experience when booking award flight to europe. I was told that there is no award space but they will have a look since "I'm premium customer" and next day award cleared. There was plenty of room in the plane.

br2k

Slight offtopic but - when AY website says that it takes 50000 points to upgrade a one-way flight (to Asia or North America), I assume they mean a single segment (HEL-PVG) and not the entire flight (JFK-HEL-PVG)?

Lappe

You are correct - each segment is upgraded separately.

FlugE

Actually extra connecting segments can be included. ARN-HEL-PVG for example is 50000 in total. Not sure exactly where AY draws the line though.

On the other hand, when you use vouchers they are only applied per segment.

diaz

I just talked with a customer representative making changes to another flight and decided to also ask about a pending upgrade for a different flight.

The representative told me that a upgrade request was sent two months ago (when the original booking was made), but it didn't go through, but she also said that she could resend the request, see if "they" could clear the upgrade now.

This would support the idea that there is some supervisor who every now and then or by request checks into the upgrade situation and clears upgrades even when there might be no availability according to the online tool.

esledo

This "supervisor" is called the revenue management.

diaz

Supervisor or revenue management, they cleared the upgrades (2pax) today so it seems like the call center can resubmit the claim to be rechecked.

intuition

Well, I just used the online upgrade requst tool and it specifically said "When you buy an upgrade on a longhaul, the connecting short haul is upgraded for free".
And indeed, selecting a LH sector, system automatically selected connecting flight and upgrade price was still 50k points.

I assume connecting shorthaul means EU to HEL flight. I think it is a new thing. In the past (looking back in AY+ account), I have surely paid for both sectors, ie paid 60k points for longhaul and 3750 *) for connecting flight CPH-HEL (so even a very short flight was debited).




*) summer discounted price

Lappe

Anybody willing to play with the system to see if JFK-HEL - as in the original question - is considered short-haul ?

intuition

To do that, you would need a ticketed trip involving 2 LH segments connecting in HEL on one PNR. I have such tickets, but sadly none in Y and I can't test it.

So to test it someone needs to buy such a ticket as Y refundable. (But it must not be a "Pro" ticket type, since this ticket type already has free upgrade on the connecting flight according to older rules.)
Then go to MMB and follow the upgrade links. The page should load the reservation and display the upgrade price for each segment. When pressing the LH outbound from HEL, the text "Connecting flight is upgraded free of charge" and price still being 50k is the indicator.


I really doubt it will work this way.