Diederick

On Friday December 14th I was on a KL1060 to Amsterdam. Obviously Y was overbooked. The sky priority waiting area held 9 passengers, according to the labels at least 3 gold and 3 plat.
The last person in the regular boarding lane, Y and most likely with no status, got a new boarding pass in C.

I wonder if it was laziness of the gate agent or is it like this all across the board?
I do not think that anyone with status is entitled to get upgrades for free, but in case of operational upgrades elites should be considered first. Moreover, I think it is disrespectful to the FB elites!

Unfortunately, it is not the first time I have seen the last 6 months. But I have never ever experienced this kind of sloppy OP-UP policy on BA (the airline I flew before the summer).

Do other forum members have similar experiences? What are the rules on OP-UPS?

Chrz!
D

ANstar

I've been the last person in the regular line at times and am a mere FB GOLD.

I don't fancy the rush nor see the necessity to scramble onto the plane and then sit there ans extra 20 minutes or so on shorthaul flights.

Aviatrix

This post is about OP-UPs, not about people's preference for boarding first or last. The OP was, rightly, complaining that the upgrade went to a random person without status instead of a PE or GE.

(As regards choosing to board last... fine if you have no carry-on to go in the overhead. I'd rather get on first and make sure there is somewhere to stow my backpack)

ANstar

And I was trying to point out - that one should not assume the last person to go through boarding has no status.

Diederick

I realize that! But trust me, this person had no status. I do not think that I should have had the upgrade, I am just a gold, it should have been given to one of the plats. Personally I hardly see a difference in the Y and C product on KL.

I was just asking if this was an incident and what the policy is on OP-UPS.

Zembla

How could you tell?

irishguy28

At outstations, who knows? I don't think there are any KL staff at CWL (at Heathrow, for instance, they're handled by Cobalt Ground Solutions) and I would expect that, at least in some outstations, when they have to do op-ups, they just do whatever is the easiest for themselves.

With Gold status, and in the past year with Platinum, I have had a fairly good "strike rate" at getting an op-up when on overbooked flights from AMS and from Germany (where they probably stick to the "rules" (if there are any) more rigidly) and, from these locations, it appeared to me that anyone else who got the beep at the boarding gate also had status. The last time it happened at AMS, the boarding agent made a big deal of telling me that I'd been upgraded "because of your Platinum status".

These days it's easier than in the past, now that the "Sky Priority" text or logo is printed on the boarding pass of all elite passengers - if you can catch a glimpse of the passenger's boarding pass, of course.

Diederick

There was obviously no "priority" on the persons boarding card. Indeed in Cardiff it is all handled by local staff. They did the easy thing: "damn no seat in Y for this last person .... but hey there are seats in C". Anyway, I was curious what the policy currently is.

Chrz!
D

splflyer

KLM op/up policy has been outlined on this forum already so many times, , additionally it is also mentioned on their website.
And yes i guess occasionally groundstaff will make alterations, perhaps the next time u r the lucky one. CWL-AMS is a flight of 1h25min right??

irishguy28

Can you please post a link? This has never previously been mentioned here, and I can't find any mention on the KLM website.

Thanks!

Betrouwbaar

Are you sure it wasn't a non-rev?

KLflyerRalph

LOL

Diederick

Funny!
An asian woman with hair to her butt, very long nails, age approximately 25, and problems with English....... yeah I think it was non-rev

Chrz!
D

Betrouwbaar

With that description, could have been merchant marine crew on a corporate contract. I see them getting op-up all the time, also on long haul.

johan rebel

I don't.

I cannot recall a single instance of any of our marine crew getting an op-up on short or longhaul on any airline. with the exception of those who hold FF elite status. Even then they are rare.

Come to think of it, I can recall exactly one case. I got an op-up at the gate flying AMS-ARN. A non-elite colleague was in line behind me, and when the GA realized we knew each other she op-upped him too.

Johan