dcaiadflyer

Hi all:

Longtime lurker, first time poster. I'm a WAS based US Airways flyer who got most of his miles on international work trips on UA from IAD (but credited to Dividend Miles and was rewarded with a 70%+ upgrade rate as a Silver over the last two years--even if they were usually Express flights from DCA-IND, etc). I'm probably going to UA next year (I completed a status challenge this month and am a UA Silver through next year; vastly prefer the IAD international direct flights versus DCA-PHL or JFK and then onward) so am burning US miles.

I'm taking my mother to Italy in January. I've secured economy seats for both of us for the amazing off-peak RT of 60k miles (I have the Mastercard and 100k US miles--kicking myself for not doing this last year for 55k business miles each). It'll be my mom's first (and probably only) trip out of the US, and I'd like to do it in J if we can (even if it's on a shabby 767 with incline flats!). Has anyone had any luck getting the miles + copay upgrade on an award ticket? The website doesn't say anything, as far as I can tell, and the agent who held our seats had no idea (she'd also never heard of the off-peak award to Europe and initially tried to tell me it was 60k miles before telling me how "lucky" I was to have found them at 30k).

I have a targeted offer to buy double miles and would be happy to do that if I can get the $300 + 30k miles for business on the outbound (economy is fine coming back during a day flight). If anyone has any experiences, I'd be grateful!

arollins

I'm sorry to tell you, but no upgrades of any kind on award ticket. Either buy the business award, or you could check some of the business fares to Italy for $2k or so that has been discussed in the deals thread.

PHL

Your best best may be, if possible, to find one business class ticket for points, and buy the other one outright.

But no, upgrades are only applicable to paid fare codes.....

dcaiadflyer

Thanks, all! Assumed as much.