Originally Posted by
fadeforward
..There are only two problems. The first is that those of us scouting award inventory might see false NC availability, e.g., NC1 but there are two people at the top of a long waitlist, so our upgrades wouldn't clear immediately..
Yes that is the main problem I see with that too and especially with how it happened to
DUG: NC should go to zero when 2 pax are WLed for an NC1 segment which they did for us but with a significant delay (more than a few hours IRRC).
Otherwise it would not be a waitlist case, I concede: NC1 is for grabs when you need one seat.
Originally Posted by
fadeforward
..I am confused about your reasoning here. They both have E+ access. There is no middle-seat blocking for elites. I'm not sure what advantage you're referring to when it comes to linked PNRs.
Fair enough - I refer to the case when not being split is the main incentive, and to some extent to your earlier objection, on which I have to elaborate:
Originally Posted by
fadeforward
..No one gets anyone else's help on the DM, according to FT wisdom, so that's no reason to keep the PNRs together. On the DM, it's every person for him or herself...
This is indeed the majority experience on FT. And there are stations which handle this consistently exactly like that - SYD is one of them. But then there are ports where the 'inheritance of power' holds absolutely, such as ZRH or FRA where I+GM beat our 1P+1P on the DM, or I+2P beat 1P.
SIN and HKG mostly observe it ... so it's a gamble ... but with a strong nonzero average.
Once it goes to the DM, you still have a danger of clearing without her, whether or not you split, though you could probably get a sympathetic gate agent who is willing to keep an eye on the pairing.
There is one major difference: if on a single PNR, you can turn down a partial upgrade, even if your original fare bucket is no longer available. You can insist on the non-spit policy. That reason alone is base enough for me never to split PNRs as then we can stay together and save the instrument.
But that's matter of taste.