No Silver Preferred Upgrade -Still Selling First Class Tickets
 

I am Silver Preferred and within 2 days of my flight on Sunday from PHL-DFW. I received notification that there were no upgrades available, but US Air is still selling first class tickets on their website. I haven't had this happen before and always am upgraded if the seat was available and after it always showed Sold Out for first class.

I called the Preferred desk and they said the seat is available, but not released.

Does anyone know what is going on? Is there a way to get this upgrade? Any experience if this seat will get released or when I should watch for it so I get it?

Any information or tips on how I can ensure this seat is appreciated.

Thanks!

They might be holding onto a couple of seats for last minute revenue bookings so you might have to wait till you get to the gate.

Best chance to secure the seat is to check in online exactly 24 hours before departure. If the seat is still available, the first preferred to check in will get it.

They can sell F, they just can't offer an upgrade to O to non-preferreds before the preferred waitlist is cleared.


EDIT: Just to give you an example.

A discounted coach fare on a transcon, say LAX-X-JFK should be around $200. The same route in A should be around $1000. The same route in F should be around $2000. An upgrade to O should be around $200-$300. They can hold the seats out until the last minutes, trying to sell them into F. They just can't sell those seats at $200-$300 without clearing preferreds first.

I had the same thing happen to me a few days ago. I was within the silver upgrade window, got an email saying that no first class seats were available, but then I checked the seat map through the booking portal and it showed 4 empty first class seats. Since it was ~40 hours prior to departure and check-in was not available yet, I just called US reservations, and the ticket agent looked up my ticket and put me in first class.

Edit: I posted this on another thread and got a few replies saying that US hold first seats for revenue prior to flights even within preferred upgrade windows, so once those seats are taken away from revenue they are given as upgrades based on the priority list. They certainly know better than me.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-ai...rades-f-4.html