heh. heh. cute.

I never cared about the DM cards and then I never upgrade at the gate. I have always felt it is too late at that point, but a 1K on an M fare may have a fighting chance. I have found SFO-PVG-SFO to be an easy upgrade and many open seats when I have flown but given the ex-pats going back for the holidays I imagine its will be busier upstream (I fly back PVG-SFO on Monday),

On my last trip back a guy asked for an upgrade but had no more instruments, they offered him to buy an upgrade at about $800. He initially declined, but 5 mins later came back and said "Ill do it". I was about to say "Dude! I'll SELL you an SWU for $500!", heh but thought better about it. I imagine it was a legitimate purchase, but who knows. The agent did look up the price on the screen so it seems legit.

I think the issue here was they just didn't know how to re-print the DM or what it was! If they add you at the gate it should print out automatically? At the gate there it seems like there are 4 agents who don't know what they are doing (and more puzzled over how to arrange the boarding line posts) and 1 agent who does but is down at the plane checking to see when they are ready to board.